How to declutter your home using Marie Kondo’s tips

If you haven’t heard of Marie Kondo’s methods of decluttering your home by now, you have been seriously missing out! Worry not, we have got you covered with this interesting post on tips to organise your home based on Kondo’s unique KonMari decluttering tactics. Before we get into the popular decluttering tips from Marie Kondo, here is a little something about the lady herself.

About Marie Kondo

Marie Kondo is a 34-year-old Japanese lifestyle celebrity. She is the author of four books and a renowned organising consultant known for helping people declutter their homes. Her published works include ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’, a bestseller, published in 41 countries and regions. Her phenomenal success led to her popular Netflix series, ‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’.  

In this amazing Netflix series, Marie visits several houses and assists them in organising their home through her KonMari method. Due to her unique approach and popularity, she has been listed as one of Time’s ‘100 most influential people’ in 2015. Her books have collectively sold millions of copies and been translated from Japanese into several languages including Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Indonesian, French, German, Swedish, Portuguese, and English. Her oh so popular tips and meticulous yet relaxed approach to tidying homes are commonly known as KonMari methods. She has won millions of hearts and developed a huge fan base for her decluttering methods in a short span of time. The Instagram news feed is often flooding with her followers sharing photos of their ‘kondo-ed’ homes.

Popular decluttering tips from Marie Kondo

We all want a clutter-free life. However, keeping just the necessary things and getting rid of all unwanted items is not as easy as it sounds. Despite the challenges, decluttering is important as it is one of the best ways to create a peaceful environment at home.

While it can seem difficult to let go, once it is accomplished, you will feel the most profound feeling of control and well-being ever. But the whole point of decluttering is not to toss stuff that you no longer use or want, but it is to reorganise everything in a more efficient manner.

If you are planning to tidy up your home this weekend, here are some of the most amazing decluttering tips from Marie Kondo based on her bestseller book and popular Netflix show.

Clean by Category not by location:

This is one of the common errors we make. We might want to start with one place, like the bedroom and then move on to other areas. But Marie Kondo’s cleaning methods focus on decluttering one category at a time. Start with clothes, move to books and papers and then finally tackle the other miscellaneous things. She also insists that you need to finish each category before moving on to the next. This way you are investing enough time to address all areas within that category before tackling something new. So, for instance, even if you are focusing on clothes, do the tops first before moving on to pants, undergarments and other things.

Keep the things that spark joy:

From young parents to large families with years of possessions, anyone can easily tidy up their homes with Marie Kondo’s decluttering tips. She acknowledges the importance of memories and emotions and agrees that it can often be difficult to get rid of things that you associate with an important person or event in your life. This is the reason why one of the best decluttering tips from Marie Kondo is to keep the things that bring you joy.

While reorganising your cupboard, if you hold an old dress or shirt in your hands and you feel nostalgia and joy because you remember how good it looked on you, you should keep it. But if it looks old fashioned, has become a little too tight or it never fit right in the first place, it’s probably better to get rid of it.

Don’t keep anything that you don’t love anymore. This is a very helpful tip for those who are seeking to declutter their home. This idea of tidying applies to all households’ items including furniture, books, toys, DVDs, kitchen utensils, shoes, tools and almost anything else in your home.

If you are renting apartments in Dubai that don’t come with a lot of storage space, then it’s important to learn how to declutter using Marie Kondo’s tips.

Fold in an innovative fashion:

Kondo has a specific way of folding T-shirts. The idea is to first fold into a rectangle after which you fold it in thirds, so it looks the less wrinkled once it is ready to wear. This way you can keep your drawer organised and it’s easy to find clothes on the go.

Use boxes:

Tiny boxes might seem unnecessary to many but they can be very useful for organising things at home. According to Marie Kondo’s method, you can utilise these small boxes to organise your accessories and other little knick-knacks. This is particularly helpful to keep items like jewellery, undergarments, sewing accessories and kitchen utensils. If you are struggling to find space to keep your things, check out our other useful storage tips to organise your home more efficiently.

Clear Sentimental Clutter:

Clearing old family photographs and albums can be very emotionally draining. The best way is to get all the photographs you have around the house, select photos in which you look good. This way you can free up a lot of counter space where you could keep other priced possessions too. You can also take out all pictures from the album and organise them according to years. This way, it is easier for you to get rid of pics that look similar or that are from the same day. You can choose the best and eliminate the remaining. This is an important home orgaisation tip that will increase efficiency.

Reduce your Guilt by Thanking your Possessions:

If you own something that belonged to your grandparents and think it would be their disrespectful if you donate or discard their stuff then you are probably thinking wrong. Marie Kondo recommends that you thank them for the services and purpose they have served in the lives of your loved ones. This might sound ridiculous and strange but thanking things can actually reduce your guilt and once you do it you will be surprised at their effectiveness. If things don’t spark joy in your heart it is better to let them go for good. Or else you end up hoarding a lot of things and creating an atmosphere of clutter at home. 

Organise your Books:

This can be very daunting for bibliophiles. But you don’t have to throw away old books for the purpose of clearing clutter if they are books you love. Take out all the books and select which one sparks joy in you. When you touch them do you feel like reading them once again? If yes then it’s a must keep. If not you can easily donate it to a library so someone else can derive joy from the books.

Visualise your space:

The final tip from Marie Kondo is to visualise your ideal clean living environment and work towards that. This will help you stay focussed and give you goals to work towards.

Here we conclude our list of decluttering tips from Marie Kondo. Being organised is a trait of many successful people in the world. These tips will help you create a more organised life which will help you find time for other activities you love.  

Stay tuned to MyBayut for more such interesting tips on home improvement!