The Life-Changing Method of Not Being Perfect
It is commonly said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results. This definition would accurately describe the futile pursuit of perfection I’ve had with tidying and decluttering. In April 2015, like every millennial, I purchased a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.
After finishing the book, I fully expected to be thrusted into a virtuous spiral. Once I decluttered the Marie Kondo way, my apartment would be featured in Monocle magazine, I’d have a six pack, and would be making at least $10 million a year.
A quick refresher on the Konmari method: instead of choosing things to get rid of, you select things that you want to keep. These items are so meaningful that when you hold them close to yourself, they “spark joy” inside of you. There are other rules as well including the order in which you’re supposed to tackle your clutter:
Clothes
Books
Papers
Komono (miscellaneous items including makeup, pantry items, and electrical devices)
Sentimental items
The idea behind “The Order” is that you’re working in progressively difficult categories, starting with clothes that can easily be replaced and ending with sentimental items like photographs and letters that are one-of-a-kind.
I eagerly started my Konmari journey and went into my 2015 #Menswear era closet and spilled all the clothing I owned on to the floor. What would spark joy?
Carnage from my 6th attempt at tidying and decluttering - October 2021
Unsurprisingly, as someone who has written about menswear for over ten years, the answer was almost everything. How could I possibly become the next Kondo success story if I couldn’t even get rid of a pair of pants? I struggled for several hours and then eventually became discouraged as I realized the sun was setting and I had spent the entire day without progress.
I felt defeated and quit my Konmari journey shortly after that. The following year, Marie Kondo released her follow-up book, Spark Joy. Once again, I was inspired to try and declutter my belongings and once more, I couldn’t progress beyond my clothes. This became an annual tradition: heeding the tidying battle cry only to be overwhelmed and vanquished by the vast amount of clothes in my closet.
Why couldn’t I get out of this clothes hump? Recently, on my 8th attempt of Konmaring, I decided to reread the book again and realized that the answer was in front of me. Kondo describes why some items are hard to get rid of. She states, “People have trouble discarding things that they could still use (functional value), that contain helpful information (informational value), and that have sentimental ties (emotional value). When these things are hard to obtain or replace (rarity), they become even harder to part with.”
Kondo perceives clothes as the easiest category to tidy because she considers their rarity to be extremely low. This might apply to the average consumer who purchases clothes from large retail chains and from brands that commonly produce the same pieces season after season. After all, if you get rid of something and realize it was a mistake, you can go out and buy it again, right?
But how would I convince Antonio Ciongoli that he should rerelease my favorite chore bomber from Drop 3 of 18 East? Or to replace my Brooks Brothers’ OCBDs I would have to find them dead stock because the new models don’t have the same fit?
A pile of shirts from 18 East
For people like me, clothes are more than garments we wear. They represent creativity and expression and have emotional connections because of how we obtained them, wear them, and feel about them. They’re - well, mementos.
And then it hit me, dear reader, just skip the fucking clothes category. For me, they are sentimental items that should wait at the end when I’m more equipped and honed to make better decisions. Who knows, in the end, maybe I’ll embrace the fact that I’m just a person who likes clothes and I won’t throw one damn piece out. Afterall, there’s no right number of things to have in my closet. I don’t have to have a capsule wardrobe in my closet to consider myself a success. Even famed minimalist Fumio Sasaki agrees in his book Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism.
“There are no set rules. It’s not like you’re disqualified if you own a TV or have more than a hundred possessions, or that you would then become a minimalist if you just got rid of those items. You’re not even necessarily a minimalist just because everything you own can be stuffed into a single suitcase… My feeling is that minimalists are people who know what’s truly necessary for them versus what they may want for the sake of appearance, and they’re not afraid to cut down on everything in the second category. The things that are important to you will vary. The process of reducing your other items will also vary. So I don’t think there’s a single correct answer to the question of what makes a person a minimalist.”
Yes, I know how simple it sounds and how stupid it it was for me to not do this sooner. But as someone who is a born rule follower, especially when the promise of life-changing magic is involved, I had a hard time blazing my own path. I keep picturing an imaginary Marie Kondo standing behind me frowned and recited, “If you follow this order, you’ll speed through the work and achieve visible results surprisingly quickly. Moreover, because you will keep only the things you truly love, your energy and joy will increase. You may be physically tired, but it feels so good to get rid of unnecessary items that you will find it hard to stop.”
“But, I can’t imaginary Marie Kondo hallucination!” I would exclaim! She would then turn to me and whisper solemnly in my ear, “It is not hard to tidy up perfectly and completely in one fell swoop. In fact, anyone can do it. And if you want to avoid rebound, this is the only way to do it.”
But like any philosophy or religion, we really should only take the applicable parts of it that make our lives better. Marie Kondo believes in striving for perfection so that you only need to do something once and are able to move on with your life. But for me, this doesn’t work. Instead, I like this quote by Sheryl Sandberg, “‘Done is better than perfect.’ I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.”
Given the choice between living in a house that is temporarily decluttered but I would have to continue to maintain or a house that is always cluttered because I consistently fail to start and do it the right way once, I know what I would do.