There’s something about an organized space that’s more than just how it looks.
It’s crisp. It’s delicate. It’s intentional.
If you’ve ever stepped inside a room and seen objects thrown astray, then you’ll understand that it’s much more about a physical look of clutter and disorder. There’s an energy about it that feels… unattended. Uncared for. Forgotten and set aside.
As natural creators, human beings need a space and tools in their creative toolshed that fits their everyday lifestyle, complementing their most creative quirks and guiding them into creative freedom. A free-flowing studio to easily write music in. A graceful space to whip up beautiful herbal creations in their at-home apothecary.
If you’ve been struggling with keeping your space in order, then it’s time to set aside a few days and dive into the KonMari method— a groundbreaking mindset and procedure created by Marie Kondo and used for organized and intentional living, transforming your relationship with objects and consciousness that both enter and exit your life.
Firstly, what is the KonMari Method?
The KonMari Method was developed by Marie Kondo to shift the way you look at items and your living space. Instead of encouraging traditional organizing hacks found in magazines like “going one room at a time” or getting rid of 3 things after purchasing 3 things, Marie Kondo roots her process through 1 simple rule:
Keep items that spark joy.
This ideal is another fundamental differentiator of other organizing methods— instead of choosing what to get rid of, you’re choosing what to keep, and when you do get rid of things, you’re thanking them for being a part of your life and teaching you what you love and what you need to set free.
Unlike so many other techniques, Marie Kondo brings a beautiful and mindful touch to the art of organizing. Instead of haphazardly gathering your things and jamming them into a donations bag, you’re forced to intentionally take each and every item, hold it to your heart, and decide for yourself whether it sparks joy for you before making a decision.
Why KonMarie is the best way to organize
As proponents and users of the KonMari Method ourselves, we’ve seen the immense way it’s shifted the physical and energetic dynamic of a room and a home as a whole. The KonMari method is the best way to tackle organization because…
You’re unlocking the root cause of your clutter.
Part of “The Magic of Tidying Up” is that, if done properly, you only ever have to do this once. After that, your home will stay organized.
Gone are the spring cleanings, the organizing days, the “let’s clean the ‘everything’ drawer in the kitchen” days. With the KonMarie Method, you’re taking each and every piece of your home, holding it to your heart, and deciding whether it still holds a place for your joy or whether it’s fulfilled its purpose.
Through the process, you’ll begin to uncover the places you really tend to hold onto “stuff”, the types of “stuff” you tend to hold into, and how to let them go with love so you can make space for the things or experiences that vibrate closer to your heart.
You’re learning to honor and respect your dwellings (and see your things honor and respect you right back).
There’s a sense of intentionality that comes with holding everything in your hand and making a decision on its fate, and when going through Marie’s second book, Spark Joy, you learn even more about how the practice of folding, placing, and organizing products KonMarie style gives your things more life, vibrancy, and respect.
You’ll notice items sit and live differently when they’re taken care of and touched with mindfulness and love. Through the process, you’ll learn to shift the way you handle and organize your items as a whole, transforming your entire abode into a space filled with objects reflecting honor and respect back at you.
You’re establishing new habits in purchasing and storing products.
Once you’ve gone through the KonMari process, you’ll find that the method also provides you with shopping convenience. With a newfound familiarity with determining what sparks joy for you, you’ll be able to distinguish what purchases will truly bring joy to your space, and which ones aren’t necessary.
Through this, you’ll also understand how to better organize when you do add more items to your home, and uncover some great ideas when expanding your storage needs.
5 steps to organizing using the Marie Kondo method
Now, onto our steps to getting and staying organized!
Step 1: Read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
To first understand the concept of the KonMari Method, start with Marie’s first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to give you a full overview on how to organize any space with Marie’s process. If you’re an audiobook fan, consider purchasing the book as well so you can easily refer back to the processes and chapters once you start the actual process. But for now, read it over once to become familiar with the methods, get some great tips on organizing, and of course, understand the method broken down.
Step 2: Read Spark Joy.
For some, the question of whether something “sparks joy” isn’t a simple yes or no answer. For us, it wasn’t as clear as we needed it to be even after reading the first book. So follow up your first reading with Spark Joy by Marie Kondo, which digs into the concept of what sparking joy really means within the KonMari Method.
