I had heard a lot of buzz about this small book, about a different approach to 'tidying up.' Kondo proposes that the first step in 'tidying' is to declutter by going through ALL of your possessions, from clothes and books to photos, papers, the junk drawer and your garage, and strip down to just the essentials. There are two purposes here. The first, it is much more pleasant and less stressful to live in an organized, 'tidy' space. The second is that by going through this process, you will realize what is most important to you, and gain the insights needed to make big changes in the course of your life - that's the 'life-changing' part.
While this method has some unorthodox aspects, the main concept of going through the whole home within a short period of time, over 2 or 3 months, would be trans-formative and very cleansing. Overall, I found that there was a lot of repetition in the book, which is not much more than a long journal article. Some of the advice is a bit dangerous. For example, she advises to discard almost all papers, from credit card statements through appliance manuals. That could be problematic if you are ever up for a tax audit, or need to file an insurance claim. There are better sources to guide on what household papers need to be kept. Good if you need inspiration for spring cleaning. Translated from the Japanese, 204 pages
