Spring is the perfect time to organize your residence. Take a page from Marie Kondo’s book and ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?”. The KonMari Method encourages tidying by category – not by location – beginning with clothes, then moving on to books, papers, komono (miscellaneous items), and, finally, sentimental items. Be thoughtful when deciding whether or not to keep or discard a piece of furniture, clothing, or any other possession. Thank them for their service – then let them go. Here are some tips to declutter wardrobes, home offices, kitchens, and bathrooms.

“Your home is your sanctuary – it houses your spark-joy objects and supports you by keeping you safe. Dedicating time to express gratitude for your home is a powerful act that will heighten your sensitivity to joy and remove energy and objects that no longer serve you.” – Marie Kondo

Fall in Love with Your Closet.

Gather every item of clothing from the entire house in one spot. Once you’ve sorted out the things to discard, you can decide where the remaining things should go. Find a home for each belonging and ensure they are returned after each wash or use. Learn the fold and enjoy your clothing looking like fabric origami, ready to line your drawers in neat rows.

“Mess accumulates when clothes are not returned to the closet after they’re tried on, or when worn clothes—not yet in need of washing—are left on the floor,” says Kondo.

Clear Your Kitchen Komono.

Gather all items from the below categories and sort through what you have and what you need. This will help prevent you from buying things you already own but didn’t know you had.

“Try to organize the things in your kitchen into three categories: eating utensils, cooking utensils, and food. Go through each category one by one, and only keep the things that you need and that spark joy. After you’ve selected what to keep, you should store things by category as well, since this will prevent your kitchen from becoming disorganized again,” says Kondo. 

Indulge in a Blissful Bathroom.

Gather all toiletries, organizing them by category, then going through each category to select items that make you happy, and get rid of the ones that don’t. 

“Another tip is to wipe down your countertop after each time it gets wet. When you leave your countertops wet, your bathroom loses that sparkly clean feeling. You can keep a small towel around the countertop and sink so that you can easily wipe it down after use,” says Kondo.

Marie says, “Once you have experienced what your house feels like when it is completely tidy in the true sense of the term, you will never want to return to clutter, and the strength of that feeling will empower you to keep it tidy.”

Create a Productive Home Office.

Get ready to banish books and purge paperwork. Gather all of your books and paperwork from around your house in one place. It really helps you see how much you have of everything. Choose a small bookshelf or area for your beloved books – donate any books that do not fit in your designated space.

Don’t waste your time sorting out the papers you need to keep – discard them. Organize your remaining paperwork in three categories:

 – Need attention: bills to pay, paperwork to submit, forms to sign, etc

 – Are needed for short-term: current tax documents, current warranties, etc

 – Are needed indefinitely: birth certificates, marriage certificates, social security cards, etc

“Make an effort to keep the papers in your ‘needs action’ and ‘short-term projects’ trays to a minimum. When you notice that you’re accumulating quite a few documents in these two categories, this may indicate that you’re not addressing work that needs to be done,” says Kondo.

This article was summarized based on information from Dwell and KonMari.

image credit: Marie Kondo on YouTube

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