Marie Kondo & The KonMari Method
Marie Kondo
Marie Kondo, is a Japanese organisational guru, who had a thriving home-organising business in Japan. She created The KonMari Method, a strategy she developed for organising her clients homes, and wrote about her method in her best-selling book ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’. The KonMari Method condenses home-organisation into three simple steps: discard, organise, and cherish.
The book took the world by storm in 2011, and in 2016 she decided to take her phenomenon worldwide and began training consultants for her home-organising business outside of Japan. I trained with Marie Kondo and her team in London in 2019 and became a certified KonMari consultant shortly after.
The KonMari Method
The KonMari Method is a simple and effective method of organising an entire home. The goal being to surround yourself only with things that truly make you happy.
The overall goal, once the method has been completed in a home, is to have a ‘spark joy’ life. Therefore, the whole premise behind the method is about living a life that sparks joy.
A breakdown of the method
- Be all in! Decide to commit to the process and make a plan to organise your entire home
- Have a vision of your ideal home and life
- Sort by category not location
- Ask does each item bring you joy
- Keep and discard items with gratitude
- Organise
1. Commit to the Process
Setting the intention and making a plan to organise your entire home – and resolving to put in the time and effort required – is the first step. This a chance to reset your entire life. It’s completely transformative, but you need to commit to the process completely, and that means making a plan to tidy all of your belongings over a set period of time.
2. Your Vision
Before we start, I ask clients to visualise how they would like their ideal home to work for them. Your home should support your life right now. This is the very beginning of the process. Think about what your ideal life would look like. Write your vision down on a piece of paper or start a Pinterest or vision board. What kind of space do you need? What items will support your vision? You can keep this really simple or take time to go through your vision thoroughly. Once you have a vision in mind, you can go forward with purpose. The ultimate goal of the KonMari method is to create a living space that not only reflects your values and personal preferences but also supports a positive mindset and a more fulfilling life.
3. Sort by Category not Location
During your sessions I work alongside you and organise by category not by location. People often store the same type of item in more than one place. When you tidy each place separately, you’re repeating the same work in many locations. You can never grasp the overall volume of everything you own and the result is that you become locked in a never-ending cycle of tidying.
There are five categories:
- Clothing
- Books
- Papers
- Komono (all remaining sub-categories)
- Sentimental
By starting with clothes (relatively easy) and ending with sentimental items (challenging), you hone your decision making skills as you go; by the end, choosing what to keep seems simple. The goal is to surround yourself only with things that truly make you happy.
4. Ask does each item bring you joy
In the KonMari Method™, your feelings are the standard for decision making – specifically, knowing what sparks joy. Through the process of selecting only those things that bring you joy, you can identify exactly what you love – and what you need.
5. Keep and discard items with gratitude
When joy checking ask yourself does it bring you joy. If the answer is yes, keep it with gratitude. If not, thank the item for its service and let it go. The goal is to surround yourself only with things that truly make you happy.
6. Organise
After decluttering, we can begin to organize the items you've decided to keep by category. Store similar items together and find a designated place for each category.
The Results
- You are surrounded only by things that make you truly happy
- Your home feels peaceful and calm
- Your home is completely tidy and organsied
- Your home is easy to reset when things get messy
- More space
- More time
- You can find things
- Less stuff
- Less stress
- Less overwhelm
In short, your home just feels much more Zen...
*Zen is a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism that emphasises presence, and direct experience to attain enlightenment and inner peace.
I hope this article was helpful in summarising Marie Kondo and the KonMari method. For a step by step guide to what happens during your in-home session please click here.
Jen x