Find Joy Through Decluttering

May 13, 2016

How to Truly Tidy Up

You just might need Marie Kondo in your life.

The best-selling author and Time Magazine “influential person” is the now-famous japanese organizing consultant whose little turquoise book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, made decluttering famous and started a movement. Americans quickly found out what Kondo’s other fans around the world already knew: Minimizing your belongings and maximizing the tidiness of your household is a stress-free and rewarding way to live.

TIDY TREND

The zen simplicity of Kondo’s approach appealed to the millions of us who find ourselves burdened by belongings. External clutter, Kondo suggests, can also be a symptom of inner unhappiness, so sorting your entire household’s worth of belongings can also be a way of examining the current state of your life.

The KonMari method, as Kondo calls it, involves just two main steps: first, go through all your belongings and only keep the ones that “spark joy” — things you love to wear, use, or

see in your home. Then reorganize by putting every single item where it’s visible and easy to use. Instead of looking for things to throw out, you’re supposed to identify the things that you want to keep because they make you happy. Kondo then directs her readers to take the other items — the ones you don’t want — and thank them for the role they’ve played in your life before you dispose of them. After that, she believes, the rest falls right into place.

CLUTTER FUNK

Consider Traverse City’s Erin Simon a local version of Kondo. Simon started Clutter Funk late last year.

“I’d been doing this type of thing for friends and family for years,” Simon explained, “I just hadn’t done it professionally yet.” Simon is familiar with Kondo’s book and methods, and has long used many of the same organizing techniques. “I absolutely agree with the ‘spark joy’ philosophy of Marie’s,” Simon said. “I encourage people to not only keep the things they love, but also to use the things that they love. We all have a little of ‘well, I’m just keeping this item to use someday for a special occasion’ in us, but most of the time you should use and surround yourself with things that do make you happy.”

The first thing Simon does upon working with a new client is to talk about purging. Instead of room by room, she helps her clients work through “categories” of things all at once, an approach also mentioned in Kondo’s book.

“You get everything out all at once, such as all of your clothing or all of your tools, and organize all of it,” Simon explained. “Then when you go to reorganize the house as a whole, to find places for everything, you actually know what you have — we’re trying to sustain an organizing system for the long haul, not just make everything pretty for a few days.” Kondo also promotes “folding vertically” — a technique primarily for clothing that involves a special fold and then the storing of everything in neat rows in drawers, instead of in stacks.

“I’ve also done this for years,” Simon said.

“If you yank something from the middle of a pile, everything else falls over. This prevents that, helps you see what you have, and also when you open your drawer and it’s all tidy like that, it inspires you to keep it that way.”

START WITH SAND’S

Denise Harig of Sand’s Castle Organizing in Wolverine takes her organizing service throughout all of northern Michigan. Though she isn’t familiar with Kondo’s book, many of Harig’s decluttering strategies echo Kondo’s mantra.

Harig likes to start with the most “troubled” room in the house or the room that’s used the most. “Start in one spot and just start sorting, putting like things together,” she said. After organizing and purging, Harig helps clients restructure the available space in their house or office to work best with what’s left. “Or, for people who insist on keeping everything, we try to better organize it so that all of their belongings can be found and used,” Harig said.

KONDO YOUR LIFE

Proponents of Kondo’s book find that such tidying methods can be life-changing; you’ll find thousands of testimonials on social media and book review sites. And Kondo’s biggest fans have taken to talking about it in verb form: “Kondo-ing” their spaces. Some rediscover their personal fashion style once they weed out the clothing they never wear. Others, now settled into a super-tidy home, find themselves making more carefully selected, interesting purchases now that they’ve reidentified the value of their personal space.

For more information, visit Marie Kondo’s official website, konmari.com; Erin Simon’s clutterfunk.com; and Denise Harig’s sandscastleorganizing.com.

TOP TIDYING TIPS FROM CLUTTER FUNK

1. Purge! First step is to go through everything and put it into three categories: keep, donate, or recycle.

2. Utilize bins and baskets of all sizes throughout your house for grouping like things together.

3. Color-coordinate, whether it’s a storage bin for each person in the home, or a filing system for important records.

4. Sort your mail the second you bring it in so it doesn’t pile up: put the bills right into a bill file, recycle junk mail, and open up personal correspondence and magazines for reading.

5. Make a tote for each category of things you use most often, like everyday cleaning supplies or tools, and keep it readily accessible.