Tidying Up Your Home in 5 Easy Steps

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My husband discovered the book ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ by Marie Kondo last year in a bookstore while waiting for me to finish shopping. He sat down to see what it was all about and ended up purchasing it because he found it so interesting. He was hooked immediately and was excited to get home and try this method of tidying up our home.

I must admit, I was a little apprehensive of what was to come. When we started decluttering, we started with our books as we thought this would be the most difficult of the categories and we wanted to get it over with.

Using Marie’s method, we pulled all our books off the bookshelf and laid them on our office floor (which I thought was crazy!). Once we had all our books from our bookshelves and all over the house, we held each book individually and asked the question, ‘Does this bring us any joy?’. Surprisingly, asking this one question made discarding our books very easy. By the end of the process, we had 134 BOOKS that we were ready to discard. Pretty amazing right??

Over the next few weeks, we managed to go through each category listed below and declutter and tidy up our entire house. By the end, our house was full of items that brought us joy.

Now it’s your turn…are you ready? I’ve listed 5 simple steps that you can do today to start decluttering and tidying up your home.

1. START BY DISCARDING FIRST

There is no point in organizing your clutter. Make sure you go through and remove the stuff you no longer need FIRST, then organize after.

2. TIDY IN THE RIGHT ORDER, FOCUSING ON ONE CATEGORY AT A TIME

Marie Kondo’s suggests the following order:

Clothing – tops, bottoms, clothes that should be hung, socks, underwear, bags, accessories, clothes for specific events, shoes
Books – general, practical, visual, magazines
Papers – lecture materials, credit card statements, warranties for electrical appliances, greeting cards, used checkbooks, pay slips
Miscellaneous (Komono) – CD’s/DVD’s, skincare products, makeup, accessories, valuables (passports and credit cards), electrical equipment and appliances, household equipment and supplies, kitchen goods/food supplies and other.
Sentimental – keepsakes from children, photographs, memories, etc…

Go through all your things as quickly as possible – this is key!

3. GATHER ALL YOUR ITEMS IN ONE AREA

In order to sort efficiently, pull all your clothing out of the closet or take your books off the shelves.

You need to locate ALL THE ITEMS in the category you are working with so you can visually see all the stuff you have (they may be scattered throughout the house).

Once you have gathered everything, sort these categories into subcategories. For example with clothing you would have all your tops in one pile, your bottoms in another and so on.

4. DOES THIS ITEM BRING YOU JOY?

Using the KonMari Method, hold each item in your hand and ask “does this bring me joy?”

If you are excited to wear that item or read that book and you can passionately express to someone why you need this item, then keep it.

If this is a difficult process, start by selecting an item that you know brings you joy. This should make the process a bit easier and you will eventually get into the groove of things.

5. DISCARD & ORGANIZE

Once you have decided which items you do not want anymore, make sure you remove them from your home IMMEDIATELY.

I made the mistake of keeping a bunch of clothing in my throw away pile around the house for a few weeks. I wasn’t ready to let go and then I started rummaging through the pile to look at what I actually was getting rid of. In the end, I did get rid of everything, but it was a huge mistake holding onto things I knew I was throwing out.

You can sell these items online to make a bit of money or donate them to a local charity or thrift shop. For me, it was just easier to donate them and that way I could get rid of everything at once.

And there you have it! I strongly recommend picking up a copy of the book as she has so many great stories on tidying up your home using Marie Kondo’s technique. Click on the link to purchase your own copy from Amazon today. Happy tidying!