Well, /I/ think her approach is very marketing-oriented. For example she asks whether an item sparks "joy". Joy is kind transient, very subjective, etc. But it fits within her "shtick" and it works. For me, I'd ask whether it provides utility, but that sounds very boring and isn't a term which would fit well in marketing.
I.e., people don't intuitively understand what "good" or "useful" is—those terms are mired in tons of prescriptive statements made by ideologues that get you confused. But "awesome" (or in this case, "joyous") isn't really a property people ever insist that something has for political reasons. It's something you've probably only ever heard as a descriptive word referring to things that are genuinely "awesome"/"joyous", and so your intuition on what is "awesome"/"joyous" is likely much more solid and easier to "hear."
I would also argue that "joy" is a pretty useful word in the sense that asking about a thing's utility conjures images of sterile pro/con lists of a thing's immediate usefulness right now; while "joy" might be an acute nostalgia, or the sense of determined hypomania brought on by a clearly-imagined-and-still-enthusiastic plan of what you will be doing with the thing a year from now.
That's an interesting take and maybe that's what she's doing. Plus, I think she is making this idea accessible to people by putting it in very simple terms -despite my misgivings.
Interestingly, another commenter mentioned that the actual word in Japanese isn't joy or sparking joy, but rather heart throb [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18865829] which to me would eliminate quite a few more useful things that aren't as emotion inducing.
All this reminds me of someone I worked with who said she liked Kondo's advice and took it to throw out anything she hadn't worn in six months. Which seemed like a wasteful way of thinking. [i.e. don't like something now nor for the past six months, toss; then month later, aha, I need that thing, lemme buy a new one. And what about Winter clothes or Summer clothes, etc.]
This seems like pointless cynicism by way of semantics.
I think utility - as a term - carries more baggage in this context. People tend to easily come up with reasons they could hold on to something. Most things could be useful for one reason or another, but the problem is that, realistically, you've vanishingly likely to actually do something with it.
Joy might describe a situation where the utility meets its need, where it's value to you is especially high.
In other words, I think 'joy' was a deliberate and informed choice.
Finally, I'm not at all sold on 'utility' having poor marketability. Maybe not great, but it speaks well to the value-optimizer and many people that are interested in self-help sorts of subjects.
I feel the same way about "spark joy" or the more direct translation of "heart throbbing". I rarely assign that emotion to tools or non-sentimental items which I need in daily life. Some things you use to perform quotidian or even tiresome activities like a rake, a snow shovel, laundry detergent, clothes for going to work, etc.
Do sentimental items provide utility? Only if you define utility in a way that includes "owning this makes me feel particularly good even though the object itself isn't otherwise functional." Which sounds a lot like "sparks joy."
So here is where I'm coming from. Does a hammer provide "joy", maybe I haven't used a sander in over a year. I don't miss it; it doesn't provide joy, but it is very useful when needed. Do photographs and souvenirs and personal items provide utility, I'd say so.
Her second book [1] covers this, with a few amusing anecdotes:
Take, for example, my vacuum cleaner. I got rid of it because it was an outdated model, and instead diligently wiped the floor with paper towels and rags. But in the end it simply took too much time, and I had to buy a new vacuum.
And then there was my screwdriver. After throwing it away, I tried using a ruler to tighten a loose screw, but it snapped down the middle. This almost reduced me to tears as it was one I really liked.
All these incidents stemmed from youthful inexperience and thoughtlessness. They demonstrated that I had not yet honed my ability to discern what brings me joy. Deceived by their plainness, I failed to realize that I actually liked them. I had assumed that if something brought me joy, I would feel a thrill of excitement that made my heart beat faster. Now I see things differently.
Feelings of fascination, excitement, or attraction are not the only indications of joy. A simple design that puts you at ease, a high degree of functionality that makes life simpler, a sense of rightness, or the recognition that a possession is useful in our daily lives—these, too, indicate joy.
This reads like a hotfix to patch up a bug in her reasoning. Maybe it is more coherent in the japanese original, but pushing joy onto something which has a purely practical reason seems wrong for me.
Actually I own several hammers which spark joy: a small mini-hammer which fits perfectly in my hand. A large sledge hammer which is entirely too heavy to be practical, but feels like wielding Mjolnir when I use it to break brake discs loose.
