Hands off my books: Tidying up with Marie Kondo

As a dedicated clutterer of houses, I've got a bit of a love-hate relationship with programmes which deal with housework.  I watch programmes about hoarding and feel generally positive about myself.  You don't have to tunnel your way to the sofa in my house, yay!  I watch programmes like Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and feel a guilty pleasure in knowing I'll never put her theories into practice in my house, while still hanging on her every word.

I've read about the Konmari method of tidying of course.  Various hilarious articles by fellow clutterers decrying the method with "I found none of my clothes or any of the vegetables sparked joy and so I threw them out and hid the credit card bill for the replacements from my husband in a lovely little box" etc. 

I was impressed by how much presence a tiny woman can have, and how connected she seemed to the houses, but not so much their occupants.  She advises people to deal with their clutter in several stages, starting with clothes.  Then you move onto books, then papers, then miscellaneous, then sentimental items. 

The problem is that the method ignores the fact that people live together and may not enjoy the things the others enjoy.  In the programme this didn't become a problem for any of them, as we didn't have one partner ranting about having to live with 500 milk bottles or 200 Barbie dolls, and everything seemed to suggest that the Konmari method was helping relationships by dealing with areas of dispute.  But it would be very interesting to see how the method works with a collector of things their partner hates.

I have to say that some of the people in the series have more current clothes piled on their beds than I have owned in my whole lifetime.  I'm down with the clothes sorting - I don't have that many.  Although I did understand one client who complained that although the item of clothing did not spark joy, it did fit, and that's more than most items did.  Like many women who have had a baby, she was waiting to be able to fit into her pre-pregnancy clothes, and kept her maternity clothes too, so she could have another baby.  Three wardrobes don't really fit into the spark-joy method of clothes sorting.

It is in the area of books and papers that I would have the most problems.  Marie Kondo advises keeping no more than 30 books, ideally.  I have hundreds, and I like my books.  As for papers, I love some and hate others, but I don't think the tax authorities will accept "It just doesn't spark joy for me" as an excuse for not doing my tax return.

I enjoyed the programme, mainly because I like people, and seeing into people's homes and lifestyles is always interesting for me. On the whole, the method does appear to work for the people featured in the programme, but then they've all asked for help.  I'd call for help if I saw her approaching down the garden path.  My clutter sparks joy for me, and I'm keeping it.