How To Organize Your Home Using The Konmari Method

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In this post, I will be showing you how to organize your home using the Konmari method. The reason why I wanted to start this method is that I just felt like, or not felt but I did have WAYYYY too much stuff. My closet was overflowing and I also felt stressed when putting things away because I was running out of places to put them.

Every time I would clean up I would feel like I have to reorganize the same areas time and time and TIME again because things got knocked over, things got back disorganized, and went to being back messy. I will be honest. I can be a pretty messy person, I HATE organizing, and I can be pretty lazy. So if there was a way to do it once and that is it then I am all for it.

I think for many of us this is our everyday way of being. We just organize and reorganize over and over again every few months because that is what we do. But when I heard of the Konmari method for how to organize your home in a permanent way.

I told myself I was going to give it a try. And I mean really give it a try. A FULL all-out method and not just some halfway attempt at her method even though it sounded like a lot of work. It is time-consuming but worth it, being surrounding by things that spark joy and having a fully organized home, and knowing where everything is, is 100% worth it.

Now for those who are not familiar with the Konmari method let me give you a brief rundown on what it is.

Who is Marie Kondo And What Is The Konmari Method

Well, first she has a hit show on Netflix which is what sparked my interest in her in the first place. But she is an organizing queen. She boasts that when you use her method of tidying up that you will never have to tidy up again and no one that has taken her private class has ever returned back to being untidy. Meaning that she has a 100% success rate.

What is the Konmari Method?

The goal of the Konmari Method is to learn how to organize your home in a way that it will stay organized and by getting rid of things that you don’t really use in your house by having a house full of items that spark joy. Now how you do this is that you go by category by category which I will list down below and hold EACH piece of clothing in your hand and ask yourself does this bring me joy? If it does not then you thank the item for serving you well and throw it away.

As you thank your items that you throw away for serving you well, Marie believes in reciprocity. That thanking the items will come back to you in other areas of your life.  The Konmari Method is Marie Kondo’s minimalist-inspired approach to tackling your stuff category-by-category rather than room-by-room (so it is a change from how most of us organize). There are six basic rules to get started:

• Commit yourself to tidy up.
• Imagine your ideal lifestyle.
• Finish discarding first. Before getting rid of items, sincerely thank each item for serving its purpose.
• Tidy by category, not location.
• Follow the right order.
• Ask yourself if it sparks joy.

To determine what makes the cut, Kondo has you start by removing everything out of your closets and drawers (category one), all the books off your shelves (category two), all the paperwork out of your desk, and bins (you get the idea). Once you have a big pile, you’re to go item-by-item and consider if it sparks joy.

The intention of the KonMari method is to end up with a clutter-free home that is better able to bring more joy and prosperity to your life. While tidying, she encourages you to visualize the life you want to live to be less stressed, for example, and what you need to get there. Anything that won’t help on that journey isn’t deserving of your space or you, she says (source).

So not only is this a transformative process with tidying your home but also your life. That being surrounded by positive in your home will yield positive results in your life. As an FYI the 5 categories that Marie Kondo suggest are:

• Clothes
• Books
• Papers
• Komono (a.k.a. Miscellaneous Items)
• Sentimental Items
• She also states that it is important to NOT go out of order even though it is tempting. And since I wanted to yield the results of a super tidy home and life I followed her method almost exact.

How to organize your home with The Konmarie Method before you get started.

Before you even started with this method you need to actually need to read her books which have sold over 6 million copies by the way. I watched a Netflix show on her method and decided to try to go about it myself without knowing the ENTIRE method and it was an utter mess. That is because the show does not fully talk about the process, psychological aspects of her method, and the proper way to go about her method. So please just read the book. I chose to listen to them on audible in my car. (Post contains affiliate links).

