I’m not so sure. A few years back there were jokes about the same subject. I was surprised when they resurfaced.
What’s funny is, this is a resurgence of Marie Kondo – I got slightly caught up in it…two years ago? Sometime shortly after …Tidying Up was published. I have no idea why it’s suddenly sprung back up this year.
Kondo has a successful Netflix series
Why would tidying up be particular to this winter and why isn’t tidying up universal? People have been tidying forever long before Kondo whasis.
woozy — it’s the specific idea behind Mare Kondo’s method: whatever is in your house should spark joy (which could be the joy of knowing you’re protected from fire, for practical things like smoke detectors). The idea of considering each item individually for whether it, specifically, enhances your life enough to have it taking up space. And that is a completely subjective thing, by the way — if the idea of owning forty crates of comics that you will never read actually brings you joy, just the having of them even if you never read them, and the joy of just having them makes it worth the space they take up, then you keep them. It turns the usual idea of organization on its head: instead of focusing on getting rid of stuff that’s not worth it, you focus on keeping stuff that is worth it. With a specific emphasis on the fact that you get to decide what that means for yourself.
But for Jack, there, he’s asking whether the knife sparks dread, not sparks joy.
I mentioned BobMyFormerBoss in another thread . . . THIS (“if the idea of owning forty crates of comics that you will never read actually brings you joy, just the having of them even if you never read them, and the joy of just having them makes it worth the space they take up, then you keep them”) would be him – comic collector for years and years, all in plastic bags, probably never read. Makes him happy, so why not . . .
And if the absence of existential dread and anxiety is the closest some people can get to joy, then the hording of newspapers and empty cans is entirely justified by this method, and we’ve reached the limits of the usefulness of this method…
Good point . . .
ianosmond: I like having my house protected from fires, but I don’t think it would be correct to characterize that “like” as “joy.”
That’s kind of the problem. You really have to stretch the meaning of “joy”. I have a bow saw because sometimes I need to cut up dead limbs that fall from the trees or trim branches on the shrubs too big for the cutters. It’s a necessary process, not a joyful one.
She might have been around for a while, but it was only a few months ago that she and her “spark joy” catchphrase became ubiquitous enough to show up in multiple comic strips.
Andy Rooney espoused a different technique, but probably not seriously: Divide your rent by your square footage to get dollars per square foot per month. Multiply be each object’s area and ask, “Is this object worth that much per month?”
Bill, Edge City did a week of decluttering based on joy in August 2015. The strip is dead and in reruns, so I can’t give you a link, but one of the strips was dated 20150807.
I had just read of the impending auction of a deceased collector who bought various types of antique cars, motorcycles and parts and stashed them away, mostly un-played-with by him. He just purchased the items via internet auctions, anything that caught his interest. He just packed it all into a warehouse.
So, talk about clutter….
I helped my sister clean out the house of a friend’s mother – she bought things, in person and on the internet, and put them into various rooms of her house still in their wrappings. Every kind of thing you can imagine, from toilet paper to toaster ovens to clothes to… I don’t know if her daughter hadn’t known, or just hadn’t been able to get her to stop, but we were clearing out the house after the funeral and I was helping with the third week of the job.
For me, the question is “will I actually use this?” or if it’s not useful but decorative, Kondo’s question works. But yeah, if you have a use for a bow saw, whether it sparks joy is irrelevant…or maybe, you’re a lot happier to have it than not to have it? Stretching the question, as you say, Brian in STL.
I year or so ago I tossed out some loose-leaf binders that were just taking up space.
Today I bought a textbook for a class I’ll be taking and … it’s unbound and three-hole punched.
I hope I saved one of those binders somewhere.
Grawlix, let me say that a warehouse (a building designed for the storing of stuff) which has been filled with stuff represents both the fulfillment of the building’s purpose in life (better than be converted into lofts for hipsters) and a happy spouse somewhere.
According to the fire department, Mrs. Singapore Bill is not a hoarder.
Kondo had a second book out in the past year.
Does anyone’s toilet bowl brush “spark joy” – and if I get rid of it as it does not – and one should have nothing in their house which does not “spark joy” what will I clean the toilet bowls with that will spark joy?
Biggest problem I have these months in sneaking (my) stuff to get donate and get rid out of the house and getting it rid of it, is where to get rid of it. The Goodwill I have been going to as over the years – the local Salvation Army, the other local Goodwill location, and Saver (Big Brothers, Big Sisters) have all closed.
I finally was able to take the two small shopping bags of stuff that I packed to go to Goodwill when I went to the October meeting of my embroidery group (only non work day I get to go out alone) and Robert’s arm/shoulder went into pain, on the day of December meeting – and the place was closed. I ended up bringing the bags home, he saw them, and unpacked them as everything in them in something we need. I have to drive to the next county and that is to far to do with one of these trips, alternative is in a neighborhood that is not safe to go to.
