The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (11 page)

My next plan was to use a copy machine. I would copy the sections I wanted to keep and cut and paste them into the notebook. This, I thought, should be much quicker and easier. But when I tried it, it was even more
work. I finally decided to rip the relevant page out of the book. Pasting pages into a notebook was also a pain, so I simplified the process by slipping them into a file instead. This only took five minutes per book and I managed to get rid of forty books and keep the words that I liked. I was extremely pleased with the results. Two years after launching this “bulk reduction method,” I had a sudden flash of realization. I had never once looked at the file I created. All that effort had just been to ease my own conscience.

Recently, I have noticed that having fewer books actually increases the impact of the information I read. I recognize necessary information much more easily. Many of my clients, particularly those who have disposed of a substantial number of books and papers, have also mentioned this. For books, timing is everything.
The moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it
. To avoid missing that moment, I recommend that you keep your collection small.

Rule of thumb—discard everything

Once you’ve finished organizing your books, it’s time to move on to your papers. For example, the letter holder bursting with envelopes that hangs on your wall; the
school announcements stuck to your fridge; the unanswered invitation to your school reunion lying by the phone; the newspapers that have accumulated on your table over the last few days. There are several spots within the house where papers tend to pile up like snowdrifts.

Although the general assumption is that there are far fewer papers in the home than in an office, this is actually not true. The minimum amount of paper my clients discard or recycle is two 45-liter bags. The maximum (so far) is fifteen bags. I don’t know how many times I hear my clients’ paper shredders jam. It is extremely difficult to manage such a large volume of paper, yet I occasionally meet some amazing clients whose filing skills take my breath away. When I ask, “How are you managing your papers?” their explanations are extremely thorough.

“Papers related to the children go in this file. That file there is my recipe file. Magazine clippings go in here, and manuals for my electric appliances go in this box.…” They have categorized their papers in such fine detail that my mind sometimes wanders off in the middle of their discourse. I confess. I hate filing papers! I never use multiple files or write labels. This system perhaps works better in an office setting, where many people use the same documents, but there is absolutely no need to use such a detailed filing system in the home.

My basic principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away. My clients are stunned when I say this, but there is nothing more annoying than papers. After all,
they will never inspire joy, no matter how carefully you keep them. For this reason,
I recommend you dispose of anything that does not fall into one of three categories: currently in use, needed for a limited period of time, or must be kept indefinitely
.

The term “papers,” by the way, does not include papers with sentimental value like old love letters or diaries. Attempting to sort these will slow down your pace drastically. Limit yourself at first to sorting papers that give you no thrill at all and finish the job in one go. Letters from friends and lovers can be left for when you tackle sentimental items.

Once you’ve gone through those papers that don’t evoke any pleasure, what should you do with the ones that you’ve decided to keep? My filing method is extremely simple. I divide them into two categories: papers to be saved and papers that need to be dealt with. Although my policy is to get rid of all papers, these are the only categories I make for those that can’t be discarded. Letters requiring a reply, forms that need to be submitted, a newspaper that I intend to read—make a special corner for papers like these that need to be dealt with.
Make sure that you keep all such papers in one spot only. Never let them spread to other parts of the house
. I recommend using a vertical organizer in which papers can be stored standing up and designating a specific place for it. All papers requiring attention can be placed in here without separating them.

As for papers that must be saved, these I subdivide according to the frequency of use. Again, the way I divide them is not complicated. I organize them into infrequently used papers and more frequently used papers. Infrequently used papers include insurance policies, guarantees, and leases. Unfortunately, these must be kept automatically regardless of the fact that they spark no particular joy in your heart. As you will almost never need to access papers in this category, you don’t have to put a lot of effort into storing them. I recommend putting them all into a single ordinary clear plastic folder without worrying about further categorization.

The other subcategory consists of papers that you will take out and look at more frequently, such as outlines of seminars or newspaper clippings. These are meaningless unless they are stored in a way that’s easy to access and read, which is why I recommend inserting them into the book-like pages of a clear plastic file folder. This category is the trickiest of them all. Although papers like this are not really necessary, they tend to multiply. Reducing the volume of this category is key to organizing your papers.

Papers are organized into only three categories: needs attention, should be saved (contractual documents), and should be saved (others). The point is to keep all papers in one category in the same container or folder and to purposely refrain from subdividing them any further by content. In other words, you only need three containers or folders. Don’t forget that the “needs attention” box
ought to be empty. If there are papers in it, be aware that this means you have left things undone in your life that require your attention. Although I have never managed to completely empty my “needs attention” box, this is the goal to which we should aspire.

How to organize troublesome papers

My basic policy is to discard all papers, but there are always going to be some that are hard to get rid of. Let’s consider here how to tackle these.

Those who enjoy studying are quite likely to attend seminars or courses in various subjects, such as aromatherapy, logical thinking, or marketing. The recent trend in Japan is to utilize time in the early morning to take seminars. The content and time frame are broadening, giving people a wide choice. For the participants, the materials diligently produced by the lecturer are akin to a badge of honor, and as such they are hard to part with. But when I visit the homes of these ardent learners, I find that these materials usurp much of the room, making their space oppressive.

