THE MAGIC OF TIDYING UP

FINALLY, A REALLY USEFUL MOTIVATIONAL BOOK

It has happened so often in my life that I am no longer surprised when I stumble onto a book that motivates me to change in a significant way. It's like the right book simply falls into my lap at a time that I need it. It is certainly true of this little book - THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.  

Like many people I know, I have a tendency to hold onto things until one day I become a slave of my own "stuff." Now that I am retired, I realized that I have too much stuff in my living space and that I have outlived much of its usefulness - clothes, books, files, pictures, nick-nacks, tools, appliances, dishes, picture frames and you-name it! Finally, a day comes when you know you need to "go through it" and "separate the wheat from the chaff" so to speak, but you just can't get motivated. It was then that Marie Kondo's little book fell into my lap from God-knows-where! 

The first insight that came into focus was the realization that decluttering would make my life richer, not poorer. Once the clutter is gone, my personal space would be a whole lot easier to clean - meaning less work! The second insight that came into focus was the realization finding what I truly need would be a whole lot easer to find - meaning less wasted time. The third insight that came into focus was the realization that I did not need to own things like 30 pairs of black pants of various waist sizes, 50 outdated old text books from high school, college and former jobs that I used to have, 150 file folders from the 150 priest retreats I did in 10 countries when I had most of the truly important information in my computer. Then there is the 15 years of weekly clippings of my column in The Record in albums when I have all of them in three fat books. Does one person really need three Crock Pots of various sizes? 

I don't need to belabor the point by listing all of the other categories of clutter that I had in my condo and garage - things like outdated spices in kitchen drawers, outdated pill bottles in the bathroom and duplicate tools and broken things of all sorts that I never got around to fixing in the garage!  I won't mention things like the six boxes of old pictures that I reduced to two that I had not looked at since I took them years ago - many in duplicate and triplicate.  I reduced two three-drawer file cabinets full of paper down to one and got rid of the other file cabinet! 

Reading the book is what motivated me to roll up my sleeves and dig in! Once I got started, I was on a roll! In less than two weeks, between Good Will, the Second Hand Store at St. Thomas More Parish, the condo recycle bins and the dumpster, I have filled no less than three full pick-up truck loads, two recycle bins and probably half a dumpster. It got to the point that I was embarrassed for neighbors to see me carrying bags to the dumpster and recycle bins. After all that, I only had maybe one more car-load of "treasures" for the second-hand store and now even that is gone. Now that I think that I have finished, I am going to make a total sweep once again to be sure I didn't hold back some sentimental old trash that I will never miss!

The other day, I had four old seminary classmates over for coffee, pastries and conversation. The place sparkled and no one could tell that anything was missing! "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I am free at last!" 

Ms. Kondo insists that one declutter first and then clean - and for God's sake don't just look for more storage space! Now that I have decluttered my condo, right after Christmas I am going to get a couple of cleaning people in here to give it a good going over from top to bottom as I go into the new year. 

 

The whole process was actually an energizing effort, rather than a boring chore, and the process kept me engaged and focused from beginning to end. Now I find myself, in quiet moments, looking around for more stuff to get rid of! I can now say with certainty that "tidying up" has indeed been a wonderful, life-changing spiritual experience for me! The icing on the cake is that all that junk went to someone who can use it, but can't afford to buy it!