The KonMari method is perhaps one of the most over-blogged about topics. However, I am a bit late in jumping on the KonMari train. The KonMari method is a way of cleaning out and organizing your home so that you can keep it tidy forever.
I have blogged in the past about getting rid of items and cleaning out my old things. I really do prefer to have a neat and organized space. Since getting married and having a baby while also working full time, it has been much harder for me to keep our 525 square foot apartment picked up and organized. No matter how often I "pick up", the apartment is always in a state of disarray by the next weekend.
Why can't I keep a tidy home?
After reading many blog posts and watching YouTube videos about the KonMari method, I finally listened to her book a couple of weeks ago. The book made everything much more clear to me than any of the posts or videos. It put me at ease about what it takes to clean house and keep a tidy home. If you feel that your personal space is much too crowded and messy, I would definitely recommend her book. The audio version was less than 5 hours long and it is well worth the time.
Here is the main reason you can't keep a tidy home: you have too much stuff.
It doesn't matter how many organization tools you buy or how many closets you have. If you can't keep your house tidy you probably have way too much stuff. It's not always even easy to remember how things entered our home, either. Party favors, hand-me-downs, shopping sprees, gifts... the list goes on. It doesn't really matter how the stuff got there, though. What matters is what you do with it now.
The KonMari method only has two steps and the first one is to get rid of the excess (anything that does not bring you joy or that you do not have to use on a regular basis). Once you get rid of the excess, then you can figure out where to put everything. When everything has a place to go, the home can remain tidy.
Marie Kondo (the author of the book) wants you to go by category, not geographic space, when cleaning things out since we often keep things going in the same category in two or more rooms. The first category is clothes and the categories get progressively more difficult from there. The last category is memorabilia as that is the most difficult and emotional area of our lives to let out. However, the momentum and practice in the other categories is supposed to help with that last step. This blog post illustrates the categories for you which helped me a lot since I listened to the book via audio instead of getting a hard copy.
I have started with clothes, the first category. I am almost finished with this one -- just have to go through bags. If you clicked on my old posts that I linked to above, I had almost 50 bags a few years ago. Now, I have about five, but I still feel like it is too much since I don't use and love them all. So, I am currently deciding which ones to let go of.
Of the rest of my clothes... I took four trash bags of clothes to Goodwill and took one trash bag to the actual dumpster (the clothes inside this bag were too old or worn out to donate). I went from eight scarves to three. I only had ten pairs of shoes but have further narrowed that down to just seven. I am also throwing away or giving away at least half of my jewelry and accessories.
Of the rest of my clothes... I took four trash bags of clothes to Goodwill and took one trash bag to the actual dumpster (the clothes inside this bag were too old or worn out to donate). I went from eight scarves to three. I only had ten pairs of shoes but have further narrowed that down to just seven. I am also throwing away or giving away at least half of my jewelry and accessories.
I already feel more free and organized in this area of my life. I need to grab a few replacement clothing items, but I will be much more careful about what I bring into my closet going forward.
Books are next on the list for me. Although I already got rid of about 20 books of my already limited library last year, I still have about 40-50 left. This will be a tough category, but I look forward to making progress toward my ultimate goal: having and keeping a tidy home.
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