Can Marie Kondo Spark Joy in Your Home?

Can Marie Kondo Spark Joy in Your Home?

As new year’s resolutions start to fall by the wayside, organising your home may be the one thing that remains firmly on your to-do list for 2019.  Whilst the intention is strong, the application is often yet to begin, so how can you resolve this inaction? Enter, Marie Kondo. Google Marie Kondo and you will find millions of hits. She is a Japanese organising consultant and author of ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ and ‘Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up’. Marie now has her very own Netflix series too, ‘Tidying up with Marie Kondo’, which is a Netflix binge watch sensation.

So, who is Marie Kondo, what is her method and, most importantly, does it work?

Those who watch her cannot deny Marie is entrancing; her manner is delicate and gentle, but her confidence in her method instils motivation and courage in her clients. This helps them to release themselves from the guilt of hoarding personal possessions and take action on reclaiming their home from clutter.

The Marie Kondo Method

There are six rules of tidying when following the Marie Kondo Method:

  1. Commitment: Many of us have already completed this step, made that resolution, written that list.
  2. Imagine your ideal lifestyle: What do you want to achieve by organising your home? What lifestyle do you want to lead? What life do you want to live?
  3. Throw away first: There is a set order that you are told to follow to discard your possessions and with each item you ask the question, “Does this spark joy?”
    • Clothes – Take all your clothes, pile them high on your bed then pick up each item and ask if it sparks joy.
    • Books – Pile them up on the floor then go through them one book at a time.
    • Komono (miscellaneous objects).
    • Sentimental items – Mementoes.
  4. Tidy by category, not room: Store items of the same type, in the same place.
  5. Follow the right order: These are listed above (point 3 – clothes to sentimental items). This is because clothes are easy to sort, but photos and other sentimental mementos are the hardest to sort. Once you reach these items you will have honed your Kondo skills and will be ready to tackle this more difficult category.
  6. Does it spark joy? If it does, keep it! If not, take a moment to thank the item, then set aside to recycle it, take it take it to charity shop or throw it away. Each member of the house will need to make this decision, children included.

    Does it work?

    We challenged Lucy from our marketing team to try it out, and this is how she got on:

    “I have taken the first step on my Kondo journey by tackling my clothes. I am ashamed to say I was shocked to see how many clothes I had once piled up on top of my bed. I followed the steps taking each item and asking ‘does it spark joy? Once I had cleared out the things I no longer wanted or needed, I was left with less than a third of my clothes! After more bags than I care to mention were dropped off at a charity shop, I was ready to start the next step, and this turned out to be my favourite part of the process; folding. Marie Kondo has a patented folding technique – it is a game changer. Once mastered, the folded item of clothing should be able to stand on its own. You then put the items in the drawer vertically, this makes your clothes look so much neater and you can find your favourite jeans without digging to the bottom of the drawer. Nearly three weeks have past and my clothes are still as they should be, and I am now looking forward to tackling the clothes of the rest of my family. I’m just going to watch one more episode  for motivation…

Almanac Editor

Almanac Editor

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