How to organize your home the Marie Kondo way.
With her bestselling book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and her popular Netflix show, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” the organizing method espoused by Marie Kondo has attracted millions of people who want to take control of their lives by taking control of their possessions. Known as the KonMari method, it encourages you to keep only things that you need or that “spark joy.”
“The best criterion for choosing what to keep and what to discard is whether keeping it will make you happy, whether it will bring you joy,” she writes in her book. “After all, what is the point of tidying? If it’s not so that our space and the things in it can bring us happiness, then I think there is no point at all.”
The first step to Kondo-ing your home or apartment is to imagine what a life free of clutter means to you. Maybe it means entertaining friends and neighbors in your home more often. Or having space for a more creative home life: writing, painting or pursuing a hobby. Perhaps it’s a greater sense of serenity, or a feeling that your home is a place that brings happiness to your life. By imagining your ideal lifestyle, you’re clarifying why you want to tidy your home and how you want to live in it. Marie Kondo walks you through the process in this video on her website.
Tips for decluttering the Kon Mari way.
1. Imagine your ideal lifestyle
2. Tidy by category, not room by room. Start with clothes.
3. Put all items in one category into a pile.
4. Hold each item and ask, “Does it spark joy?” If not, thank the item for its service and discard it.
5. Once the entire category has been sorted, return what’s left to closets, drawers, shelves and boxes.
The order of categories you sort through is arranged so the easy tasks, like sorting clothing, are first. Once you master that and see the impact decluttering your wardrobe has on your home, you get energized and are ready to tackle progressively harder categories: books, papers, komono (miscellaneous items) and, lastly, sentimental items.
Treat your possessions as if they were alive.
It sounds weird, but according to Kondo, possessions are stripped of their dignity when they go unused in your home. It’s better to let them go. She encourages you to respect the items for the use they provide you. This means storing items so they can be seen easily at a glance, and even acknowledging the items with a mental “thank you” before putting them away.
You’ll want the items that you use often to be accessible. And like a bento box lunch, you won’t believe how much you can put in a small space or how beautiful it looks using her methods. To learn how to fold clothes the KonMari way, watch this video.
More decluttering tips for seniors.
For more tips on how to declutter your living space, check out our blog post, Downsizing for Seniors: 10 Tips to Rightsize Your Life. If you’ve already completed the rightsizing process, congratulations! Here are some small-space decorating tips to personalize your home: How to Decorate a Small Senior Apartment.
Interior design the Sedgebrook way.
Our own interior designer and move-in coordinator, Joseph Jania, is an expert source of design advice. He’ll show you how everything fits in your new apartment home and help bring your vision to life. To learn more, watch Joseph’s video.
