How To Realistically Marie Kondo Your Life

By now I’m sure we’ve all heard of Marie Kondo. If you haven’t, where have you been? Between all the trending YouTube videos, her series on Netflix, and her book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”,  she’s basically taking over the decluttering game.  Marie Kondos method can be quite intimidating, so, here are some tips on how to realistically Marie Kondo your life.

1.  Instead of taking out all of your clothes and putting them in one pile, start in categories.

A lot of us are going to school or are juggling multiple jobs at one time while also trying to have social lives and not fall apart. Many of us don’t have the time that it takes to take everything out of our wardrobes, place them in a pile on our beds, pick up each and every item to see if it sparks joy and then put everything back in the exact way Marie Kondo suggests.  However,  going through your clothes in categories makes it easier to accomplish this task because it breaks it up into manageable chunks. So let’s say you have an hour to look through your shirts, you’ll most likely get done in that amount of time if you focus on just one section of your wardrobe, and better yet, you’ll have a place to sleep at the end of the night.

2.  Just because something doesn’t spark joy it doesn’t mean that it’s not useful.

My work clothes don’t spark joy, but I need to keep them because I have to wear them to work every day. I can’t toss out things that don’t spark joy simply because they don’t spark joy because they serve a purpose in my life. If you have items in your wardrobe that serve a purpose, or if you have items in your home that serve a purpose, don’t rely solely on the sparks joy concept. I know that’s the essence of Marie Kondos method, but trust me on this. I don’t necessarily feel joy when I grab a pan out of my cupboard but I use it to cook with so I need to keep them,  and odds are you do too.  I also can’t just go out and buy a new pan every time I need to cook or new scrubs every time I need to work, that’s wasteful and irresponsible.

3.  Designate a weekend or certain times every day for a week to tackle this massive task of decluttering.

Playing off of the first tip of Tackling the big categories and subcategories, if you break it up over the course of a few days or if you designate an entire weekend for this one task, you will more likely get through the entire process.  But you need to plan for this. Because decluttering is such an intense and demanding process,  I wouldn’t recommend starting it at midnight or on a whim. I would recommend deciding that you were going to do clutter, and find the time or make the time necessary to get this done.

4.  Don’t expect to not have to do clutter ever again.

Decluttering is a process, much like anything else in life is. Unless you never bring anything new into your home or you are consistently cycling things out when you bring new things in, you may more likely than not have to do this again sometime in the future, whether it’s six months from now or six years from now. Decluttering is a process.

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5. Marie Kondo suggests doing this in silence, but I suggest making it fun.

Put on your favorite podcast or playlist, play YouTube videos of other people decluttering their homes or wardrobes, you’ll thank me for this I promise. When you have things in the background such as music, podcasts, or other people undertaking the same project as you, it acts as a motivation to keep you going. With the amount of time and the amount of stuff that you’re going to be looking at while you’re doing this, it’s very easy to be D motivated and stop doing it, that’s why you need something that will keep you on task and motivated to finish.

 At the end of the day, I thoroughly think Marie Kondo’s recommendations work. I’ve done it. However,  it was overwhelming at times and it took a very long time to finish. I hope these tips can help some of you get through this process of decluttering.

If you have any other tips or suggestions on how to realistically Marie Kondo your life, please leave them in the comments below!

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