January is that month that starts with so much optimism and then crashes halfway through it. The third week of January is considered to be the most depressing day of the year, even nicknamed Blue Monday. I was one of those people in the January funk three years ago when I started watching Netflix’s new series: Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. I’m not understating things when I say that the KonMari method has been life-changing for me. It’s not a winning the lottery and got struck by lightning kind of change, but overall I’ve been happier, my house is cleaner, and I’m better about the stuff I own.
I’d read Kondo’s book before and it had felt unhelpful to me.
I’m the type of person who is innately distrustful of self-help books. The advice in them is usually fluffy and unhelpful or in the case of Eckhart Tolle, repackaged ideas that he passed off as his own. And the first time that I read through The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I could appreciate the earnestness, but I wasn’t in the right mind frame to accept it.
The idea of keeping things that sparked joy was an oversimplification that I wasn’t here for.
But seeing Marie Kondo’s ideas and her KonMari method being put into practice on the television, I was able to buy into the idea. While I still can’t buy into some of her practices and I don’t vocally thank my things, I can’t deny that her methods have breathed new life into how I clean.
Plus, I got rid of four bags of clothes the first time I tried, so there’s that.
My KonMari Meet-Cute
First, some background info. The first time I tried the KonMari method, I lived in a very small apartment. It was a studio apartment that’s less than 37 square meters (or 400 square feet). Everything was very cramped and I was going stir crazy from the lack of space. Beyond that, I had a lot of stuff. I’m a big girl, I can admit that I had way too many things.
My closets were full to bursting. My bookshelves were overflowing. It was a problem.
So in came Netflix with its new series Tidying Up.
While I didn’t take on all of Marie Kondo’s idea, how sweet she is about tidying shines in the show and her gentle encouragement of the homeowners felt like it was directed at me.
Little by little I found myself looking around me and thinking “I can probably do it. If these people with a house full of stuff can do it, I could too.”
The biggest first step was paring down for me. This didn’t mean getting rid of the things I love, but I really just had too much stuff for the apartment. Maybe some of it I could put in storage, but a large majority of the things that I had in my apartment were just there. I would pack them up and move them from one apartment to another, always gaining more things without shedding any of the things that weren’t useful.
This meant that I was still carrying around clothes from high school including a rugby uniform. I had huge amount of books that I might read one day and that I’d picked up for cheap simply because they were cheap. I had things that were in boxes that I’d never even unpacked from my previous move.
Putting the KonMari Method to Work in a Tiny Apartment
In an apartment that was so small, things had to change. While I couldn’t bring myself to be as sweet and sincere as Marie Kondo when it came to thanking my belongings, I took her teachings on making piles to heart. Then I started separating between “functional”, “non-functional”, and “sentimental”.
The rugby jersey and I eventually parted ways, but for now it went into the sentimental pile.
Into the non-functional pile went clothes that were ripped, clothes that I couldn’t fit into for more than two years (and were often out of style), and clothes that were essentially fine as is.
Then I went through the functional pile and started sorting out clothes that were out of style or that I thought I would never wear. It was great that they were in good condition, but why was I filling my closets with them if I’d never wear them again?
I did similar things with my books, my kitchen stuff, and everything else in my apartment.
That didn’t mean I didn’t make mistakes. There were some things that I got rid of and eventually had to buy again. There are still bottles of shampoo that I can’t bring myself to throw out, but by setting rules for myself that felt reasonable, I was able to pare down to two types of objects:
The things I needed in my life and the things that made me happy.
The KonMari Method in a Small House
During the Covid-19 pandemic, I was one of the people who fled the city. I went further than most and moved more than 2 hours from the major city that I worked in and went fully remote. I found a little house in a small town that I fell in love with and at first I thought wow, I have so much space. I’ll never have that problem of too much stuff again.
Maybe it’s the way my mind is wired now, but it didn’t take long for me to start reorganizing. Yes, I have space for my books, but I didn’t have enough shelving for them. I found myself naturally rejecting the junk and clutter for a cleaner look. This doesn’t mean, however, that I went full minimalist and dumped my stuff. Minimalism is not for me. What I did make sure was that my things weren’t cluttered in the way they might have been otherwise. I also took a hard look at paring down the larger collections of things that I have.
The KonMari method is something that works great when you’re organizing, and now I’ll get this itch in the back of my brain when things get too sloppy. It’s not just wanting to clean, but wanting to organize what’s in the room.
The Shortfalls of the KonMari method.
The one problem I have with Tidying Up is that it skips over a lot of the practical aspects of it. I wanted to know what the decluttering in the kitchen looked like. How did they decide about books? It felt even more noticeable the second time I watched it specifically for those practical tips.
Everyone was good about giving into the spirit of what Marie Kondo was trying to show them which is fine, I wasn’t looking for drama from this show, but… what if there’s friction?
What if someone doesn’t want to give away everything or can’t get themselves to part with their 300 jackets? There are legitimate things that can’t be solved by asking if what we have sparks joy, but taking that philosophy and looking around at a room level, this can be useful. Does the room, as it is, spark joy? If not, then how can you change it?
I also only found her folding method moderately useful. Maybe it’s the depth of my cabinets, maybe I’m folding wrong, but it always ends up a little more annoying than I want it to be.
Tidying Up in 4 Steps
For now, I’m picking through my house and here are the things I keep in mind.
- Do I ever use it?
- Do I like having it around (if it’s not something functional)?
- Will I ever use it again (for books, games, etc)?
- How often do I use it?
Forget the joy and find the function. Honestly, once you start decluttering, the joy comes naturally on its own.