The KonMari Method – The life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo

When it comes to decluttering and organizing, any ideas, tools, and resources to get you inspired to take action are most welcome!

In this article, we want to share a very popular book from Marie Kondo:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

We have heard both great and really bad comments about the KonMari method by the Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo. Her book and method sparked a lot of conversations. And we think that conversing and having an opinion is better than being indifferent :).

I took the time to read the book and analyze everything that Marie Kondo shares.

After reading it, I reflected on our own experiences helping hundreds of clients declutter and organize their spaces and have a fresh start in life. I am happy to share my opinion about the KonMari method, the pros, and cons, and how it compares with our method.

I will write all my opinions in orange color for you to know.

It’s going to be interesting… 😉

So let’s dive into the KonMari method:

Success Is 90% Mindset

A dramatic reorganization of your home will cause dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective. It is life transforming. This is so true! We find that physical clutter can prevent you from enjoying your lifestyle to its fullest. Your time and energy may be wasted on unnecessary things. You may also feel distracted and overwhelmed. 

Marie Kondo believes that the lack of organization is not lack of skills but rather lack of awareness and the inability to make tidying a regular habit. She says that the root of the problem lies in the mind. Success is 90 percent dependent on your mindset. Mindset is the most important step! If you are not aware and don’t want to try something different, you won’t be able to move forward. You need to recognise that what you are doing now is not getting the results you want. You need to become aware of why this is happening and then try something different. 

The conclusion is that when you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too.

The secret of success according to Marie Kondo is to start by discarding, then organize your space, thoroughly, completely, in one go. I have heard many people complaining about this. They say that some people can’t get it done all at once. The process needs to happen in one go. The length of that will depend on the project and every specific situation. It could last one week, one month, even years. The secret is to make it a special event, not a routine that happens over and over.

You will get a new start on life. Oh yeah! you totally WILL! We have seen amazing transformations. Check out these client stories if you want to see some before/afters.

You can’t tidy if you never learned how

Marie Kondo believes that the ability to tidy requires training, and it’s not something that we acquire through experience. Many times people have tried their best, and they couldn’t get the job done. This is a skill that you need to learn and practice. It’s ok to ask for help when you feel stuck and can’t move forward.

Food, clothing, and shelter are the most basic human needs. So having a home where we feel comfortable is as important as what we eat and what we wear. Many times we are not aware of the huge impact that our physical surroundings have on our mental health and overall mood.

Before You Start, Visualize Your Destination

What’s the GOAL? What was it that motivated you to tidy in the first place? What do you hope to gain through tidying?

Before you start getting rid of things, take the time to think this through carefully. This means visualizing the ideal lifestyle you dream of. Be specific. Think in concrete terms so that you can vividly picture what it would be like to live in a clutter-free space.

Your next step is to identify “why” you want to live like that. The whole point of both discarding and keeping things is to be happy. Before you start tidying, look at the lifestyle you aspire to and ask yourself, “why do I want to tidy?” When you find the answer, you are ready to move on to the next step: examining what you own.

Having a very compelling reason that motivates you is key to keep you on track during the decluttering process.

This is always the first question we ask our clients: If you could click your fingers and see the space finished, what do you see? What do you love about the space? what do you hate? What activities will you do? How will you feel?

I can’t stress how important this part is! Starting organizing and decluttering without having a clear understanding of your goal and why you are doing it it’s a recipe for disaster. 

Do it in one shot

Marie Kondo encourages you to tidy in one shot rather than doing it little by little. You can dramatically change your mindset, your emotions, your way of thinking and your lifestyle habits.

She believes that by using the right method and concentrate your efforts on eliminating clutter thoroughly and completely within a short span of time, you’ll see instant results that will empower you to keep your space in order ever after.

Tidying is a special event, don’t do it every day. The work of tidying should be completed once and for all within a single period of time. 

From Marie’s experience with private individual lessons, “quickly” means about half a year.

So many people are intimidated by this. Others may think that this will be very overwhelming. From our experience, we can tell you that if you are ready, if you have the right mindset and have a clear understanding of why you are doing this, the rest it’s just a matter of time. And the faster you can get it done the better. 

The majority of our projects that you can see in our videos have been completed in hours! Our average session to transform a space is 5 hours. This is working with two organizers and using our tested system. So this proves that change can happen very quickly if you are ready 🙂 Are you ready?

Aiming for Perfection

Marie recommends aiming for perfection just once. 

The work involved can be broadly divided into two kinds:

• Deciding whether or not to dispose of something.
• Deciding where to put it. 

If you can do these two things, you can achieve perfection. Objects can be counted. All you need to do is look at each item, one at a time, and decide whether or not to keep it and decide where to put it. It’s not hard to tidy perfectly and completely in one fell swoop. In fact, anyone can do it. And if you want to avoid rebound, this is the only way to do it.

Resetting Your Life

Marie says that when your home is uncluttered, you have no choice but to examine your inner state. You are forced to deal with issues because you can see them. There are no more physical distractions (clutter). 

When you start tidying, you will be compelled to reset your life and as a result, your life will start to change.

