A few years ago, I was feeling lost and purpose-less. Marie Kondo in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up promised that if I got rid of all the things in my house that brought me down, I would find my calling.

It took me several read-throughs and a few months of debating, but eventually I decided to dive in. I held every piece in my closets and, if it sparked a feeling of joy or lightness, it stayed. Everything else—out the door. I ended up giving away trash bags of clothing and skyscrapers of books. I tossed filing cabinets of papers and dumped carloads of old electronics.

Kondo claims that that decluttering is a spiritual act. Things have an emotional charge. Keeping a bunch of stuff in your space that evokes guilt, dread, embarrassment, boredom, or exhaustion will drag you down and muddy your mind and spirit.

I did find my new mission—at the time, organizing a neighborhood community—and I started applying the ‘spark joy’ method to other areas of my life. Sorting through thousands of emails exhausted me, so instead of deleting, I just flagged the important ones.

The task of going through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of photos to make our annual Christmas photo book made me dread the holiday. So I started hearting the best photos of every batch I took. Come Christmas, instead of wading through oceans of mediocre ones, all I had to do was make an album with the favorites.

I tried the same approach with my book. The draft I printed out depressed me. So instead of figuring out what to cross out—spending energy on the disappointing parts—I highlighted in pink the parts I loved.

Focusing on what excites me is helping me slog through a shitty first draft. Instead of reworking the dead parts, I’m taking what’s alive to create something new.