> “The point is, you need to distinguish between what honestly moves you and what the world is telling you should melt your heart. If something doesn’t reach you on a personal level, let it go. It’s hard enough dealing with everything that does.”
> Judi Culbertson, The Clutter Cure: Three Steps to Letting Go of Stuff, Organizing Your Space, & Creating the Home of Your Dreams
> "The things you own… end up owning you."
> Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
A few years ago I had a fire lit under my ass and decided to Get Better At Life. I started down the road of lifting, eating better, getting smarter, and improving my living environment/reducing clutter/being less materialistic. There's shit tons of infographics for lifting, eating, and more reading lists than you could consume in a lifetime. I could not, however, find a useful method for sorting my room/house/desk/clothes out. "Cleaning" was often no more than vacuuming and shifting junk from one area to another. I struggled with this aspect because my approach felt like this:
1. Desire to improve my living area
2. ???
3. ????
4. Finished!
I never improved this aspect of my life much because I couldn't figure out how to get to the finish line - we've all seen pictures of great places to live but the gulf between reality and that endpoint was a tough nut to crack.
Ironically I found the answer I was looking for in a buddy's messy desk - a small book titled: _Spark Joy: The life-changing magic of tidying up_. It's a straightforward system that has two actions:
1. Keep the items that spark joy in your life and discard the rest.
2. How to organize/store/display your items/clothing/stuff.
I'm going to try and explain the system in the next few posts. I'm writing this on the fly so you'll have to forgive the pacing.