Her books:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (click here to buy)

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up) (click here to buy)

Life-Changing Magic: A Journal – Spark Joy Every Day (click here to buy)

Konmari method before ~ My Clothes

The first category is clothing and boy do I have a lot of them. I gave away clothes every few months but no matter what I did I still just had an overflow of clothes. Once I read the book I understood why that was. Often times we hang on to clothes because:

• There is nothing wrong with them and since we feel they are in good condition and we can still wear them, we keep them.

• We just bought them and even though we don’t like the fit or are not crazy about them, we still keep them.

• They were handed down to us and we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings by throwing them away.

• Because we may wear them at some point in our life (even though we have not worn them in forever) so we keep them just in case.

• We transform clothes that we currently don’t wear into and lounge around the house in when really we should just throw them away.

There were so many examples like this in the book that I know I am a victim of that cause me to hang on to clothes I should have probably given away. But the book will teach you to get all of these myths about clothes OUT of your head. Because oftentimes we hang on to clothes just cause not because we are heads over heels in love with them. And we should only be hanging on to clothes we are head over heels in love with.

How to organize your home permanently With The Konmari Method ~ Pull out all your clothes.

Above is a picture of all of my clothes out on the bed in one spot. YOU MUST do this. And as stated in Marie’s book if there is an article of clothing that you leave out during this process, when you come in contact with it, later on, you have to get rid of it even if it sparks joy. She says this to keep you from doing a halfway job by just collecting some of your clothes and not all of them. All your clothes must be one spot.

If you are like me and you have a lot of clothes you may not want to go through the process of gathering them, lifting them, knowing you will have to put them back. But when you have all of your clothes in one spot you realize how many you actually have and how much of it is not needed. Before I would just go through my closet and/or drawers and throw stuff away that I did not want. That is not good enough to put all of your stuff in one spot. Through this process, you will see.

• How many clothes you actually have.
• How many of the same styles of clothes you have.
• How much stuff that was just lost in the back of the closet that you have not seen for an eternity.
• You will also see how much of it you don’t need.

In The Konmari Method Ask Yourself Do they spark joy?

Once you have all your clothes in one spot you literally just go by them one and one and ask yourself does it spark joy? If that is a hard question to ask yourself, imagine when you are wearing it and then ask yourself does it make you happy? Do you like wearing it, is it comfortable, does it make you happy when you put it on? If not, then get rid of it.

There were clothes that I had just worn a week ago, had tags on them, or I felt I would never have gotten rid of but did because when I thought about it they really bring me joy. I just had them because they were in style or nothing was really wrong with them so why throw away good clothes.

According to Marie Kondo hanging on to items for this reason just attracts guilt and that is the feeling that you will carry with you and in your home because that is the type of clothes you have in your closet. And your home should be a positive place to come back to you where you are only surrounded by things that you REALLY want.

Konmari Method ~ Separate and Sort

At this point, you need to separate your clothing. Marie Kondo has her own method that is simpler such as tops and bottoms. But what I came up with was to categorize skirts, shirts, dresses, pants, jeans, and coats. Sorting and storing these items together made things easier for me to find.

Unlike popular belief, you do not want to just have all your clothing in the closet. I was doing this before and it was an epic fail, my closet being overstuffed and clothes getting easily knocked off. What you want to do is to fold most of your clothes using the Konmarie method. And this is one of the main keys in how to organize your home permanently.  Being able to see your clothes and everything else without digging for what you are looking for help keeps everything in place.

Below is a video on how to fold your clothes in the Japanese way. And it is a genius. At first, it was hard, but then it got easier and easier the more I did it. Once you fold your clothing by category, place them in a container more so in a row so you can see what is in the container thus keeping you from rummaging through your clothes when you need to get something. Everything is in plain view so with a glance of the container you know what is in there already. Meaning that you do not have to lift clothes and shuffle them around (messing up your arrangement) to find something as with a traditional folding method.

You can click here to buy the drawers and here that I used for my clothes. But I also ended up using shoe boxes and whatever I had around the house such as plastic containers which work great too. I did not buy enough storage containers because I underestimated the amount of stuff I had. But according to Marie boxes and regular containers are best for storing. You can any box you have around the house it does not matter. And that is what I ended up doing.