Comics I Don't Understand 
I’m not so sure. A few years back there were jokes about the same subject. I was surprised when they resurfaced.
What’s funny is, this is a resurgence of Marie Kondo – I got slightly caught up in it…two years ago? Sometime shortly after …Tidying Up was published. I have no idea why it’s suddenly sprung back up this year.
Kondo has a successful Netflix series
Why would tidying up be particular to this winter and why isn’t tidying up universal? People have been tidying forever long before Kondo whasis.
woozy — it’s the specific idea behind Mare Kondo’s method: whatever is in your house should spark joy (which could be the joy of knowing you’re protected from fire, for practical things like smoke detectors). The idea of considering each item individually for whether it, specifically, enhances your life enough to have it taking up space. And that is a completely subjective thing, by the way — if the idea of owning forty crates of comics that you will never read actually brings you joy, just the having of them even if you never read them, and the joy of just having them makes it worth the space they take up, then you keep them. It turns the usual idea of organization on its head: instead of focusing on getting rid of stuff that’s not worth it, you focus on keeping stuff that is worth it. With a specific emphasis on the fact that you get to decide what that means for yourself.
But for Jack, there, he’s asking whether the knife sparks dread, not sparks joy.
I mentioned BobMyFormerBoss in another thread . . . THIS (“if the idea of owning forty crates of comics that you will never read actually brings you joy, just the having of them even if you never read them, and the joy of just having them makes it worth the space they take up, then you keep them”) would be him – comic collector for years and years, all in plastic bags, probably never read. Makes him happy, so why not . . .
And if the absence of existential dread and anxiety is the closest some people can get to joy, then the hording of newspapers and empty cans is entirely justified by this method, and we’ve reached the limits of the usefulness of this method…
Good point . . .
ianosmond: I like having my house protected from fires, but I don’t think it would be correct to characterize that “like” as “joy.”
That’s kind of the problem. You really have to stretch the meaning of “joy”. I have a bow saw because sometimes I need to cut up dead limbs that fall from the trees or trim branches on the shrubs too big for the cutters. It’s a necessary process, not a joyful one.
She might have been around for a while, but it was only a few months ago that she and her “spark joy” catchphrase became ubiquitous enough to show up in multiple comic strips.
Andy Rooney espoused a different technique, but probably not seriously: Divide your rent by your square footage to get dollars per square foot per month. Multiply be each object’s area and ask, “Is this object worth that much per month?”
Bill, Edge City did a week of decluttering based on joy in August 2015. The strip is dead and in reruns, so I can’t give you a link, but one of the strips was dated 20150807.
I had just read of the impending auction of a deceased collector who bought various types of antique cars, motorcycles and parts and stashed them away, mostly un-played-with by him. He just purchased the items via internet auctions, anything that caught his interest. He just packed it all into a warehouse.
So, talk about clutter….
I helped my sister clean out the house of a friend’s mother – she bought things, in person and on the internet, and put them into various rooms of her house still in their wrappings. Every kind of thing you can imagine, from toilet paper to toaster ovens to clothes to… I don’t know if her daughter hadn’t known, or just hadn’t been able to get her to stop, but we were clearing out the house after the funeral and I was helping with the third week of the job.
For me, the question is “will I actually use this?” or if it’s not useful but decorative, Kondo’s question works. But yeah, if you have a use for a bow saw, whether it sparks joy is irrelevant…or maybe, you’re a lot happier to have it than not to have it? Stretching the question, as you say, Brian in STL.
I year or so ago I tossed out some loose-leaf binders that were just taking up space.
Today I bought a textbook for a class I’ll be taking and … it’s unbound and three-hole punched.
I hope I saved one of those binders somewhere.
Grawlix, let me say that a warehouse (a building designed for the storing of stuff) which has been filled with stuff represents both the fulfillment of the building’s purpose in life (better than be converted into lofts for hipsters) and a happy spouse somewhere.
According to the fire department, Mrs. Singapore Bill is not a hoarder.
Kondo had a second book out in the past year.
Does anyone’s toilet bowl brush “spark joy” – and if I get rid of it as it does not – and one should have nothing in their house which does not “spark joy” what will I clean the toilet bowls with that will spark joy?
Biggest problem I have these months in sneaking (my) stuff to get donate and get rid out of the house and getting it rid of it, is where to get rid of it. The Goodwill I have been going to as over the years – the local Salvation Army, the other local Goodwill location, and Saver (Big Brothers, Big Sisters) have all closed.
I finally was able to take the two small shopping bags of stuff that I packed to go to Goodwill when I went to the October meeting of my embroidery group (only non work day I get to go out alone) and Robert’s arm/shoulder went into pain, on the day of December meeting – and the place was closed. I ended up bringing the bags home, he saw them, and unpacked them as everything in them in something we need. I have to drive to the next county and that is to far to do with one of these trips, alternative is in a neighborhood that is not safe to go to.