Note: This blog post is a sponsored conversation written by Lynn Smythe, the Founder and Chief Blogger for The Creative Cottage lifestyle blog. The opinions, thoughts, ideas and text are all mine.
Marie Kondo can organize anything within your home or office; she works miracles on cluttered spaces every day. She has a very unique way of viewing the process of decluttering and if you implement her method in your own apartment you could create space and make your place more visually appealing.
For this post we used her as our inspiration and asked the team of Such & Such – an online source of designer homeware, to give us practical tips on how to Marie Kondo your apartment using the KonMari method.
Marie Kondo Equals Joy
Joy is the basis of the Marie Kondo Method. According to her, everything in your home brings you a certain amount of joy or no joy at all. Accepting this to be a reality is the first step in Marie Kondo-ing your apartment. You have to realize that you own items that don’t mean anything to you. This includes everything including paperwork and your sentimental items.
Take Inventory
Think about everything in your apartment. Group similar items together, so that you can visually see the necessity of them. If you are going to do a complete Marie Kondo Makeover of your home, you will need to literally go through everything. This includes furniture, clothing, memorabilia, appliances, anything you can see. Marie Kondo believes that the correct way of taking inventory is as follows.
- Clothing
- Books
- Papers
- Komono
- Sentimental Items
Komono refers to all of the miscellaneous items that cover the surfaces in your apartment and fill up your drawers. Sentimental items include trophies, postcards, letters, and items from special events.
Categorize
When categorizing items place them in piles. Each pile should be full of similar items. There will be multiple items for Kondo’s five categories listed above, think of these as subcategories. If you separate your belongings in this way, choosing items to toss will be a lot easier.
Paperwork is the only category that will be grouped together differently. You will want to organize your paperwork into three categories. If the paper doesn’t fit into one of the following three categories, get rid of it.
- What You Need Now
- What You Need for a Short While
- What You Need Forever
If the Marie Kondo Method focuses on joy, it makes sense that you would categorize everything based on how much joy each item brings you. As I’ve said, each item brings you a different amount of joy, so think of your categorization on a sliding scale. Anything that brings you no joy at all, get rid of. Some items bring you very little joy, so you will need to consider if they are worth keeping. Everything is meant to be visually seen. Consider if you are really going to need more than one of a similar item.
Organize
The words, declutter and organize tend to go hand in hand. You will want to organize things based on their similarity. Go through the entire house one category at a time. This will allow you to compare similar items and have an accurate picture of how much you have of the same item. This is a new way of thinking because many people declutter and organize one room at a time. Organizing things that way will blind you to the immense number of things you actually have.
Marie Kondo also emphasizes changing the way you think about storage. Think vertically and avoid piling things up. Place books on a shelf instead of stacking them. Clothes hanging in a closet are easier seen than the clothes stacked in a drawer. The KonMari Method actually discourages stacking clothing in drawers, it urges you to place them in your drawer vertically instead.
The KonMari Method organizes items by placing them out in the open. There is no need for multiple storage containers, everything you own will be easily seen. That means that there is no reason anything you own should ever get lost.
Cleaning Up
From now on, cleaning up won’t be an endless amount of organization and putting things away. Everything will be easily put away and you can focus on actually cleaning. Reorganize, you should have a massive amount of new space available, see what you can do with it!
As you continue to receive new items, consider the amount of joy they bring you. If they don’t bring you any joy don’t keep them. When purchasing items use the KonMari method. Only spend your money on items that will bring you joy. As your material items build up, repeat the process. Your feelings for your personal items will change over time,
Marie Kondo’s Method will allow you to see your home in a new light. Your home will now be a place that holds everything you love. You’ll never be stressed out about losing something, or not knowing where that important paper was. Every item in your apartment will be a necessity. Each item will give you some amount of joy, making you lead a happier life.
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