I enjoyed the book but agree that it was pretty pedantic and for lots of people that's overkill. That said, I think you missed the two points that I found most useful:

1. When deciding what to keep/discard, keep things that "spark joy in your heart". That is, don't use rules like "If I haven't worn this in X".. The book's explanations around this are pretty helpful. 2. Do the big purge in order of type-of-thing... not room by room. I think the specific order prescribed is something like Clothes, Books, Papers, [I forget, I forget], Keepsakes. Going by type makes it easier to make sound decisions, and the sequence of types warms you up for hard purges (keepsakes, etc) that will otherwise likely hang you up in room #1.

All of that said, I only really got through Clothes, books, and papers... but even just that was massively helpful.