Watch this video (above) of Marie Kondo. She’s a Japanese author who has sort of sparked this organizing phenomenon that’s taking over the world.

A friend of mine convinced me to read her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and having studied economics, I was especially moved by one particular thing that Kondo preaches that relates to all the “stuff” we collect over the years that just takes up space and adds clutter to your life:

She believes that you should only keep things that spark joy.

If you’ve ever wondered why you have so much STUFF, it’s because we all have a status quo bias. Basically, we are more happy keeping everything the way it is. So we look at all our old books and say, One day I will make the decision whether or not to throw that book out.

But Marie Kondo flips that paradigm upside down.

She says, All these books are going in the trash. Now, which do you want to keep?

It’s an entirely new and brilliant way to look at your stuff.

And not unlike in economics, it makes you realize that the opportunity cost of the stuff that you are not in love with is getting in the way of enjoying stuff you are in love with. Using the book example, you have so many books piled so high, that you forgot about the one at the bottom that you truly love.

On a more creative level, I think Kondo’s theory applies to people and places too…

We don’t always have to keep things in order to acknowledge them.

In a lot of cases, it’s best just to take a deep breath, then say thank you and goodbye.

Image Source: http://www.gov-online.go.jp/eng/publicity/book/hlj/html/201509/img/img201509_11.jpg