🥟 Marie Kondo helped me quit pot stickers cold turkey

Spent Saturday morning with my lovely wife visiting Pike’s Place market in Seattle, then the evening at the Ed Sheeran Concert for her birthday.

“Perfect” was our first dance song at our wedding, so you could say the evening was pretty perfect.

(other than paying $130 in parking) 😅

Anyways, enjoy today’s Habit Example!

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3 years ago a friend asked me, “Have you heard of Marie Kondo?”

I said “no”, and moved on.

But after 12 more people asked me the same question in under 2 weeks, this mystery now qualified for a Google search.

Turned out she’s a lot of things:

• Best-selling author of 7 books

• One of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2015

• Star of a multi-award-winning Netflix show

But at the core, she’s world famous for just one thing: Tidying.

As in, cleaning up. Organizing. Maintaining a home in order.

But she’s not just famous for doing it - she’s famous for the way she does it.

It’s all about what “sparks joy” for you.

Basically you pick up any item in your house — let’s say a shirt — and you genuinely ask yourself, “does this shirt spark joy for me?”

If it does, keep it.

If it doesn’t, let it go.

And that’s pretty much it.

And honest, it was pretty life changing for me.

As soon as saw her Netflix show, I went through my closet and quickly found a pile of shirts and shorts that honestly didn’t spark joy.

But I realized I’d been hanging on to them for a because either:

• I felt bad giving it away because of who gave it to me

• I felt bad getting rid of something that was still in good shape, even if I didn’t like it much

I realized how silly this was and started making some big-boy decisions about what to let go of.

It was empowering. Even therapeutic.

But a year later, something hit me:

This whole concept of “spark joy” isn’t just about clothes.

It’s about everything.

What personal habits have I been doing on default without ever considering whether it actually sparks joy?

So on a long road trip 2 summers ago I asked my wife:

“What things do we do purely out of habit, that we don’t actually love?

And the most random thing came up:

We both really don’t like pot stickers.

Yet we bought them and ate them a couple times a month.

Why?!

Because that’s what her family did. So naturally our family did too.

Right then and there, we vowed never to waste another dime on pot stickers.

And also to keep the conversation open as we figure out what habits spark joy for us, which ones no longer do, and which ones never did.

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Pick any random habit of yours.

It could be something as pivotal as your exercise routine, or as simple as a meal you often eat (like pot stickers).

Ask yourself, does this habit truly spark joy for me?

If it does, keep it.

If it doesn’t, appreciate it for the good it did for you and choose to let it go of it.

Then decide, what will you replace it with?

Plan to do a self check-in at least annually, but as often as you like to course correct and make sure you’re not wasting time, energy, or thought on something you don’t actually enjoy in the first place.

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(This one was actually my 2-year-old)

Him: “Peace out!”

Me: “Peace out bro!”

Him: “Hey, I’m not a peace out bro!”

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Thanks for reading!

- Kody

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P.S. This took 3 hours to write. It only takes you 3 seconds to share.

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