Marie Kondo’s…Betrayal?
In which we discuss the absolute outrage/vindication/betrayal/etc. that people felt, as Marie Kondo admitted that she no longer prioritizes keeping her house tidy, but rather prioritizes time with her kids.
The press has had a field day with this. One of the foremost tidying experts no longer values a tidy home?!
But here’s the thing.
Marie Kondo’s entire method was always about choosing what you truly wanted in your home . The “magic” was in the way that helped show you what you truly valued in life.
And as such – reprioritizing as we continue through life is completely “on brand” for her. With three kids, she’s chosen that giving her kids her attention right now is more important than having a perfectly tidy home. (Also, I suspect her definition of “messy” might still be way different than mine!)
Marie Kondo’s teachings were the first to help me start to get a handle on my clutter, and so hers is a ship I’ll go down with.
In Kondo’s honor:
Here are two of my absolute favorite strategies she teaches. (There are many, but I’m trying to stay focused here!)
Choose what to KEEP, not what to let go of.
I had always been taught to declutter by choosing things to let go of. “Look through your toys and pick 3 that we can donate, okay?” I’d say to my kids, who would suddenly realize how important every single toy they owned was to them. And honestly, my brain did the same. “I’ll just pick 2 books from each shelf that I can donate!” I’d promise myself. After all, two books was nothing, right?
Well, I could never find those two books to part with, just like my kids never found 3 toys.
Why?!
But KonMari changed my view on how to look at my stuff. “Choose what to keep, not what to let go of.”
This was an insane mindset shift for me!!!
For me, it looked like this.
My bookshelf was fit to bursting, and scanning it for books I didn’t want was getting me nowhere.
So I emptied the entire bookshelf (you could do one shelf at a time if a whole bookshelf is too overwhelming), and then started putting back just the books that I wanted to keep.
By choosing what I wanted to keep, suddenly I had a huge stack of books ready to donate.
Much more dramatically – when my kids were 3 and 5, we gathered all the toys in the house (we made it into a game, with loud music and pizza for dinner) and dumped everything into one huge pile. There were only two rules I gave them:
- They could even keep everything – as long as they were willing to put it away at the end of the sorting..
- They could let go of anything they wanted – whether it was a gift, or something I treasured, etc. (If I didn’t want it to leave the house, I had to find my own place to keep it.)
(Remember, these were the same kids who couldn’t find even a single toy they didn’t want anymore when asked to find something they could donate.)
When asked to pick what they wanted to keep, on the other hand –
they donated close to half of their toys.
The same happened with kids books.
Yes, there were a few they asked about later, and we talked about how another child was probably soooo happy to be playing with that toy now. And yes, sometimes they felt sad. But not for long.
I never anticipated that the exercise would be such a smashing success.
Why this really matters:
Both we and our kids were learning that what we choose to keep affects how we feel in that space.
And that is a superpower.
Neither my bookshelf nor the kids’ toys were ever really about getting rid of stuff (though it was a great bonus!).
It was about agency – teaching the kids that it was okay to outgrow their stuff or their style, even if they hadn’t literally outgrown those clothes or toys or books.
And now I have kids who know it’s okay to let go of a gift that isn’t right for them. (Even when the gift comes from me, which is a bit rude, right? – Kidding!)
Creating a space filled with what’s loved or needed, not just stuff kept out of guilt or that good old “what if?” Scarcity mindset – is one of the great gifts Decluttering can give us.
Gather all “like items” before starting to sort.
I kind of alluded to this in the previous point, and realistically, most of them time we can’t literally
gather, say, every pen in the entire house. (I mean, don’t forget to check purses, couch cushions, backpacks, and under the fridge, right?)
But here’s why this actually matters.
If you pick up a single random pen, you might be thinking (even subconsciously) something like – “Oh, I shouldn’t get rid of any pens – I always need pens!”
But when you have a whole box full of pens, your brain see that there is no shortage of pens.
This may free you to do something revolutionary, like choosing the pens you actually enjoy using and letting go of the rest (or perhaps holding on to a few as an emergency stash).
Now, I am not here to tell you you have too much stuff in your home.
Only you can know what’s the right amount of stuff. And you’ll know because your home will “feel” good, and “function” well!
YOUR TURN
Have you ever tried any of KonMari techniques? Would you be interest in trying them. Hit “contact” here or above – I’d love to hear them!