Twenty years a journalist but here's a sentence I've never written before: I'm re-organising my sock drawer using the KonMari method.
If you haven't heard of it – why would you? – it's an ethos devised by Marie Kondo, a young Japanese woman with an obsession for organizing that began in primary school. As a self-styled “organising consultant” she does house visits but there's a three-month waiting list and I don't imagine the personal touch comes cheap. Happily she has also written four books on the subject with the most recent, The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up, topping the best-seller charts in Europe and the US. In April 2015, Time Magazine ranked her as one of the world's most influential 100 people.
“I was obsessed with what I could throw away,” she explained to The Australian newspaper. “One day, I had a kind of nervous breakdown and fainted. I was unconscious for two hours. When I came to, I heard a mysterious voice, like some god of tidying telling me to look at my things more closely. And I realised my mistake: I was only looking for things to throw out. What I should be doing is finding the things I want to keep. Identifying the things that make you happy: that is the work of tidying.”
In our house I get the Goddess of Tidying telling me something similar on a daily basis. (Also: what have you done with my house keys? Do you really want all these back copies of Vice magazine? Why do you need a suit carrier?)
Applying all this KonMari voodoo to my sock drawer involves binning those pairs that don't fill me with joy, and folding the lucky survivors in such a way that when I open the drawer I can see them all at a glance. And, presumably, be filled with even more joy.
Good news: it works. Kind of. Moving on to the T-shirts isn't quite so successful, however. Maybe I'm folding them wrongly, but all I end up with is row upon row of faded black T-shirts with no way of knowing which one says Gun'N'Roses and which one Bazinga!. As for the jumpers and jeans, well they live in a moth-infested wicker basket the size of a small car so the fold-and-show technique isn't really a goer where they're concerned.
Still, I love the idea of pruning my possessions based only on love. But I do wonder what IKEA makes of Marie Kondo and her KonMari Method, or those “fast fashion” retailers who sell cheap clothes nobody really likes and which will probably only be worn once. After all, the sort of “storage solutions” she has in mind means the ones IKEA sell will become redundant as we pare back our belongings. Meanwhile the high street will take a hit as people become way choosier about what they buy and why. Follow the KonMari methodology through and the question becomes not “Will these do a turn in my wellies?” but “Will these hand-knitted Swedish boot socks in exquisite earth tones bring joy to my sock drawer?”. Could be a game-changer.
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