The real gray area is when you have some poor quality tools which you do need and use, and you can't yet afford to replace them with ones that do spark joy.
Yes, that dingy 'harbor freight zone' of joyless, but functional tools that would cost more than their utility to replace. I have found many tools I did not expect, can be rented at local stores. Its not like I need that brake tool every week to keep my home nice.
Living out of the sticks, the tool that brings me joy is the one that's already lying around in my workshop, and that I don't need to drive into town to buy on that once-in-a-year occasion that I need it.
Personally I try and buy tools second hand, as they are typically cheaper and of better quality than the new tools sold in hardware stores. And they can be resold for about the same I paid for them, making them free to own.
Apart, that is, from their alleged intrusion on my personal joy from cluttering my workshop. Which is rubbish - workshops should be exempt from this joyful thinking, they are places where you want to find that useful piece of scrap material lying somewhere - anywhere - when you need it.
I think what Kondo would say in this situation is that having those things sparks joy for you. You should keep the scrap materials, but try to organize them in ways that allow you to quickly see everything you have so you don't forget about or lose things.
One of her rules seems to be "Try to organize your objects in a way that each one can be viewed without having to move another". Pile is worse than a Box is worse than trays/drawers. Organizing your scraps by category and size would likely make them provide more utility to you?
But as someone with a cluttered workshop trying to figure out a good organization scheme, I may be thinking too much about this. Anyone have a quote from her about workshop/scrap materials?
It feels like you're arguing against something that isn't really what Kondo is offering, and she specifically discusses in reference to vacuum cleaners and screwdrivers (tools you don't need every day, but the frustration of not having is an "anti joy"). The joy concept isn't so rigid as delight in that moment, though it can be misconstrued that way.
What I think she would say about a workshop is that a well-organized (tidy) space, where everything has its place, so you know where to go when you need something, and where it goes when you have finished using it, is going to make you a happier person than having to dig through a toolbox/drawer/scrap pile to find the right tool or piece of wood.
In my experience, workshops are not devoid of joy, unless you work only on things you don't enjoy or find pride in, which seems unfortunate. My workshop memories are of my granddad making wood products of all sorts, my dad working on the car and various household projects, and my brother creating toys of various types (e.g. making our own cornhole set). The frustrations in the workshop were typically of not being able to find something I knew was there, but perhaps that isn't what you are after or expressing here.
Having a well-stocked toolbox gives me joy, because I like having the right tool available whenever I need one. There's no need to go through and evaluate every single item in there; the toolbox takes up the same amount of space whether it's full or nearly empty.
I would have said "utility" if I were writing it, but if "joy" reaches a greater number of readers, then it's probably the better choice. And you knew what she meant, anyway.
The problem is that there's a little more nuance than just "utility". As an example, take clothing. I don't think that anyone would argue that a single t-shirt didn't have utility. After all, I can wear it. However, I have several t-shirts from conferences or conventions that I don't ever wear. So while they have utility in theory, I'm not utilizing them in practice.
Yeah, I thought of that but I think you could take all those Ts and then the first one and second one would have utility (one while the other is in the wash) then each subsequent one would have less marginal utility, till some cut-off.
Reducing a methodology to a single phrase is bound to be... reductive. But if memory serves there was an example her book where at one point she did, in fact, get rid of her hammer and either used another object or borrowed one when needed.
Speaking for myself: I have more objects that have utility than I have space to put things away, so there's got to be more to it than that if I want to avoid clutter.
She did, but later bought another hammer (I think it was a screwdriver actually) because she realised that it did in fact spark joy by virtue of being useful.
I think part of the problem is with the translation. The original Japanese word used is ときめき (tokimeki), which literally means "heart throbbing". The actual thing you want to keep doesn't have to provide a joyful experience.
My parents have a basement overflowing of stuff that is full of potential utility, so I think that the joy aspect is to provide a different view point so people let go more easily.
True. But the same qualifier could be used for joy. Things could have potential for providing joy, they're just not providing joy right now.
I guess, if I had "too many things", I'd probably set some parameters and get rid of unnecessary duplicates, broken things unlikely to get repaired and things unlikely to be used in any significant capacity in the foreseeable future -knowing that one may possibly have to reacquire something one disposed of.