Because I sorted clothes, it was very easy to store clothes by likeness (meaning pattern shirts with pattern shirts, and solid shirts with solid shirts) and now everything is super easy to find. If I wanted to wear a white shirt, I know which container to go to and the same for a black and white shirt. And since they are all visible, all I have to do is pluck a little rectangle from the container and go about my business. I know where everything is and I do not have to search for anything. But this type of folding method saves you a bunch of space.

Konmari method after ~ Konmari results

Here are the results of my clothing. Notice that my closet still has space and so that even if I were to get new clothes I have places to put them. Notice at the bottom of my closet is the containers. At first, they were on the top shelves but since I am short it was very hard to reach. With the Konmari method, things must be efficient and me taking boxes from the top every day is a no go AND eventually, it would cause my things to get messed up again so, I place them at the bottom of my closet so all I have to do is reach in and get what I want without having to move around a lot of things.

For my second closet, I put outwear and coats. And I arranged them from heavy coats to light coats. The entire point of this method is so that you have things you love BUT also so that things are easy to get to and go about your business. How many times have you been searching for articles of clothing and messed up your drawers or closet trying to find it? Now, I know if it is cold and I need a heavy jacket to go to the right side of my closet and for a light sweater to go to the left. It really is that simple.

Konmari method before and after ~ Shoes, underwear, handbags, and accessories.

Within the clothing, category is shoes, underwear handbags, accessories, and (I included makeup because I have so much of it). If you do not have a lot of makeup then you can wait until the Komono process to do this.

How To Organize Your Home Using The Konmari Method: Underwear and Accessories

First, you want to pull out all of your underwear and I have A LOT of them. IT WAS INSANE how much underwear I had. And I decided that not all brought me joy, particularly thongs. Every thong that I looked out just made me irritated because they are not comfortable to wear. That is all I thought about as I held them in my hands. And as a result, I got rid of every thong I had. I kept only the underwear that brought me joy and I did not care if they were sexy or not.

Now your sexy underwear may bring you joy so you may hang on to them but not for me. And that is the beauty of this process, keep what makes you happy and that can be different for each person. All of the underwear I had left, I folded each one in the suggested method and put the bras on display. Below are the Konmari results of my underwear drawer.

For my scarfs, tights, and socks, I decided to go with storage that had dividers in them (click here to buy). I just felt it would be easier to stay organized if each of the items had small dividers in them that would keep each item in place and keep them from going all over the place. Below are my results from that.

How To Organize Your Home Using The Konmari Method ~ Shoes and Handbags

As you can see some of my how to organize your home before results were that my handbags and shoes were stuffed at the bottom of the closet in a large tote. As a result, some shoes were smashed and unworn because I did not want to dig to the bottom of the tote to get them and the same with the handbags. Also, I stored handbags in several places.

My smaller and prettier handbags were in my smaller closet and as a result, they were forgotten about and never worn. According to Marie, that is a bad thing. Having the same items stored in different spots keeps you from using them and can also keep clutter. And secondly, she feels that every item deserves to be used for their purpose and not just stuffed away and forgotten about.

Above and Below you can see the Konmari results of both my shoes and handbags because you can see that they must really spark me joy as I still have a lot of them. Which you need to take note. This is not just about throwing things away just because.

As long you love them and they bring you joy wearing them then keep them. BUT most of all this is about how to organize your home AND the most important thing is that having all of them in one spot as you go through them helps you determine what you want to keep, throw away, and how to store them.

Since I have so many shoes that spark joy I settled on this door hanger for my shoes which hold up to 36 pairs (click here to buy). It was super easy to install and I no longer have to dig for my shoes. The second container was a standalone that you can buy here. It was really affordable and served as a place to keep my boots and small handbags. Both are out in the open in my room and I do actually like looking at my shoes hence when I am in my room I feel joy.