One of my clients was a woman in her thirties who worked for an advertising company. The moment I entered her room, I felt like I was in an office. My eyes were assaulted by rows of files with carefully printed titles. “These are all materials from the seminars I took,” she told me. A self-confessed seminar fanatic, she had saved and filed the materials from every seminar she had ever attended.

People often insist, “I want to restudy these materials sometime,” but most never do so. Moreover, the majority of them usually have materials for multiple seminars on the same or similar subjects. Why? Because what they learned at the seminars did not stick. I am not saying this as a criticism, but merely to point out why it isn’t worth keeping materials from past seminars. If the content is not put into practice, such courses are meaningless. A seminar’s value begins the moment we start attending, and the key to extracting the full value is putting what we learn there into practice the moment the course ends. Why do people pay expensive fees for such courses when they can read the same content in a book or elsewhere? Because they want to feel the passion of the teacher and experience that learning environment. Thus the real material is the seminar itself, and it must be experienced live.

When you attend a seminar, do so with the resolve to part with every handout distributed. If you regret recycling it, take the same seminar again, and this time apply
the learning.
It’s paradoxical, but I believe that precisely because we hang on to such materials, we fail to put what we learn into practice
. The biggest collection of seminar materials I have come across so far was 199 files. Needless to say, I had her discard every single one.

Another thing to discard are all your credit card statements. What is their purpose? For most people, they are simply the means of checking how much money was spent on what during a particular month. So, once you’ve checked the content to confirm that it’s correct and have recorded the figure in your household account book, the statement has fulfilled its purpose and you should discard it. Trust me. You need feel no guilt at all.

Can you think of any other time that you would really need your credit card statements? Do you imagine that you might need them for a court case to prove how much was withdrawn? That’s not going to happen, so there is no need to treasure these statements for the rest of your life. The same is true for notices of withdrawals from your account to pay utility fees. Be resolute and take this opportunity to get rid of them.

Of all my clients, the ones who had the hardest time disposing of papers were a couple, both of whom were lawyers. They kept asking, “What if this document is needed in court?” At first, they made very little progress,
but in the end, even they were able to discard almost all their papers without experiencing any problems. If they can do it, so can you.

Whether a TV or a digital camera, all electrical appliances come with a warranty. This is the most standard document category in any home, and the one that almost everyone files and saves properly. The method of organizing, however, is usually almost but not quite right.

In general, people save their warranties in clear folder files or accordion-style files. The attraction of these files is that the documents can be stored in separate compartments. However, therein lies their pitfall. Because they are so well divided, it is easy to overlook things. Most people save not only the warranty but also the operation manual in the same file. First, let’s start by parting with these manuals. Take a look at them. Have you ever used them? In general, there are only a few manuals that we actually need to read, such as our computer or digital camera manual, and these are so thick that they won’t fit in a file anyway. So basically, any manuals contained in your warranty folder can be discarded without causing any difficulty.

To date, all my clients have discarded most of their manuals, including those for their PCs and cameras, and none of them has experienced any problems from doing
so. If they have a problem, they can usually fix it themselves by fiddling with the machine, and they can find solutions for anything they can’t figure out on their own from the Internet or the place of purchase. So I assure you, you can dispose of them without any qualms.

Getting back to warranties: the filing method I recommend is to put them all in a single clear file, without separating them into categories. Warranties are only used once a year if at all. What point is there in carefully sorting and separating them when the odds that they will be needed are so low? Moreover, if you’ve filed them in a file folder, you’ll have to flip through the pages to find the right warranty. In that case, it’s just as easy to keep them all in one file, pull out the entire stack, and search through it.

If you sort in too much detail, it means you will have fewer opportunities to look at each warranty. Before you realize it, the warranty will be out of date. If you have to sift through them all when you need one anyway, this becomes an excellent opportunity to check the expiration dates of your other warranties. This way, you don’t have to go to the trouble of deliberately checking the contents just for the expiration dates, and often, you don’t even have to buy the clear file in which you store the warranties because there is usually at least one already in the house. Finally, this method takes up a tenth of the space of conventional methods.

In Japan, it is the custom to send New Year’s cards to convey New Year’s greetings (many have lottery numbers at the bottom). This means that each card has fulfilled its purpose the moment the receiver finishes reading it. Once you’ve checked to see whether the numbers on your cards have won anything in the lottery, you can part with the cards with gratitude for conveying to you the consideration of the sender. If you save the cards to confirm the sending address for the following year, then only save one year’s worth. Dispense with those that are two or more years old, except those that spark joy in your heart.

Used checkbooks are just that—used. You’re not going to look at them again, and even if you do, it won’t increase the amount of money in the bank, so, really, get rid of them.

The purpose of your pay slip is to inform you how much you have been paid for this month. Once you’ve checked the content, its usefulness is over.

Keep things because you love them—not “just because”

I pull out a drawer in a client’s home and discover a strange little box, just waiting to be opened—like a tantalizing book that promises some fascinating tale. But for me there is no excitement whatsoever. I know exactly what I’ll find inside. Loose change, hairpins, erasers, spare buttons, wristwatch parts, batteries that may or may not be dead, leftover medicine, lucky charms, key rings. And the list goes on. I already know what the client’s answer will be if I ask why these things are in that box: “Just because.”