There’s been a lot of buzz around Marie Kondo’s Netflix series, “Tidying Up,” lately. Two years ago I tried her method when I was ghosted by a guy who I had just brought home to meet my family over the holidays. The last time I saw him was on my birthday. That’s right. He peaced out on me on my birthday, which is the day after Christmas. It’s already such a crappy time of year to be born (so much, in fact, that I wrote a song called “Jesus Steals My Thunder.”) It just made that birthday so much worse.
As I was trying to make sense of what happened, I took action using Marie Kondo’s Kon Mari method. I went through items in my armoire asking, “Does this spark joy?” If it did I kept it. If it didn’t, I’d throw it away.
After several hours of assessing whether my clothes were making me happy and being miserable about the guy, I thought, “You know what doesn’t spark joy in my life? This fuckface!”
The Kon Mari method wound up being a good exercise for me. You can hear the whole story about it on the Speak Up Storytelling podcast.
However, I found it nearly impossible to maintain that lifestyle of folding clothes in such a way that you can see everything that you own, but it did prove to be helpful at the time.
Last night I decided to tackle my desk (already a source of pain for me, which you can see in this IMO hilarious video). I committed to going through one file drawer and two drawers by sending “before” pictures to my friend, Meghan.
I came across all kinds of old “i” products like an iPod, a mini iPod, accessories for said “i” products, cards, mini DVs and more. I made some good progress, but the funniest part was going through the file drawer where I found client contracts dating back to 2006. I also came across some concepts I did for a Raisinets pitch that were hilarious.
I can’t believe “The Bachelor” idea still holds up today.
One of the ideas contained promotional opportunities in Yahoo Groups, an early Facebook app and wait for it… a MySpace page.
I found that to be serendipitous. Here I was clearing my space to make more space for good things to come in (read: a desk) and I found a document with a MySpace concept. It’s the new Friendster punchline, which at some point, with any luck, will probably upgrade to Facebook.
Anyway, I loved the symbolism of it and I’m excited to see how I transform my space into a space that truly sparks joy - where I’ll create fun, inspiring and funny content - MySpace jokes and all.
Are you good about throwing things out? Have you tried the Marie Kondo method? Did it spark joy or agida for you? Tell me below.