The World's Best Book Summaries
Papers are essentially any mail or documents that we receive, notes we take in school or outside classes, or manuals and instructions that come with appliances or electronics.
Remember, this category doesn’t include things like love letters or special cards–those are mementos, and go in the last category. And it doesn’t include any books or magazines, but it does include newspapers.
Have too much stuff, and not sure how best to get rid of it? Marie Kondo is a world-renowned expert on tidying, and this book teaches you how to get past the most common barriers preventing you from decluttering. Go through the Konmari method once, and you may find your relationship with things to be changed permanently.
Tidying by category lets us do one kind of work in totality, no matter where the objects are in your space. Plus, most of us have no idea how much stuff we own, so tidying by category is the wake up call we need.
The correct sequence of categories: clothes, books, papers, komono/miscellany, mementos. In each category, gather all the items together at once, discard first, then organize what’s left.
What exactly is Mitote? The concept can be confusing and vague. The outside dream – the world – is full of unpleasantness, drama, violence, fear, war and injustice. Fear and false beliefs control the outside dream. Because we’re integrated strongly into this outside dream, our personal dream is also ruled by fear. The agreements and beliefs we store in our heads stop us from seeing the truth – that justice, beauty, joy, and freedom can be our personal dream This inability to see the truth is a fog of perception the Toltecs called a mitote. The mitote clouds our vision,
The process of surrendering to these outside beliefs is called “the domestication of humans.”
As children, through this domestication process, we’re trained just like dogs. We’re rewarded for doing what Mom and Dad want us to do. We’re punished when we go against the rules. We fear punishment, but moreso we fear being rejected and not being good enough.
The fourth agreement is also a simple concept, but it will allow the other three agreements to become more deeply ingrained and effective. After all, the first three agreements can truly work only if you do your best.
Doing your best frees you from guilt and shame. You feel great about yourself when you’ve given your best effort.
Making assumptions is dangerous because we often have no idea what is really going on in a situation. We fill in the blanks in our minds without enough information, and then we’re pretty convinced we know what’s going on. Spoiler alert: We don’t. We’re prone to mistaken beliefs, and acting on these mistakes will cause more trouble.
The second agreement sounds deceptively simple: “Don’t take anything personally.” But so many of us are sensitive and defensive, primed to ward off the negativity the world throws at us.
No good comes from taking things personally. In fact, it’s a chain reaction of bad.
So you’ve finished discarding the clothes that don’t spark joy for you. Now you have a big pile of clothes to organize and fold.
How does Marie Kondo advocate folding? Here’s our complete guide to folding clothes with the Konmari Method.
From the Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz
Words are incredibly powerful. They can be used for good or to hurt others or ourselves. In this way, we can think of them as Black Magic or White Magic.
Words are like seeds in a fertile human mind: We can plant goodness or fear.