Spark Joy by Marie Kondo - 23 of 2023

 Spark Joy - the question you ask when you touch or hold your possessions and determine whether you will keep them or not "Does this Spark Joy?" - and the rest flows from this.

An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying.

Once you have your lovely possessions: the ones that warm you with happy memories, or just make you feel good, or make you feel safe, or make you feel whatever it is that is important to you... you store them in a way which also gives pleasure.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying, the most intriguing thing is the reference to folding. This book opens the drawer and the door on folding and organising your things.

It covers.

The six basic rule of tidying

Part I Covers the KonMari Master tips, which involve:

1. Honing Your sensitivity to joy.
2. How to fill you home with joy.
3. Everything you need to know about storing joyfully

Part 2: The tidying encyclopaedia

1. Tidying cloths
2. Tidying books
3. Tidying papers
4. Tidying Komono
5. Tidying sentimental items

Part 3: Life changing magic

1. A home that sparks joy.
2. The change that comes when you're done

Prepare for the next stage of your life. 

Life truly begin when you have put your house in order. 

The folding of your clothes and storing as much as possible vertically means that are visible and accessible. Every clothing item gets a chance to be worn when it's not hidden behind other things. Arranging clothing from dark to light, from long to short - patterns which delight the eye and soothe the mind. Adorning storage with things you love but can no longer wear. Using attractive storage rather than just any old thing.

The folding still takes a bit of time, but it's time well spent when I can grab something from the drawer or shelf and not have to rummage to find what I need. It also means that when it comes to holiday time, packing is brilliant - minimal effort to transfer items from bedroom to suitcase (I will also give a shout out to using packing cubes to ease the pain of packing - utterly brilliant).

So, if you have been reading up in the KonMari method, and wanted to see what the end result could look like, this is the book for you.