"discard anything that doesn't spark joy"

De-cluttering your house with love: "Marie Kondo has built a huge following in her native Japan with her "KonMari" method of organizing and de-cluttering. Clients perform a sort of tidying-up festival: time set aside specifically to go through belongings. Each object is picked up and held, and the client needs to decide if it inspires joy. If it doesn't, it needs to go." The front-page link contains audio from NPR's "Here and Now" (approx. 9 min) & an excerpt from Marie Kondo's book, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing." More from the link:

"She's really unique from other tidying experts in that other kind of de-cluttering people will focus on what to get rid of, and it's kind of a depressing process. They'll say 'your house is so messy, you really need to de-clutter, you're drowning in all this stuff.' Marie takes a totally different tack, she says 'you need to focus on what brings you joy, you need to focus on what to keep.'"

*NYTimes - Kissing Your Socks Goodbye: Home Organization Advice from Marie Kondo *Guardian - Top tips to joyfully declutter your home, from Marie Kondo: "Anything that doesn't make you happy or isn't absolutely necessary should be touched, thanked and sent on its way, the bestselling Japanese author says" Psychologies UK - 10 tips to make you more tidy now"Marie Kondo argues that if you tidy your home properly now, you'll never need to declutter again." MindBodyGreen - 10 Ways To Declutter Your Home (And Life!)"When I discovered her guide The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I realized I had been going about decluttering all wrong... In the spirit of helping others crawl out from under the clutter of our overly commodified lifestyle, here are 10 tips that helped me the most."a Q&A with Marie Kondo on the "Gransnet" forum (scroll down to "MarieKondo Thu 29-May-14 15:00:50" for her highlighted answers to specific questions) the book trailer (YouTube video, >2 min.) featuring a subtitled interview with the author online excerpts from her book (each link has different content):

• NPR - The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art Of Decluttering And Organizing
• Slate - One Guru's Approach to Decluttering Your Home—and Your Life
• Crown Publishing - Preview the refreshingly simple guide to decluttering (Scribd embed at link - contains the complete table of contents & part of chapter 4)

other possibly useful decluttering links: *Peggy Wang (Buzzfeed) - 34 Ingenious Ways To De-Clutter Your Entire Life *Apartment Therapy - the "January Cure" for 2015 (assignment posts on the blog begin here) *Minimalist Couple - The "I Don't Know" Room *miss minimalist - twenty questions to clear your clutter *Unclutterer - "Many people new to uncluttering will begin the process with a simple technique called "a thing a day."" *The Minimalists - resources/further reading *Barking Up The Wrong Tree - How To Motivate Yourself: 3 Steps Backed By Science *Unfuck Your Habitat - previously on MeFi here also previously on MeFi: *a culture of clutter *the story of stuff *on Japanese farewell ceremonies for things