If you’re still unclear about what sparking joy really is, it’ll be much more difficult to get into the tidying process, so we highly recommend reading this book in full before starting your journey. By reading this before starting your tidying-up journey, you’ll be more confident about what “joy” truly means and how you can make these simple, primal, and ultimately life-changing decisions by answering this incremental, simple question, making the organizing process that much easier.
Step 3: KonMari your home on an early Saturday morning.
Now that you’re familiar with the method, allow a few days for your Marie Kondo-ing to ensue! It’s suggested to get your organizing done all within a day so you don’t drag anything on, but if you happen to have a lot of things and need to take more than one, you’ll have the weekend to do it just in case you need some buffer time.
By organizing on Saturday morning, you’ll have Friday night to prepare anything you need to in your home for a serene tidying experience, and all of Sunday to finish up the process or accompany your tidying with house cleaning or cleansing.
Step 4: Find a place that takes your donations.
After you’ve followed your tidying-up protocol based on your book, you’ll have two piles: a throwaway pile, and a donate pile. Find a place near you or online that will take clothing donations, including:
- Habitat for Humanity Restore
- Goodwill
- Local thrift store
- ThredUp
Remember that during your cleaning process, you will have thanked each and every item you’re letting go for coming into your life and giving them another chance to spark joy in someone else. Giving your items every chance they can have to help someone else will do good for your community, and increase your karmic energy to boot.
Step 5: Pay mind to the way you touch and treat things before and after the organizing process.
Your KonMari experience should awaken a lot of things in you, including the way you touched and treated things before your organizing process and how you do in your newly organized space.
The intentions and treatment you had before will tell you a lot about how you treated other things in life. Consider why you were shoving clothes into the corner of your coat closet, why you dreaded the sorting process when finishing laundry, or why you tended to shove all your underwear in your lower cabinet to be forgotten about.
The need for us to shove, stack, and overstuff things in our homes simply reflects an even bigger urge to do these things in our overall life: shoving away memories, stacking tasks to do “later,” and overstuffing events to try to achieve more.
After your organizing project is complete, note the difference between how you touched and treated objects before instilling these Marie Kondo organizing systems and after.
Here are some things to think about:
Other than your papers in your trash drawer, what other things in your life do you tend to “shove in a corner” that you now want to address?
Is it finances, being tax-responsible, or purchasing plane tickets that you’ve been putting off?
Other than the laundry that you let pile up, what else in your life do you let pile up, and get more overwhelmed the higher it gets?
Is it something you’ve been wanting to say at work, a conversation you’ve had to have with your mother or an experience that you’ve needed to be open about?
Other than being afraid of removing items from your home, what else are you afraid of removing from your life?
Is it toxic people, an unhealthy relationship, or a job that no longer aligns with your values?
Key considerations for tidying up your home
Before, during, and after your home organization project using the KonMarie Method, ask yourself a few questions to stay aligned and in tune with the process:
- How is your physical tidying helping you tackle the energetic organizing of your thoughts, relationships, and triggers?
- What category has been the biggest challenge for you?
- How is having a new space that’s free-flowing helpful for you on a daily basis?
How to take KonMari a step further
Now that your home is tidy and you have a new intention and attitude towards your things, consider the mindfulness you now have when you touch and use your belongings.
See how your treatment of your items reflects in your treatment of your relationships.
If your friends or family members were items in your home, would you slam them around, throw them to the corner, or shove them to the back of a closet all balled up?
See how your home organizational project can reflect outside of your home.
From your office, your studio, your garden, your storage space or unit, or your car.
Find pretty bins to replace the cardboard and plastic bins with once your organization is complete.
Marie mentions this in Spark Joy, so you can constantly be surrounded by things that make you happy, and so you’re closer to more organic materials… all without the pressure of purchasing totally new storage solutions before you’re even done with the process.
Wrapping up KonMari ?
Marie Kondo’s organizational process is unlike many– it helps you be completely mindful about each and everything you have in your home, and braids in a spiritual element into a happy organizing experience.
Sometimes, even addressing one space in your home that you constantly try to gloss over (an overfilled bedroom closet, piling up office supplies shoved in a hall closet, that one drawer that just never seems to stay neat) can feel overwhelming. But, based on our personal experience with the simple steps of the Marie Kondo method, there is no better way to create an organized home that allows for more space, character, and inspiration.