How to organize your home ~ Makeup

You can watch my video above to see how I set up this DIY vanity and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel by clicking here.  Technically makeup can go into Komono category but I had so much of it, it is like my second clothes so I decided to go ahead and do it now. You can click here to see how I created this DIY Vanity. Also, to get some of the items:

• Click here to get the desk 
• (Click here to get the cloth drawers
• Unique Home Acrylic Jewelry and Cosmetic Storage Makeup Organizer (Click here to purchase)
• InterDesign Rain Cosmetic Palette Organizer (Click here to purchase)
• Ikee Design Acrylic Jewelry & Cosmetic Storage Display Boxes Two Pieces Set (Click here to purchase)
• BINO 27 Compartment Acrylic Makeup and Jewelry Organizer (Click here to purchase)

You can look at the before pictures above to see how much makeup I actually had. But in reality, my makeup desk was looking a lot more busted then this when I started to organize it. That is because my makeup just got knocked down as I was looking for things and there was just too much of it. So once I finished I probably had half of the makeup that I did before.

As you can see from the Konmari results the after has way fewer drawers on the actual vanity and things are pretty much cleared out. I also categorized most of my makeup from foundation, blush, eyeshadow, highlighters etc. So that I would be able to find things a lot easier when I am doing my makeup.

Another creative idea that Marie Kondo did not tell me but I came up with is that I have clear lipstick containers and I began to store them upside down. In Marie’s book, she says that items will kind of tell you how they want to be stored. I legit feel like that was happening here. It dawned on me that the reason why my vanity was so messy is that I was always looking for a specific color.

Picking up things and setting them down all over my desk as I went through 15 shades of lipstick to find a color I wanted to wear. And so my Konmari results you can see I began to store somethings upside down. That way I can just look at the color and grab what I want instead of reaching in and looking for what I wanted knocking things over in the process.

How To Organize Your Home Using The Konmari Method ~ Final Thoughts

After this process, I gave away about 9 bags of things from just category one and trust me there are more bags to come. And after I was done I felt happier. It is hard to explain, it was like all the stuff that served no purpose was gone and the air was clearer.

But I will warn you, as I was doing this method since you are not organizing room by room, in the beginning, it feels like you are not getting anywhere. Because you just have piles of stuff lying everywhere, and you are just taking out, separating, and putting back up. But as you go through the process exactly like she tells you too things will start to come together. And you are not just storing this as you clean so that you can hurry up. You are actually putting things away where they belong and will stay.

At this point, keeping my house the way it is, is a lot easier because everything is easier to grab, easier to put up, and easier to find. And when I look around my home I literally feel happy because the only things that are left are ones that make me happy.

Every time I go to my underwear drawer I like the way it looks and so I am happy, I love looking at my shoes because looking at them makes me happy, I love sitting at my makeup desk because it too makes me feel happy. Crazy right. I think I was a little skeptical at first and although the process was VERY VERY time consuming (just category 1 took me the entire weekend) it does feel good and the environment in my home seems a lot lighter and fluid.

There is no tote full of stuff hiding away in the back of the closet or stored away underneath the bed. All of the clothes that are left are ones that you use, bring you joy, and avoid just storing things out of sight never to be seen or heard from again.

Because that is what you will do, never see or hear from them again if you are just hiding your things away and not really using them. Plus, Marie talks to items like they have feelings. And I will say, that reading her book it does make you sad when you just stuff things away and never use them or look at them. It’s not fair to your clothes and you are not taking good care of your things.

What I will say from using this method is that I really do think that it is one of the better ways on how to organize your home.  The reason being is because even in those times where stuff gets disorganized (and for me that did happen) it is VERY easy to just put everything away and get organized again taking way less time.  Because you have a place for every single thing that is easy to store away.  And I have found that this method has stood the test of time for me.  So go ahead and try it out and don’t forget to share this post.

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