Released in 2014, the book entitled The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, a New York Times bestseller, was published. Since its release, the book has taken world by storm. In 2019, Netflix released the series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo where she shares her konmari cleaning process with various families in the states to help transform their lives using her konmari process.

The konmari method will transform what you think you know about decluttering. We are used to the typical advice of decluttering your home:   to clean by room or doing a little bit each day. Wait until the spring to declutter for the annual spring clean affect. Turn your hangers around every time you wear an item. After six months, if the hanger hasn’t turned around on your clothes, then its time to get rid of it.

 But so often we still end up with junk. Closets too full. Drawers overstuffed with items you haven’t looked at in months. Papers overflowing on shelves and work areas. It can be so overwhelming to constantly have to deal with disorganization from day to day. It affects your productivity and increases the time it takes you to get ready in the morning.

The main difference that I observed with the konmari method of decluttering is that Marie Kondo suggests doing a big declutter all at once in categories and not just by room in order to allow yourself to see all of the items that you have. You can have items of multiples categories in different rooms of your house. If you do a big tidying up event all at once, you won’t have to continually repeat this process over and over. Many of the clients that she works with end up not regressing to their previous disorganized lifestyle after they’ve followed the konmari process.

Now that you have more of a background for the konmari process, now you will learn the pre-work that you need to do before you start the process.

Pre-work Process

Visualize the life that you want to live and identify the why. Kondo states that it is important to think in concrete terms “so that you can vividly picture what it would be like to live in a clutter-free home”. Identifying the why of the konmari process that you’re about to do is important because ultimately you want to be able to achieve joy, happiness, and fulfillment in your life not only at home but in other areas in your life as well.

Now that you have the why figured out, then you learn about the right order of tidying.

The proper categories for decluttering are the following:

1. Clothes ,

2. Books,

3. Papers,

4. Komono (miscellaneous) and last

5. Mementos (things with sentimental value)

 This specific order is best in the terms of scaling difficulty: from easiest to most difficult.  This specific order helps to hone your decision-making process. The further you go through each category, the easier it will be to determine what items sparks joy in your life. So

DON’T GO OUT OF ORDER!

Additional Tips

The information below is also very important pertinent information relating to the konmari process:

1. Don’t let your family see the items that you’re getting rid of. Sometimes your family can influence your decision making process and convince you to keep items that aren’t sparking joy.
2. Don’t push off the items that you don’t want to your family.
3. Don’t try to force your family into this process and don’t secretly discard their items. Doing this would destroy trust with your family. The individual must be ready themselves to go through the process; it can’t be forced by someone else.
4. The items of clothes that you are unsure of keeping should not be put in the loungewear category.
5. Don’t start putting items back in their drawers/closet until AFTER the tidying process is complete.

 And remember, to truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.

In part two, you will learn how to konmari the five main categories and the benefits from the process.

What is your vision and why do you want to go through this process?