Have you ever been in the situation, when you should have left home already 10 minutes ago but right now you are running around like a headless chicken desperately trying to find a stocking (a sock, a glove, an earring, take your pick)? The house is on fire. Your mental alarm bells start to ring when the stocking suddenly appears in a place like … kitchen table? How come? I swear it would be easier to enforce telepathy than to keep all your stockings (socks, gloves) organized and always be available there where you left them.
Let’s agree, cleaning is not the most enjoyable way to spend your time at home. However with the magic touch the whole concept of cleaning can be reduced to tidying up. How? Mari Kondo knows.
Mari Kondo is organizing consultant and author of New York Times bestseller “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” based in Tokyo, Japan. Miss Kondo’s got very interested in how to organize things she was 5 and already at the age of 15 was consulting people on how to transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration. she developed a KonMari method for simplifying, organizing, and storing things.
Here are the main points of KonMari method:
1. Tidy in one shot, as quickly, as completely as possible. Tidying up should not be extended for weeks otherwise things will get messed up again quickly. Chose a particular day and set up a deadline for organizing. Call it your special tidying up event.
2. Sort by category, not by location. For example, if you decided to organize your clothes, and pile them up in one spot in the house. Once you see how much clothes you actually have, you can quickly realize which items do you really need and which you can get rid of.
3. Selection criteria: Does it spark joy? Ask yourself whether the thing you are holding makes you happy? How do you feel when you hold it in your hands? Does it impress you? If the answer to all these questions is no, it is probably the time to say good bye.
4. Order of tidying: clothes → books → documents → miscellaneous items → mementos. Things like souvenirs and old photos may distract you from organizing. Focus on one category and concentrate on the feeling of joy. Your feelings get activated by the time you reach your mementos. While everything is already organized, you will have your time with that very special memento thing.
I’ve gotta be honest here, I haven’t read the book of Miss Kondo but for the number of reasons her method is very near to how I like to organize my stuff. This is how my underwear drawer looks like:
Here is how Mari Kondo folds a perfect underwear drawer
Learning of the day: decluttering; Mari Kondo; how to organize
My Daily Learnings 