What Most People Get Wrong With Marie Kondo’s Organizing Method: The #1 Way To Start Your KonMari® Tidying Session Right
In the world of organizing, the KonMari Method®, commonly known as the “Spark Joy™” method or Marie Kondo decluttering, is a secret ingredient for many people trying to organize their home and keep it that way.
Marie Kondo, the founder of the method, practiced her organizing method in Japan for many years before coming out with a bestselling book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in 2014. She further developed her method by turning it into a certification program that Organized For Good’s own founder, Erin Mursch, decided to take in its first season in 2016.
Why are we telling you all this?
Because here at Organized For Good, we have not one, but TWO Master Certified KonMari Consultants®, and we feel it’s time to set the record straight about the KonMari Method®
Each Master Certified KonMari Consultant® has worked over 1,500 hours doing Marie Kondo’s method with clients and has completed at least 3 tidying marathons including their own. In all that time, the Organized For Good team has noticed an important shift in clients that majorly affects their organizing process.
Whatever brought you here–
Spark Joy or The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Netflix’s Tidying Up With Marie Kondo
Curiosity
Uncertainty on where to start your home organizing
A KonMari® marathon that went off the rails
A deep rabbit hole
–We want to set the record straight when it comes to this method of home organizing.
That’s why in this blog we’re going over the #1 action you need to take to start your Marie Kondo decluttering journey right.
As we’ve mentioned above, there’s been this shift in the mindset of many clients that we think is causing them to overlook the importance of this step. It’s very simple, yet it’s easy to overlook it because of its seemingly small value.
In order to understand why the #1 action is so important, it helps to better understand the anatomy of a tidying session, because there is a lot going on.
Usually when we work with our clients, we start by asking them about their goals for the space and any visions they have associated with the outcome of their home organizing. Then we work together by category which usually involves a few steps:
Displacement - taking everything from the category OUT and making piles of subcategories
Decisions and Discerning - the client will evaluate each item and decide whether or not the item brings them joy or value.
Temporary or Permanent Storage - we make a temporary or permanent home for all the items the client wants to keep and store according to organizing principles such as being able to see everything at a glance and making pleasant arrangements that spark joy and/or utility.
With each session, we chip away through each of the five major categories (clothes, books, papers, komono/miscellaneous, and sentimental items), sometimes only working on one subcategory (for example, pantry items, which are in the komono category).
Throughout the entire process, we act as a guide for our clients and bring them back to their original goals and visions to make the best decluttering decisions. This process requires a detailed servicing of your space, but the thoroughness ensures that by the end of each category, your space serves your life, too.
While our Marie Kondo-inspired clients focus on the tough decluttering decisions, we take care of the following organizing tasks:
creating labels to keep things straight
taking note of where things have been temporarily displaced
redirecting items based on the decisions being made
keeping bags sorted for items that are going to be donated, recycled, tossed, etc.
taking care of minor side tasks (such as refolding or hanging clothes as the session progresses)
observing quality issues that may affect the decisions of the client (identifying stains, tears, broken pieces, etc.)
holding the client accountable for thoroughly processing all items (so nothing gets lost in the mix or left out by mistake)
And while we take care of these side-tasks, we may also be guiding the client through a tough decision using our consultant expertise in Marie Kondo’s method.
If a KonMari® tidying session sounds like a lot, we won’t lie–it is!
Not only does a tidying session involve all these moving pieces, there’s a major emotional component as well. Often as people tidy their belongings, emotions come up and must also be confronted. It’s such an individual process and no two sessions are alike. We have mastered our abilities to ebb and flow according to how individuals work and can shift directions based on specific needs.
Decluttering, specifically with the KonMari® approach, requires a lot of brain power, because you’re simultaneously managing:
Clutter everywhere
Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of micro decisions
Managing tons of in-process piles
Confronting your belongings
Confronting your feelings about yourself
Now that you’ve learned more about the anatomy of a tidying session from the perspective of a master KonMari™ consultant, maybe it’s more clear what everything hinges upon for a successful session. Maybe it’s still buried. All of the items listed earlier certainly contribute towards a successful session, but it all comes down to one thing: Vision. Isn’t it a sneaky one?
