Marie Kondo Organizes a Bookshelf

Marie Kondo, proponent of the KonMari method, gives a lesson on tidying and decluttering. Do the books on your bookshelf spark joy?
tidyingup.com/
Video by Richie Bracamonte, rabfilms.weebly...

[@ericsvideos1]

I love this lady!!!! She has changed my hoarding mentality into a clean clutter free world!!!!!

[@pinkchanklas]

I remember reading about one trick to play on yourself when you have to make tough decisions like when choosing to get rid of things, or even any other choices: If you cant decide what to decide then flip a coin (heads the thing goes, tails it stays), and if you find that before checking the results you hope it lands a certain way, then you know where your heart is on the matter. I've done this. But Im a pack rat so what do I know.

[@dancenow1337]

I like to flip coins for all my important life decisions... and then I decide against the flip, because I'm a rebel!

[@amberleaf7]

I love Marie so much. I will be reading her book later this month, but all the information I've gathered from her videos and newsletter, has been So helpful! She is a genius and an angel. And she is adorable.

[@jayalexander6798]

I love the "awakening the books" part!!!! :-)

[@alaah4183]

Jay Alexander that seems crazy

[@Lookatmeshine]

Awakening books is the cutest fantastic idea ever!

[@expressivepets1]

her method is never to look for things to get rid of, ask yourself "does this item spark joy?" if yes, then keep it, make a place in your home for the item. focus on items to keep in your life, not look for things to throw out.

[@DavidKlausa]

+Teri 2011 Sounds like a minor semantic difference.

[@adorabell4253]

+David Klausa It's the positive vs negative approach. Semantics, yes, but important ones when decided what to keep. Because there are things that you don't hate but are meh about. From the positive end it's stuff that you get rid of. If you don't love it you toss it.

[@gjsykes7924]

When I look at the likes of 1984 and Blood Meridian, for example, on my book pile, 'sparking joy' is not the immediate feeling that springs to mind.

[@por_bookblog7437]

What do you mean? All books spark joy for me. DON'T TOUCH MY SHELVES

[@juliakercsmar6587]

I feel the same way! Ive thrown out shelves of nick-nacks to make space for my precious books. Every shelf is so deep that in the rear row i have the ones i read or wont get to for a while and in the front i keep the ones i wanna get to reading the fastest. This way i can always grab the next one to read.

[@Buenomars]

I spy with my little eye a book in the unwanted pile titled "Women: A Generation of Strength." =P

[@petmomful2260]

Marie, you seem like a nice lady, I will get your book from the library, but I will not talk to my socks.

[@nicobeing]

Haha! What a great comment!

[@Glimmerlight90]

You say that now...

[@petmomful2260]

haha, still not talking to my socks.

[@Glimmerlight90]

I do, since I read her book. It's great. : p

[@petmomful2260]

Do your socks answer you?

[@swissaroo]

Categorise by subject matter - just like they do in libraries - and stack them accordingly...then books that have been read or not likely to be needed for reference in the short-term can then be put into storage boxes which then makes shelf space for any new books that will be acquired. Magazines are what use to cause me problems as they come out monthly. I now either rip out ad pages from every magazine that I buy or rip out the articles that I wish to keep and throw the rest out. If there are numerous articles of interest in the magazine then its the ad's that go as that then makes the magazine both lighter (for later storage) and occupies less space as well on the magazine shelf stack. Otherwise, it swamps your shelf space and floor space very quickly....I am referring to business and technology magazines as well as other interest magazines which I don't want to throw out after reading like one would throw out a gossip magazine after reading it.

[@Liselorebon]

It doesn't matter what type of magazine, for some people gossip may be something they want to look back on. Even informative magazines can cause problems after a while. My dad (now retired) has IT magazines dating back to the 80s. All of them have sticky notes in them when they were interesting to keep to him for reference. In reality though, he hardly re-read them. He also never went back to the keep pile to see what is still useful after time passed. Anyway, that's a lot of magazines!!

[@swissaroo]

LiLo That's the ongoing problem with Tech magazines - we think we may need to read it again one day. Sometimes we never get around to it because there just isn't enough time to do so or worse we have forgotten about a specific article in a specific magazine. And, that is, if we even got around to reading it the first time, which is not always the case either. A couple of months ago I got some new book shelves, now completely full again with new books and yes IT magazines (both old and new). I also now had room to pull out some old IT magazines that I had always wanted to re-read again and "never got around to it". But if its on a shelf it is more likely to be seen and then more likely to be read again (or for the first time around). I was shocked to find some IT magazines that I had bought in the late 90's when I was very young and when OOP was the new paradigm in computing and the Web was just coming over the horizon that had OOP/Web articles I had perused quickly and knew would be of use later in my projects I was planning to develop. However, the magazines got buried under a pile and "forgotten" about. I was curious to read them fully this time to see how much of what it had written about became the norm. The writers completely got it wrong - JAVA is not the central language of the Web as it claimed would one day become. Javascript has taken on that role which was always bagged back then in the early years when it was still in it infancy and evolving. Even on my iPad I have many IT/Web digital magazines that I have never had time to read and ended up cancelling the subscriptions for that reason. Plus I found reading an IT magazine on an iPad cumbersome as I can't mark a section, or underline something of importance, or put a sticky note. So I went back to buying in print format if and only if it has something of immediate value to learn from or become aware of to follow up more about the topic online (for free). I have also found a software tool called Evernote very useful. It enables you to clip a web article and post it into an online notebook, which you can then re-read anytime later, mark it with tags, highlight sections of the web page that you had clipped for easier referencing. It's unfortunate that I can not clip an article from a digital magazine bought through Apple's Newstand into Evernote. Then it would enable me to extract out only what is useful and important to me per se and discard the rest of the magazine without it taking up any shelf space and easier to find again through searching tags or article themes through the Evernote tool.

