My sister Lucy Cuseo is writing a book on decluttering and organizing. She’s been at it for years and because she is hilariously funny and a great writer; her fan club is waiting eagerly to see it. But the last time we met, she was a bit despondent.

“Look at this,” she said glumly, handing me “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,” by Marie Kondo. “She’s written my book. It’s over.”

As a life-long reader, I know that the last book on any subject will never be written. But when I read Kondo’s little jewel, I understood my sister’s despair. This book really could change your life.

Two million copies sold, just for starters. That’s a lot of people. One of the points of Kondo’s book, however, is how mindlessly we buy things. So perhaps copies sold is not necessarily a meaningful statistic.

Indeed, there are thousands of other organizing books out there. How is Marie Kondo’s different?

Other books see decluttering as a constant battle. In those books, we’re doomed to spend our lives fighting against an ever-rising tide of stuff.

Marie Kondo sees decluttering as a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Other books are about deciding what to get rid of.

Marie Kondo’s is about deciding what to keep.

Quite a difference. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

Kondo does have a peculiar habit of anthropomorphizing her things that may put some people off. For example, she thanks her purse at the end of each day for its service to her. She folds her socks in a respectful, OCD manner that implies they like it better that way.

She also doesn’t have children and seems to live alone in a sea of order. When last heard from, however, she was pregnant. I’m waiting eagerly to see how real life turns out for her.

Yet I can say authoritatively that the “KonMari” method worked for me. Obediently, as instructed, I pulled all my clothes out of cupboards and storage and went through them one by one. Item by item, I asked myself if each one brought me joy. Keeping only what I loved, I discarded ruthlessly.

I moved on to my books. This was harder than I expected it to be, yet strangely more rewarding. I filled dozens of boxes with books that simply did not live up to the stern standards Kondo’s rule imposed. I invited my friends to come and take whatever they wanted and then donated the rest to the public library.

I cleaned the storeroom. I went through the linen closet. I tidied the kitchen drawers. I realized the revolutionary truth that is the foundation of Kondo’s approach: we actually only use the things we love, yet we keep almost everything we’ve ever bought, inherited or been given. Kondo gives you a way to keep only what you really want to. (I won’t tell you what it is. Read the book.)

I did all this months ago but I have waited to write about it because I, like everyone else in the world, have cleaned my house countless times only to find it right back in its usual chaotic state a few weeks — sometimes days — later. This time, months later, I still know where every single thing is and I get a little thrill of pleasure every time I open a drawer and find the scissors exactly where I left them.

The white spaces my decluttering created have stayed white. I have empty shelves in my bookcases. My clothes are in neat, very small stacks. My sock drawer is a work of art. I love looking at all of these spaces. They seem so peaceful and calm, so unlike the frantic, overstuffed ones I used to avert my gaze from.

And just as the title of the book promised, tidying up has changed the rest of my life. Getting rid of the clutter in my house has magically eliminated most of the clutter in my head. Now I find I can focus on the things I really want to do and stop punishing myself for ignoring things I really never cared about in the first place.

If all this sounds dramatic, it’s because it is. But if it doesn’t work for you, don’t worry. Lucy’s book will be finished soon.