What I Took from Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up Method. Thinking of trying the KonMari method for organizing your home? Check out my tips!
Marie Kondo’s method of tidying, also known as the KonMari method, has taught me a lot about the way I should be organizing my home. While many of the tips in her method won’t work well for everyone, there are a few things I took from her method that will stick with me for a lifetime. These tips are ones that I will continue to use long after I’ve finished organizing. Here is what I took from the Marie Kondo method.
What I Took from Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up Method
Organizing by category helps you see what you have
Her tip of organizing by category and not by location isn’t just because it forces you to start in a specific spot, but because it forces you to face what you have head-on. By getting everything in one spot, you start to realize how much stuff you have. This will keep you from hanging onto duplicates and allow you to know what you have. She recommends starting with clothes and working toward sentimental items.
Give everything a home
Marie Kondo’s method focuses on the importance of giving everything in your home a place of its own. This is to help you put things back where they belong, and ensure you can find everything you need. By displaying them using the folding method, or putting sentimental items on display, you are giving items homes to avoid your home from getting cluttered.
Save your sentimental items for last
Whether you are thinking about it or not, you will have a tendency to hold onto sentimental items because they mean something to you. Sentimental items make us resurface strong or buried feelings about our stuff. If we save these for last, we can build up momentum and really tackle them. If we reach for these items too soon, it will disrupt all of our progress.
Thank items for leaving your home
This one sounds silly but by thanking the items that will be leaving, you are giving yourself closure. This is crucial for those items you may have been uneasy about getting rid of or that you aren’t sure about. Giving your items closure takes the weight off your shoulders and gives you a sense of joy to be rid of the items that were bringing you sorrow.
Use organization systems you already have
In Marie Kondo’s book, she mentions that you have everything you need to organize your home right in your own home. As you begin to declutter, you may find you need fewer bags, boxes, and decorative storage solutions than you thought. You can repurpose these to hold your items in a new way. If you don’t have any bins or baskets leftover after decluttering, look for ways to use shoe boxes, old shipping boxes, and other bins to hold your items. These work surprisingly well, and you may not even need to change them out later.
The KonMari method has helped me declutter my home, and keep only the items that I love. I hope that by reading my tips, you feel inspired to get your home and your life in order.
Elizabeth Lampman is a coffee-fuelled Mom of 2 girls and lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She enjoys travelling, developing easy recipes, crafting, taking on diy projects, travelling and saving money!