Potential utility is different to actual utility though. Is that stuff actually useful to them right now? Or in general? If the answer is no then it has zero utility.
Can't these two coincide? As you mention, joy is subjective. For you, joy can be utility, and for someone else that can be something else.
I think it's reasonable to suggest the rule for what things you should keep should be based around what you find good. If you mean utility in the John Stuart Mill way, then joy is the same thing but probably easier for the average person to grasp immediately.
I think the way to think about it is you need to change your relationship with those things that don't spark puppy-dog like joy from but you need. For example, I don't get particularly excited about all the damn weird DVI cables I have stashed in my drawer but I've realized if I toss them, I'll need them in a hurry and it really sucks having to buy new ones.
> For example, I don't get particularly excited about all the damn weird DVI cables I have stashed in my drawer but I've realized if I toss them, I'll need them in a hurry and it really sucks having to buy new ones.
I think this is the exact thing that she's trying to help people overcome. It's the thought process that a lot of hoarders have. "Well, I don't need it now, but I will in the future."
I think it's important to ask yourself if you will actually need those DVI cables. How often do you replace them? When was the last time you looked for one? How much time do they take to find?
If you haven't needed a new DVI cable in 6 months, a year--what makes you think you'll need one in the next year? These are important distinctions to make.
For me, I find that my whole cart of misc tech pieces and cables are rarely used, to the point where just getting rid of almost all of it is a huge relief. If I need another X cable, the mental tax of storing, sorting, and finding that cable is not worth the $10 it would cost to just order a new one when the need arises--if it ever does.
It's very easy to rationalize the the prepper mindset of an item's utility. Yes, I MAY need this in the future... but if I don't, I'm just going to continue collecting things that may never serve any purpose.
I find her approach to "sparking joy" to be a lot more than just marketing. She's trying to hone in on what we really should keep vs what we think we should keep. I have a stash of plain white t-shirts that I can justify scenarios for all day--but when did I actually need more than one in the last year? Maybe it would make sense for me to keep one on hand, but clear the others, because they neither bring me joy nor have a utilitarian purpose that's actually being enacted.
Let me rephrase because I kinda made it sound like I'm a cable hoarder (I'm not.... I swear!! I'm just a cable connoisseur, thats all! hah!)
I need a DVI cable because I have a headless DVR computer that once every blue moon needs a head. I've tossed that DVI cable once before because it didn't spark joy (none of my cables do) and lo and behold I needed to give my headless box a head or my wife won't be able to watch her shows.
I had to run way out of my way to purchase a new one. It pissed me off and from then on, the new replacement sparks joy because I know there will come a time where I need it again and having on hand makes me happy.
That those RCA to headphones jacks I don't use? Toss 'em. The 10 different power cords and three dozen HDMI cables of varying length? Toss them on the curb! But that DVI cable? I need that, damn it! I learned that that one DVI cable does spark joy because it is right there waiting for that one day when I actually need to head-ify my headless box.
My current big problem is my main hobby is electronics and tinkering with meatspace stuff, which is a hobby that can easily encourage hanging on to every motor, weird wire and other bits and bobs "just in case". Every new purchase comes in bulk so you wind up with a three hundred pack of shrink wrap tubing, or 1000 assorted resistors. I'm still not entirely sure how to deal with that. Especially since life has interfered in a good way I've had to temporarily shelf the hobby for a few years.
One thing that I've done in these situations is keep all the accessories with the thing that needs it. For example, I have a small box attached to the inside of my home theater PC. Inside the box are various cables I might need for repair, small screw driver set, etc. Sure, I could probably use those cables or that screw driver set elsewhere, but in my mind they just become part of the PC, rather than objects in some drawer I need to go find.
It's calculated to resonate with her target audience, sure. It seems silly to dismiss that as cynical marketing. As long as you're not attempting to harm people or get them to act against their interests, choosing words that appeal to your audience is just good design.
I think she knows her audience and is very savvy in using these terms because as you say they "resonate". So, I think she's making the right business decision to use the terminology. I'm saying personally I'd use different terminology to qualify things to keep/not keep.
