"Mom has never been so proud of me": Fans of Marie Kondo about how their lives have changed
Three years ago we already wrote about bestseller Marie Kondo "Magical cleaning. The Japanese art of restoring order at home and in life." Then the release of this book launched an irreversible process of parsing possessions around the world - those who read or learned about the method of Conmari rushed to get rid of things that do not cause them joy, and put the rest so that they can always be seen. Recently, Netflix released the TV series "Cleaning with Marie Kondo", in which it helps American families with cluttered houses to clean up their own way. The release of the show triggered a second wave of Kondo's popularity, and we decided to find out from the adherents of her philosophy how their life changed after they learned about Marie.
ANYA AYRAPETOVA
Lisa Astakhova
screenwriter and producer
Like many, I learned about Marie Kondo through a new show on Netflix. On the first day I watched all the series without stopping, I ordered her book, studied all the tutorial videos I could find. Marie has some enveloping effect: I want her to just come, hug you every day, smile and touch your things with you.
I never liked putting clothes on the shelves or arranging something in the drawers. At first glance, my home is extremely minimalist, without unnecessary trifles, but here in the closets lies everything that I try to hide, including in myself. Looking at Marie, I realized that I could no longer live like that for a minute. This show miraculously coincided with a new stage in my destiny, and the next day I was already in line at the store, where you can buy boxes and containers of all sizes and colors. After spending a few hours there and spending several hundred dollars, I put off all the work and began to understand.
What impressed me most was how much a girl living alone could have clothes. I found dresses that I wore at school or bought specifically for filming, and they were not even of my size - before that it seemed that they would definitely come in handy. In the end, I donated three bags of clothing for ten kilograms and do not regret anything. Marie's technique of choosing only things that increase your heartbeat is the ideal dynamic of the relationship between a person and inanimate objects, as a result of which you are left only with the most beloved.
After the clothes, there were boxes in the bathroom (two bags), shelves in the hallway, in the office, in the kitchen (three more bags). All my underwear now lies separately in boxes, and jeans are perfectly folded, as taught by Kondo. The great thing is that when you decompose everything once, then this habit remains with you and is not too lazy to maintain order. I scared my best friend a little when I began to give her a tour of the boxes and shelves, but my mother said that she had never been so proud of me, although she didn’t say so about my emigration to Hollywood and professional successes. At home, breathing is completely different, and it seems that I, too, have become a little closer to Zen Marie Kondo.
Nikolay Stroganov
art director of Leform shop
I learned about Sparks of Joy and Marie Kondo absolutely by chance a couple of years ago when I saw her work on the bookshelf in the section about successful successes and magical improvements. I was looking for a way to get rid of the clothing dunes that had accumulated on any flat surface, but, after reading the whole book, I didn’t even try to change anything. "Yes, it is very cute, but not for me," I thought, and threw it on the far shelf. Nevertheless, I subscribed to Marie’s instagram, from where I learned about the transfer to Netflix. It was she who served as a trigger for cleaning, which is still ongoing.
Some numbers: a quarter cabinet analysis took me two days off, I perfectly mastered the method of compact vertical folding of T-shirts and sweatshirts and got rid of one big bag with things (probably, one sixth of the wardrobe). During the analysis there were never worn things with tags, which I had completely forgotten, and I also found a hood from a windbreaker that is no longer ten years old. Since now all things are in full view, not only the morning gatherings have become much easier, but also the collection of a suitcase - and it is much more compact. In fact, when you get a taste, cleaning turns into a kind of meditative process: a favorite series, a mountain of things - and you look at them and fold them.
When I retold Kondo's philosophy to my friends and sent excerpts from a book about “hug your sweater, thank him, and throw it away,” everyone started to practice wit on socks and underwear. To be honest, I myself am embarrassed every time by this philosophy, although I understand why this is needed - so that you do not feel guilty about the thing thrown away. Therefore, I think that this is a very individual story - how exactly to get rid of this guilt. Talking with socks is not necessary.
After cleaning I really like to open drawers, look in the closet. All this is akin to good merchandising in the store, when you can find any thing without the help of a consultant. The main rule that I like about Kondo is that you should be surrounded only by objects that give joy. She does not teach to throw away, she does not have a magic recipe for how to stop littering her house. But she says that every thing in the house should have its place, and then the subsequent cleaning will not be a punishment.
Tanya von Farchmin (Motherland)
writer, yoga teacher, founder of naked.diamonds
I don’t have a closet at home, there are not enough closets, but there are two small children and I am a lover of online shopping. I read the Kondo book itself when it just came out — a normal book like that, but I didn’t start to fold clothes in a new way, and how to put them together, I didn’t understand after reading. I regularly strive to reduce the number of things and constantly look around, moving around the apartment: "And I still need this? But does it bother me?" And then one night I turned on Netflix, accidentally discovered "Cleaning with Marie Kondo," managed to quickly think, "Damn, what kind of porn for perfectionists?" and even remembered Monica from the TV series "Friends", but nevertheless looked at a couple of episodes. Looked and ofigel.