[@setaremaz3496]

great idea, but sometimes things we keep do not necessarily spark joy at that particular time, but it could be useful sometime later in our life, so why throw them away? like i wore clothes i had not worn for 15 years and when i did, it brought me a lot of joy, also i got lots of compliments. Same for books, maybe a particular book does not spark joy since i have not read it yet, maybe later, or a reference book of something......same for other miscellaneous stuff.....so what about those?

[@rosaolalde5591]

Fantastic

[@crescentmoon8903]

Literally all my books spark joy. So....

[@penglingwhisperer3382]

So you keep them all according to the konmari method 🤗

[@robfuller7841]

The irony of buying yet another book to tell yourself how to rid yourself of too many books!

[@AnneKmetyko]

where is the audio? why are we listening to music??

[@DD-d6d3]

Because Kondo doesn't speak English?

[@AlexxWretched]

+Dee Dee Using the question mark at the end of your sentence implies a rude tone... This woman was asking out of confusion... If I hadn't already seen a previous video where they had had to use a translator to voice over, I would have wondered the same thing. Also,fun fact: in Japanese schools, they are required to learn English, so it may be that she just doesn't speak English /well/

[@nutricionistavaninafrezza]

awsome! can anyone tell me the name of the first song? I felt in love...from Argentina

[@karenrogers9985]

The title is misleading, all it does is show sorting and discarding. No info on arranging what is left. I know about her method BTW. It's an ad for the book and a bad, misleading one at that.

[@Cynthia949]

I guess videogames can get a treatment similar to books. I mean it happens similar, "you sure you'll play all these games?" And I'm a gaming geek, so I know what I'm talking about.

[@reddhipaik4214]

What if everything I have Sparks joy

[@henpines]

How do you know that a book isnt going to spark joy at the next day

[@Flowereypanda]

That kind of sounds like the hoarding justification. "How do I know I won't use this later?" and all that. If you were really excited about it, chances are you wouldve interacted with it already. It's about how you currently feel, not how you could feel. Coming up with an excuse to keep it isnt the same as regarding it fondly.

[@IlGattonero13]

This has nothing to do with "organizing a bookshelf." It is only the act of sorting into "keep" and "donate," which most of us can do without instruction. How does she organize the books that are kept? This is simply an ad for Kondo's book disguised as a self-help video.

[@itty-bittyghost9787]

Dewey decimal system??? no? aw...

[@margaretlim9180]

I have 3000 books.

[@josephbennett2457]

I remember hearing that C. S. Lewis had about 3000 books. That's my life goal.

[@theloniouscoltrane3778]

Got 5k. Having a hard time arranging it in the attic.

[@PapagenoMF]

Susie is a hottie!

[@elysecoleman3654]

You don't have to be Japanese, or Shinto or anything like that to effectively reorganize. Marie has expressed eternal principles in her cultural worldview but there is nothing magic in that specific culture. My clients have the same success using logic and common sense.

[@simonelise100]

trying to down vote this comment, but can't. dangit. down vote because a: butthurt evident and b: it is the magic of appreciation and release. c: see a.

[@IlonaFried]

Elyse Coleman The key is showing gratitude and experiencing joy; I've decluttered using logic and it doesn't create the same internal shift.

[@Liselorebon]

A lot of organisers focus on clever ways to store things after you've downsized. Marie does not believe in that at all. And the category method is really helpful. The spiritual aspect to me makes it easier to throw something out even though it's still in a good condition, was a gift, or when it was expensive.

[@elysecoleman3654]

Ilona Fried Gratitude and joy ARE very powerful in all areas of our lives, I just would not want my clients to think that they have to subscribe to one particular world view to have that be a part of their declutter/organizing.

[@KDCHILL2k]

Elyse Coleman not everyone has common sense let alone the ability to be tidy.

[@reneedubuc3712]

This wasn’t helpful! How should I organize the books on my shelf that spark joy? Alphabetical by title, categories like Art, Fiction, Reference, etc?

[@KoumotoSeihoFusei]

Steve Jobs

[@mikolajkuzniak9076]

lubie bałagan ;_;

[@diyachhabra3811]

hahahahaaa

[@maroxa3203]

Awaken them to better feel their energy by tapping them with the back of her hand? Did she really feel the "energy" of the books? What is this a spiritual religious experience? Like exorcising? No thanks.

[@Liselorebon]

It sounds spiritual and vague, but to me it's more about actively donating those books and realising what you are giving away. That way you really know what books you no longer own and you are not looking for them in future.

[@DD-d6d3]

Ita. Kondo is batshit crazy.

[@TrueMusicGirl5]

It's more like awakening yourself by touching. You awaken YOUR energy when you touch the books so you have a better idea of what you want to read now and what you most likely won't later.

[@AlexxWretched]

+Maroxa I haven't actually read the book, but it seems like more of a silly thing to kickstart the process. Something for fun that would cause you to be more open to the whole thing? Idk.

[@RoseGrace100]

Worthless. Wasn’t looking for hoarding books.