The Life Changing Joy of Tidying Up

By Rhonda Jones

As you know, I am all about self-improvement, whether it be in the mind, the spirit, or your home. In reality, they are inter-connected. A healthy mind promotes a healthy body and a tidy home a tidier, peaceful, and stress-free mind!

Several weeks ago I was visiting my daughter who had just moved into a new apartment. I was so overwhelmed at how cute her new place was and oh so orderly and non-cluttered. Not that is was cluttered before, but for some reason, I especially noticed the lightness, the openness, and the space. It just felt so good being in there.

Then she let me in on a little secret, “Mom, you should read the book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Mom this book changed my life.” Well any book with the accolades of “life-changing” was a book I had to get my hands on. After looking the book up on Amazon and seeing the boo-koo of amazing reviews I was ready to order, yet fortunately, for me and you, I found the WHOLE unabriged book on YouTube and free of charge, the entire 5-hours of it.

So I started to listen right away and was immediately hooked. Not only was the information good but the writing was humorous, witty and light-hearted, in other words, a really fun read, or in my case-listen.

So over the next 3 days, while cleaning, cooking, or driving, I was listening and taking notes. I don’t want to give to much of the book away, because you’ll enjoy listening to it more than my summary, but I can tell you that my daughter was right, this book has the potential to CHANGE YOUR LIFE…and in a good way!

There are two simple premises to the book. Number #1, you discard everything that doesn’t bring you joy and Number #2, everything, and I mean everything has its own place. No more junk draws, piles or file cabinets of papers, and stuff that you don’t need or use, just taking up space.

It’s been almost a week and I can’t tell you how amazing I feel and only because I got more tidy. My biggest challenge was my kitchen because I love to cook; however, cleaning up would get overwhelming. Partially because I’m just a messy cook and the other part because I just had too much unorganized stuff, as you can see from the picture. I thought there was no hope for my pantry and that I just had to live with shifting through cans and packages just to find what I needed. You’d think I was a little more advanced in this area.

When cleaning out and organizing my refrigerator I found 6 large bags of walnuts, 4 more than I really needed. By the third day I had bagged up somewhere around 10 large black garbage bags and 6 boxes of books that would be tossed or taken to the thrift store. I’m still working on my papers and want to do another round of “joy” picking through my clothes.

I got so much “joy” out of listening to “The Life-Changing Magic of Tiding Up” I had to share it just in case there are any clutter-challenged meditators out there.  I can honestly say there is a direct correlation between having a truly tidy home and a tidy mind. Just not having to spend hours looking for stuff can help you maintain your peace of mind. Now everything has its own little plastic home or box, even my assortment of balloons.

If you decide to listen, and tidy up, please post your experience. Maybe you have already read and benefited from this book. So now I will need to include these tidying tips in my Help Me God Change My Life Program where I share a nice de-clutter system, but this is far superior.

The author tells you that once you become a joyful tidier, you will never go back to your clutter days and I really believe her. Why would you want to spend hours and hours tidying when there are so many other, fun and meaningful things that you can do with your time… maybe even meditate!

Listen to “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo below:

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