First, I realized that I was putting things wrong. All my things were either hung or stacked. Things kids - too. As a result, it is not clear what lies there at all, and all this is inconvenient to get. Secondly, it is amazing how much rubbish people can store (in the series, people almost unload tons of unnecessary items and wires by cars). We don’t have so many things, but still I walked through all the closets and suitcases (non-seasonal things or as long as we don’t keep unnecessary children's things there) and for a total of five to seven hours I took away all the excess or everything that “does not cause a surge pleasure, as Marie calls it.
Ok, I don’t cuddle with every thing and don’t thank her, but I clearly feel every time - do I really like this sweater? Does this dress make me happy for my eldest daughter? She is two years old and in general, in fact, it is still for the time being, but it is I who have to look at the children's clothes every day. In total, I selected five-six packages - from clothes to children's toys. Just throwing away - as for me, blasphemy, especially when things are in good condition. Therefore, a bag of those things that no one will need directly, I took for recycling to H & M, and the second, the most part, I gave to a family with seven children in need. My things are now stored vertically - and what a thrill it is! Everything is visible and everything is clear.
Katya Letova
Analyst edition "Medusa"
The book Marie advised me to read my boyfriend at the beginning of 2016 - he knew that I was not indifferent to order (in all spheres of life), and decided that it would be interesting for me. I remember that I took it in my hands not without skepticism, because I thought that they couldn’t tell me anything new about cleaning - I swallowed it in an hour and admired how logical everything was there.
Before, I really loved cleanliness, but I followed the form more than the content — that is, I kept in order all the things I had instead of figuring out why I needed these things at all. Three years have now passed, and I can confidently assert that Marie completely changed my relationship with the material. The main thing that attracted me to her was the consistency and "joy" as the main principle. It took about two weeks to make a complete analysis of the house - I did this in my free time after work. I threw out at least three or four huge bags of things, I distributed the clothes as much as possible.
Marie in the book great describes the process of "respectful" parting, and it becomes absolutely painless. She claims that it is enough to do such cleaning once in a lifetime, and it happened to me - since then, of course, I regularly try to do an audit, but this is something that takes literally minutes, and not hours, days, or weeks. . I do not use absolutely all of her advice - the approach of cutting out quotes from books and photographing important is not close to me, and I also do not speak with the apartment. But all her ways of folding, hanging, and storage are simple, convenient, and fun in their own right.
I remember that the first time did not cover this, because it seemed to me that such an approach to cleaning looks like mania and not everyone needs such "excesses", but now I understand that the order in things affects the order in the head - you can about them just not to think, not to look for anything, not to lose and not to keep in vain. After spending two weeks analyzing things and learning how to quickly reflect on the topic “Do I really need it? Does this thing bring me joy?”, I got rid of impulsive purchases forever, and in general I began to buy very little, but now absolutely every thing that surrounds me, something really dear to me. And yes, there is definitely more joy.
Anna Schemeleva-Konovalenko
designer illustrator
I still remember how, in the fall of 2015, everyone around was just saying that Marie Kondo changed their lives. As a man obsessed with ordering, I took this conversation and bought a book. The issue of organizing space and storing things has become quite acute: I really wanted a cozy atmosphere at home. The whole cleaning process took several days off. It is worth noting that I grew up in the post-Soviet tradition of "do not throw it out - it will come in handy" and "we will take it to the dacha." Therefore, at first it was difficult for me to just take it and throw it away or give it away. The principle of touching and understanding how much is needed and thanking her, in my opinion, is controversial, but I don’t invest any esoteric overtones, I just try to be honest with myself and ask: "Do I really like this thing?" or "Do I really need it?"
Now in our house there are almost no things that annoy me or that I do not use. In the wardrobe I hang and lay things in color and texture, non-seasonal things (winter summer, summer winter) I keep in a vacuum bag with a label that shows the entire list of things in the bag. Thanks to this, for several years now I haven’t asked myself what to wear - everything is before my eyes. Things that are completely worn out or no longer like, I give to charity. Make-up is stored in the table and segmented by categories and colors: I love makeup and I dye every day, but this method of storage does not allow you to forget or lose some luxurious purple lipstick or pigment jar.
