#025 ✰ What I learnt from Marie Kondo
From sparking joy to gaining confidence in your decision-making capacity.
Hello hello!
I hope this email finds you well.
As you know, our mission is to help people free themselves from rampant consumerism, so that they can dedicate more time, money and bandwidth to be and build. 👉 We want to be the tool that empowers your future materialistic decisions.
Out
I finally got my hands on Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I had watched an episode of her Netflix show, and I found it so oh-my-god-ish (= when-american-ladies-express-their-surprise-and-excitement-in-a-very-loud-and-cheesy-way) I could not watch a second one. I expected her book to be less noisy.
Did this book spark joy? Well, here’s what I found definitely interesting:
Numbers:
Marie Kondo’s clients usually end up with 25% or 33% of their initial items (I am still at 80% :))
The average person discards 20 to 30 (!) 45L bags
And now about her methodology:
choosing what you want to keep, not what you want to get rid of. You are certainly familiar with the question she recommends to ask yourself when holding every single item that lays in your home: Does this spark joy? According to Marie Kondo, choosing what you want to keep is the only way not to rebound. And she’s pretty proud to announce she has had (almost) no client rebounding (i.e. back to being a hoarder).
doing it quick. Marie Kondo’s advice is to go through the discarding & tidying process in less than 6 months to, again, avoid rebound. Sounds rather intuitive and feasible.
discarding (difficult stuff) teaches you things. If something is hard to discard (e.g. heavy with guilt), ask yourself Why do I have this item in the first place? Where and why did I buy it? An item that doesn't fit taught me what does not fit me. Let go with gratitude.
discarding gives you confidence in who you are and can spark life decisions. This is probably what stroke me the most. It is so obvious and yet it needs to be said out loud. A major side effect of discarding is to create confidence in your decision-making capacity after making thousands of decisions, holding in your hands every single item. After all, if you keep only the things that spark joy to you, what’s left after this process is the closest picture of your true, happy self.
detoxing our house has an effect on our body. Marie Kondo observed that when her clients part with excess clothes, they tend to slim down, when they part with excess books, their minds become clearer, when they reduce cosmetics, their skin gets smoother. She reckons it’s hard to believe ; well, it fascinates me.
Once they kept only the things they love they felt they had everything they needed.
Marie Kondo has a proven methodology, a track record of thousands of happy customers whose lives have probably changed drastically for the better using her tips. She tackles the OUT, what gets out of our homes, rather perfectly.
Max, Kev and I want to help you with the IN as well, what you choose to bring in. Just like Marie Kondo, we believe in maximizing your joy and contentment at home. For that, you need to both discard what doesn’t help creating such environment, as well as being mindful and intentional on what’s coming in, i.e. your purchases.
Conclusion: I still have too much. So, I will enjoy what a lockdown has to offer (i.e. time, inside) to go through my possessions once more. This time around, instead of asking myself Would I buy it again? (which I did during my first round this summer), I will ask myself Does this spark joy? Maybe both are just complementary.
I currently own 805.5 stuff (you too, can know this number😎), let’s see where this leads me! I can’t wait to browse my joyful home and share part of it with you [see below what’s coming] ☺️
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In
Podcasts
Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens, Homo Deus & 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, interviewed by Tim Ferris. If you want to spend some time with a wise man over the weekend, listen to this. The beginning about meditation and at 44"45, about happiness are powerful.
If you can’t do the simple thing right e.g. focus on breathing, how can you think of doing the big ones correctly.
Mr Money Mustache, interviewed by Tim Ferris [thanks Dani for sharing! 👊] More about his money advice and how he retired at 30 y/o here.
If you can’t afford to lose it, then you can’t afford to buy it.
Otherwise the object owns you.
Book
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo
Have a great day and weekend, lockdown or not.
Mathilde 🥡
