MK Life Tips: Ways to Declutter Your Home

As we transition into a new season, it is a great opportunity to spend some time decluttering your home. Nothing feels better than entering into a new month with a living space that sparks joy! In this blog post, I will take you through Marie Kondo’s tips for decluttering using the KonMari Method. Check them out below:

Discarding by category comes first.

• Categories (in order): Clothes first, then books, papers, komono (miscellany), and lastly, mementos.

• It’s common to tackle clutter by room—take on the office first, the bedroom next. Instead, Kondo’s first rule is to tidy by category—deal with every single one of your books at once, for example, otherwise they’ll continue to creep from room to room, and you’ll never rein in the clutter. She advises beginning with clothing, since it’s the least emotionally loaded of one’s things (books come next, old photographs are much later).

2) Break a category into subcategories as necessary.

• For instance, put all your clothing in piles on the floor in subcategories:

• Tops (shirts, sweaters, etc)

• Bottoms (pants, skirts, etc)

• Clothes that should be hung (jackets, coats, suits, etc)

• Socks

• Underwear

• Bags (handbags, messenger bags, etc)

• Accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc)

• Clothes for specific events (swimsuits, uniforms, etc)

• Shoes

3) Keep only those things that spark joy.

• If “spark joy” doesn’t do it for you, Marie Kondo also uses these words to describe what you should keep: “inspire joy,” “thrill of pleasure,” “speak to your heart,” “moves you,” and “love.”

• Pick things up one by one and decide if it stays. “Japanese word for healing is te-ate, which literally means ‘to apply hands.’”

• Nostalgia is not your friend. Kondo knows what she’s talking about when she insists you put blinders on and focus only on the category of stuff at hand. Read one old letter, and suddenly you’re down a rabbit hole of nostalgia.You may just be procrastinating and hung up on some things: What will I be left with? Will I have anything to wear to work? Will I have to sacrifice beloved things, all for the sake of decluttering?

4) After you’ve finished discarding, organize your space thoroughly and completely.

• In this step, you are just deciding where to put something or where to store it.

• “I have only two rules: store all items of the same type in the same place and don’t scatter storage space.”

5) Do it all in one go.

• “In Japanese, the term is ikki ni, or ‘in one go.’”

• “Ultimate secret of success is this: If you tidy up in one shot, rather than little by little, you can dramatically change your mindset.”

Sources: Medium , One Kings Lane