The same principle in the storage of food and cereals: we do not buy food more than we need, we store cereals and bulk products in glass jars so that everything is in front of our eyes. The most valuable advice I took from the book was about zoning and segmentation in drawers and closets. Baskets, wooden boxes and trays - thanks to them, I don’t lose things at home and always know where it is. The other day, a colleague and part-time my friend called me Korobochka, because I took two wooden storage boxes from the office. And although it may seem from the outside that I am obsessed with cleaning, in fact, my life has become much less domestic problems. The houses are really cozy and clean, it is pleasant to be in it, I am surrounded by things that I adore, and most importantly - there is a lot of free time left to do something more important than cleaning.
Olya Avstreikh
an artist
I didn’t know anything about Marie before the trailer on Netflix and decided that after the New Year's madness I just want to lie in the bath and watch how other people clean. I did not put any hopes on rebirth. I am quite fanatically and diligently raking my house about once every three months, I take extra clothes on swaps and give them to charity, I try to keep the trash from lying around. But it only seemed so to me! I lasted somewhere until the fourth series, then for the sake of interest I wanted to roll the T-shirt into my first roll à la Kondo, and then I came to my senses at night, because I could not calm down until I had turned everything.
I did not scrape all the clothes in one pile, because I have a wardrobe that is advanced and clear to me, where everything is divided by sectors. For three days, I consistently walked through all the zones. I was incredibly helped by the naive mantra "spark of pleasure", I thought about what this means for me, and then pretty quickly said goodbye to things that I could not do for many years. These were things that from the outside looked like something that should cause joy, but in practice I only associated them with torment. A whole stratum of things that were stored for sentimental considerations or the logic of "well, this is a proprietary thing, it will come in handy once." As a result, I gave one bag to charity, one bag in an atelier for repair and one bag sold off on my instagram.
I immediately began to conduct a small broadcast in the store - first, just to boast of rolls, and then smoothly began to look for new owners for my things. Frankly speaking, I received an incredible response. It seemed to me that I was participating in some kind of flash mob: people sent me piles of clothes to the direct, told me about their cleaning experience, asked if it was worth a try, or were indignant that they were infuriated by Marie, but still recognized that her method works.
Now I am incredibly satisfied, I feel complete control over my things - they don’t get lost anywhere else, because now it’s a library of clothes, and I spend a minimum amount of time on fees. The whole process has had a cool soothing effect on me, I want to wear what is already there, and take care of the "survivors" with care, I almost do not want to buy anything. About a year I went to this result, and Marie became the final touch in my attempts to tame my things and my consumerism.
Polina Anisimova
product manager, Yandex
About three years ago for the first time I felt that it was uncomfortable for me not to know what things I own and how many of them. Then, in the wake of the general HYIP, I read Marie Kondo’s book, Magical Cleaning. The first time that I was hooked on in the method was the focus on the fact that in order to keep your space clean you do not need to constantly clean up and not keep extra items - those that you don’t use and / or dislike. Honestly, for the first time that the thing should cause you a strong emotional outburst, I was not too hooked, and I did the selection exactly according to the principle of whether the object performs a utilitarian or aesthetic function for me. Since then, I occasionally use this method to make sure that everything I own is really necessary for me (= good or joy).
At the same time, after the first time, I began to treat things that appear in my house much more closely, and constantly analyze why I need this thing and why I want to continue to own it. For the first time using the method, I, like the heroes of the new TV show, was shocked by the number of things I had in general, since I had never really put them in one place by category. Subsequent times, the folding of objects from one category into one place doesn’t cause such a shock effect - simply because I don’t have a lot of things in each category and I always have an idea of their number. Now I have about three times less clothes than before the first one, and the number of paper books has decreased by almost half.
Varya Vedeneyeva
CEO & founder "Periodicals Press" and 365done.ru
I read Marie Kondo's book two years ago. I liked the idea that you can be a professional consultant in order, and, in general, the noise around the book and even the whole movement that has appeared - many people advocate order and against chaos. Honestly, I do not agree with all the ideas from the book and do not apply everything in my life. But I am a fan of Marie's ideology - to be honest with myself, especially in questions of order: "Do I really need this thing? Why can't I tell my mother not to give out porcelain cats? Why do I keep all these things for years?"
When I first cleaned up after reading a book, I collected six huge bags. I was surprised - all these things, all this volume of 300 liters was distributed around the apartment. I shared the instagram results, we even did a challenge-cleaning in the 365done.ru community - many people connected and shared their results. I really like that now there are no everyday things that annoy me. Honestly, every time I drink tea from any of my cups or have breakfast from my plates, I admire. Although earlier I had, for example, favorite tablecloths and unloved ones. Also with bed linen, towels and so on. Ещё я легко стала прощаться с подарками: она отлично сформулировала, что подарок несёт эмоцию в момент дарения, поэтому потом его можно спокойно выкинуть.
PHOTO: konmari (1, 2), Instagram