Tidying is just a tool, not the final destination. The true goal should be to create the lifestyle that you want most once your house has been put in order.

We find this to be so true! Change is scary. The unknown is scary. When you remove all the clutter and the distractions that you used to have, you are opening a whole lot of time and energy that will be available for something else. The scary question for many is: What is that something else? 

It’s ok if you don’t have all the answers yet. This is a process and allowing yourself time to try new things and see how you feel could be the answer for now. There is one thing we know for sure, if you are trying to do this it’s because what you used to do wasn’t giving you the results you wanted. So let’s try something different 🙂

Storage experts are hoarders

Marie says that putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved.

It doesn’t make sense to organize things you don’t need.

Tidying must start with discarding anything we don’t want and need.

We like to say, there are no such things as hoarders, there are people with hoarding tendencies.

Once we go through the process of understanding why we are doing this and having a crystal clear picture of our desired goal, we will have the answers about what to keep and what to let go. This will look different for every individual.

The ultimate goal is not to get rid of things, but to make sure that you feel well about what you keep, and make sure that every item has a home and you can access them easily.

Sort by Category, Not by Location

Marie says that tidying up by location is a fatal mistake. When we tidy each place separately, we fail to see that we’re repeating the same work in many locations and become locked into a vicious circle of tidying. To avoid this, she recommends tidying by category. 

One reason so many of us never succeed at tidying is that we have too much stuff. This excess is caused by our ignorance of how much we actually own. When we disperse storage of a particular item throughout the house and tidy one place at a time, we can never grasp the overall volume and therefore can never finish. To escape this negative spiral, tidy by category, not by place”

If you forgot about what you have, or where it’s located, that means that the system you are using is too complicated. Having different locations for the same category can complicate things.

We always bring up the kindergarten example: How is it possible that when the bell rings, small children are able to put everything away fast, and even have fun doing it? Because it’s simple. They understand where everything goes. There are very clear and defined stations. The drawing station, the puzzle station, the book station, the craft station… so putting things away becomes very easy and convenient. 

There is no such thing as right or wrong system. The system either works or it doesn’t. If you are having issues with clutter and you feel frustration, you need to change the system. Our goal as professional organizers is to help you find the right system for you, not to impose one.

Start by Discarding, All at Once, Intensely and Completely

The secret of success, according to Marie Kondo, is to tidy in one shot, as quickly and completely as possible, and to start by discarding. (Remember that from Marie’s experience with private individual lessons, “quickly” means about half a year)

Tidy in the right order.

Do not even think of putting your things away until you have finished the process of discarding.

Never start organizing without decluttering first. It doesn’t make sense to organize things that you don’t need.

These are the steps of our system:

Step 1: Define your Goals.

Step 2: Declutter.

Step 3: Organize.

Step 4: Beautify.

Step 5: Tweak and Maintain.

Does It Spark Joy?

We should be choosing what we want to keep, not what we want to get rid of.

Take each item in one’s hand and ask: “Does this spark joy?” If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it.

Keep only those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest. By doing this, you can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle.

This is the most popular question from Marie Kondo. Many people like this approach and if it works for them, great! 

We believe that once you have a clear understanding of your goals, why you are doing this, how you want to feel,  and the activities that you want to do, you will then know what belongings will support your desired lifestyle and which ones won’t. The decision-making process will become way easier.

Click here to read 12 questions to help you let go of difficult items. 

How to help others tidy? Start with yourself first!

According to Marie Kondo, the best way to help others tidy is to start quietly working away at disposing of your own excess.

You can leave the communal spaces to the end. The first step is to confront your own stuff.

It may sound incredible, but when someone starts tidying, it sets off a chain reaction.

You cannot help someone else declutter and organize if they don’t want to be helped.

But you can influence them by showing them the benefits of being organized and feeling great. When they see you so happy and energized, they may get curious and ask: What’s going on? This is your opportunity to share with them what you did and why.

Please make sure you don’t judge someone else’s situation. Judging is not helpful at all and will make the other person go to the defensive side. There is always a reason of why the situation got to this point. They may be not aware, they may not know what to do, they may feel embarrassed, they may feel guilty, they may feel that they should know how to do this… It’s really hard to be in a situation like this and it takes a LOT of courage to ask for help. Please don’t waste the opportunity to be helpful.

One Category at a Time

Always think in terms of category, not place.

Dealing with just one category within a single time frame speeds up the tidying process.

Gathering every item in one place is essential to this process because it gives you an accurate grasp of how much you have. You can also compare items that are similar, making it easier to decide whether you want to keep them.

The process of deciding what to keep and what to discard will go much more smoothly if you begin with items that are easier to make decisions about.

The best sequence according to the KonMari Method is:

1. Clothes 
2. Books
3. Papers
4. Miscellany
5. Mementos

You will find very detailed ways on how to deal with each category and the right order in her book. I can write a follow-up blog post about that if you want to learn more. (Leave me a comment below).

We follow a very similar approach. The order may change depending on our client’s emotional attachments. We normally leave paper until the end because it takes a very long time to deal with it and you won’t see a huge visual change.

