Marie Kondo, The KonMari Method, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up. There’s an incredibly good chance you’ve heard about it, and, if you know me in real life, there’s a 100% chance I’ve talked about it (shoutout to everyone I’ve gotten involved!). A lot. It’s one of my favourite books ever, and it’s not even a joke when I say it’s (figuratively) on my shelf next to my scriptures.
Since I do spread the good word about this life-changing magic, I thought I’d share my KonMari journey here with you, as well as why I love it so much.
The year is 2016. I’ve just discovered I’m pregnant, and my mom’s bookclub is reading this book. It sounds right tup my alley—as I’ve started writing lists of things I want to buy so I don’t deviate—and I buy a copy.
BACK STORY:
At 16, unprompted (not sure what got me going), I decluttered my room many times from various categories. At 16, I already valued having less, and my OCD tendencies love less to tidy, and having only stuff I really like around. My mom is surprised I got rid of so much.
Same year, my family moves my grandparents from their home of 40 years to a smaller one. I am very involved in the process, and am shocked at the sheer amount of stuff in cabinets, drawers, and the basement, tucked away. It takes, seemingly, forever to sort through it all. Lots does not make the cut. I wonder why they held on to so much (probably from growing up in the depression era). The length of time, and emotional overwhelmingness of the process are seared into my brain.
I loved The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up immediately, relating to much of the Marie’s frustrations with organization. I am excited to start the process, but read it through first. Then I start tidying.
At the time, I had many, many more clothes than now (though I’ve always had less than almost all of my roommates at college)—especially ‘second tier’ clothes. These were, usually tops, that I thought looked good on me, but I still didn’t love. I’d wear them out, if I had to hurry, or would get sweaty, and then change into something I liked better afterwards. Let’s pause: I wore a lot of clothes that I only wore to sweat in.
So, I removed all the clothes from my closet to judge them. Since I was pregnant, and would be pregnant/freshly postpartum in the Fall, I looked at my cold weather clothes, especially and asked myself: Are you excited to wear this in 2 years?
If the answer was no, out it went. The result was a closet that was no longer at least (AT LEAST) 1/3 junk clothes to wear out, or old-time-to-dump clothes for lounging.
The books were easy enough, as we want to build a home library, so I just tossed those that I wouldn’t re-read, or really recommend.
Papers meant sorting through a rubbermaid full of school notes, project ideas, and scripts. And the best part? Turns out that one time the cat got locked in the room where the bin was, she’d peed on everything. So, I had to re-print everything I wanted to keep…and we didn’t own printer. Fun! It was daunting, and took hours, but, at the end, I felt a huge weight gone now that I didn’t have a huge bin of miscellaneous papers!
I finished up the process within a couple of months, and felt g r e a t. So great that I did it again a year later.
More clothes came out, and I discovered my feet had grown, so out went a bunch of shoes, too. More books, and more komono. And, this time, I got my husband to do it! He was reluctant at first, but loves a tidy home, and not having too much to worry about, so I think he was pretty happy with the results…because he did it again when I KonMari’d a THIRD time just before moving.
The third time was mostly komono, especially kitchen items. Unfortunately, I didn’t get all the way through komomo before we moved into our house, though I think I got to all the categories after we moved (maybe?)
Due to this lack of closure, and Marie Kondo’s new Netflix show (!), I’ve decided to KonMari a 4th time to get a more final feeling.
I know I won’t have much to get rid of this time, but I want to do it all at once, instead of with a move in the middle.
This method of tidying is, to me, the pinnacle of tidying methods because:
- It’s shocking to see all you have laid out at once, and I think that really sticks with you
- Doing it all at once shows you how much you really don’t want to deal with having a bunch of excess stuff
- It’s super customizable. Two people following her method exactly could end up with very different houses: once could be stark minimalist, and another could be filled with trinkets.
- It allows you to pare down where you need to, but keep as much of what you love as brings you joy
- It doesn’t give numbers (“You only need 4 forks”)
- It’s gratitude-centric. Marie is bit quirky, and it definitely goes beyond me at times. But I really do believe gratitude for the things that make up your life is the difference between a joyful person, and a cynic one
- It’s anti-consumerism culture. With a focus on only what brings you joy, you learn the high of buying is nothing compared to the omnipresent happiness of truly loving what you have, and nothing more
- It really works. I’ve seen it in multiple friends’ lives, as well as my own. The first time is always the craziest, the second, I feel, really hones it in. Anything after that is just very mild maintenance.
So many good reasons to implement this method into your life.
Since it’s become quite the phenomenon, perhaps you’ve been watching her new show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. If it’s inspired you to give the method a go, or maybe do a round 2, I say go for it! New year, new goals.
In fact, why don’t we do it together? Over the next several weeks, I’ll be posting on Saturdays every week to go over a category from The Life-Changing Magic. I’ll show you how I’m doing it, and it can be an accountability thing; plus you can see what my previous tidying sessions over the years has left me with.
What do you say? Are you with me? Let’s do it! By the book. I promise, a joyful home will be the result!
And don’t forget to check out Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, now streaming on Netflix!
If you’re interested in following along, you can see the categories here:
Part 1 – Clothes Part 2 – Books Part 3 – Papers Part 4 – Komono