It’s a great idea to have a “maybe pile” for all those items that are challenging. You can go back to that pile after and make more confident decisions.

About Gifts

They are an expression of love and consideration. Presents are not “things” but a means for conveying someone’s feelings.

Most of these gifts remain unopened or have been used only once. Admit it. They simply don’t suit your taste.

The true purpose of a gift is to be received. 

You don’t need to feel guilty for parting with a gift. Just thank it for the joy it gave you when you first received it.

The person who gave it to you doesn’t want you to use it out of a sense of obligation, or to put it away without using it, only to feel guilty every time you see it.

When you discard or donate it, you do so for the sake of the giver, too.

If you are going through the process of decluttering, it’s very important to share what you are doing with your loved ones. Make sure they understand how hard you are working on solving this problem and ask them to please don’t bring physical gifts.

If they really need to bring you gifts, they can always be in the form of time, presence, food and experiences.

Click here to learn 11 ideas for giving gifts that aren’t things.

Reaching the Just-right Click Point

As you reduce your belongings through the process of tidying, you will come to a point where you suddenly know how much is just right for you.

You will feel it as clearly as if something has clicked inside your head and said, “Ah! This is just the amount I need to live comfortably. This is all I need to be happy. I don’t need anything more.”

The click point differs from one person to another. For a shoe lover, it might be one hundred pairs of shoes, while a book lover might not need anything but books.

As you put your house in order and decrease your possessions, you’ll see what your true values are, what is really important in your life. But don’t focus on reducing, or on efficient storage methods, for that matter. Focus instead on choosing the things that inspire joy and on enjoying life according to your own standards. This is the true pleasure of tidying.

The amount of storage space you have in your room is actually just right.

The real problem is that we have far more than we need or want.

Once you learn to choose your belongings properly, you will be left only with the amount that fits perfectly in the space you currently own.

This is so true! We can’t really explain it logically. Most times, we get started with our session without knowing 100% where it will take us. But magically, things start to flow and the end result is always stunning! for us and for the clients.

A very common comment after our sessions is “I can’t believe everything worked out so perfectly”

We find it’s really important to let things flow. Be present and aware of what’s happening, ask many questions to find out the right answers, and be confident that we will find the “happy balance” between stuff, storage space, and the ideal location for every item.

Following Your Intuition

Following criteria proposed by others and based on their “know-how” will have no lasting effect – unless their criteria happen to match your own standards of what feels right.

Only you can know what kind of environment makes you feel happy. The act of picking up and choosing objects is extremely personal.

We do believe that you are the only one who can find your own recipe to live an extraordinary life. We even wrote a book on the topic. Click here to check it out.

Our job is to ask smart questions to get smart answers that will help you move forward. We will find the way to help you get the results that you want.

Finding a Home for Every Item

The reason every item must have a designated place is that the existence of an item without a home multiplies the changes that your space will become cluttered again.

Without a designated spot, where are you going to put things when you finish using them?

The secret to maintaining an uncluttered room is to pursue ultimate simplicity in storage so that you can tell at a glance how much you have.

Store all items of the same type in the same place and don’t scatter storage space.

There are only two ways of categorizing belongings: by type of item and by person.

If you live with your family, first clearly define separate storage spaces for each family member.

If storage places are spread around, the entire house will become cluttered in no time. To concentrate the belongings of each person in one spot is the most effective way for keeping storage tidy.

Having your own space makes you happy. Once you feel that it belongs to you personally, you want to keep it tidy.

There is no need to buy dividers or any other gadget. You can solve your storage problems with things you already have in the house.

Rather than buying something to make do, for now, wait until you have completed the entire process and then take your time looking for storage items that you really like.

We always recommend not to buy anything before finishing the decluttering process. 95% of the times, you will have everything that you need to organize the space. And if there is something missing, we can then know exactly what we need to store, how, get specific measurements, and then go out and buy the perfect solution for your specific needs.

The Magic of Tidying Transforms Your Life

Put your house in order and discover what you really want to do.

At their core, the things we really like do not change over time. Putting your house in order is a great way to discover what they are.

The magic effect of tidying: letting go is even more important than adding. The lives of those who tidy thoroughly and completely, in a single shot, are without exception dramatically altered.

One of the magical effects of tidying is confidence in your decision-making capacity.

Tidying Is Not Necessary

You won’t die if your house isn’t tidy, and there are many people in the world who really don’t care if they can’t put their house in order. Such people, however, would never pick up this book. You, on the other hand, have been led by fate to read it, and that means you probably have a strong desire to change your current situation, to reset your life, to improve your lifestyle, to gain happiness, to shine. For this very reason, I can guarantee that you will be able to put your house in order. The moment you picked up this book with the intention of tidying, you took the first step. If you have read this far, you know what you need to do next.

I hope this post is helpful and brings value to your life and to your decluttering/organizing journey. If you need more information and resources, make sure to check our blog section, our youtube channel, our courses, and our book.

If you live in our area, you may be able to attend one of our live seminars or even work with us 1 on 1. If you would like to bring us to your city, we would love to explore the idea 🙂 we love travelling. Please contact us here.

What do you think about the Kon Mari Method?