That’s right, the #1 way to start your organizing session relies on your initial organizing vision.
We’ve noticed a lot of people aren’t spending any or enough time making a clear vision for their space and the life they want to live in that space, and this is the most crucial step in the organizing process. If you’ve read either of Marie Kondo’s first two books, you may remember she has six basic rules of tidying and the first two are both about mindset. The first rule is to “commit yourself to tidying up,” and the second is “imagine your ideal lifestyle.” She also states in Spark Joy, “success depends 90% on your mindset.”
In case you don’t believe us, we’re going to share some common outcomes or trends we’ve seen associated with clients who have vague visions (or worse, no vision at all). Here’s our top observations from clients who have skipped over this crucial step:
they mistakenly surround themselves with things that spark joy for someone else
they mistakenly keep items tied to negative emotions and sabotages their goal for sanctuary
they are unable to make clear decisions and become over-fatigued
they set “aside” too many items to reevaluate, stretching out their tidying marathon and creating more clutter
they over-declutter and regret their choices in the future
they hold onto items out of fear that they will regret getting rid of it
they use someone else’s life as a guide for their own and end up in an unsuitable space
they over-consume, or collect items that are useless to them and their space
If you underestimate how much your mindset contributes to your outcome, you could spell your own defeat in any organizing attempt.
We love all our clients, and we know often that these results are simply good intentions gone bad, however, they could have avoided this undesirable outcome if only they’d started by practicing mindfulness.
We’ve touched on the role of mindfulness in home organizing several times throughout this blog series (most notably in our Valentine’s Day self-love blog post here). Basically, consistently practicing mindfulness through journaling, meditation, manifestation, or other techniques gives you an all-access pass to your inner self.
Developing a clear vision for your home and life with mindfulness techniques will help you tap into your true desires and figure out what will bring you closer to inner peace and balance.
Now let’s talk about how to develop this clear vision.
It’s time to ask yourself: why do I want to get organized? Truly think about it for a moment, because there are thousands of reasons to be organized, but what are your reasons? Don’t worry, we’ve got some journal prompts and an activity at the end of this post you can use!
Visualization, meditation, and journaling are all great ways to develop your vision, however it can also be a little risky. Let’s talk about why.
Before you begin your mindfulness activity of choice, make sure you take a moment to declutter your thoughts.
You want to be careful to set aside certain “baddies” while bringing about your visions. These baddies have names and they are:
Your fantasy self (holding on to objects tying you to an activity you haven’t truly cared about in years)
Guilt (if you have objects you keep out of guilt–see our post here about that)
Shame (a loud voice in your head telling you how terrible you are at keeping house)
As Francine Jay put it on her blog, Miss Minimalist, (many years ago, now):
“storing our fantasy selves’ stuff isn’t fair to our real selves—not only does it make us feel like failures, it takes away the space and time we could devote to uncovering our true passions and potential. So as you’re decluttering, give the boot to your fantasy self and all its accessories—it’s not giving up on your dreams, it’s making way for real ones!”
Make sure you take all these little baddies and put them in a separate room in your mind. Then, invite productive inner voices to the party. Voices such as:
Your inner child (who quietly muses over the things you love with a sense of wonder)
Your joy (who celebrates even the smallest wins and fleeting moments of fun)
The voice of someone who cares (like a real-life person who loves you or even a character you love)
We bring all this up because over the past several years, we’ve noticed a slow shift away from organizing as regular self-care to organizing as an aesthetic, one-time achievement.
While there is something to be said about Architecture Digest-worthy interiors and Pinterest-worthy style in photos, the reality is that it’s very hard to live normal life while maintaining such rigid aesthetic standards. Imagine if everything you did in the course of a regular day had to ensure you made no mess and left zero trail throughout your home? No signs of you, just constant maintenance of picture-perfectness. At all times. It sounds horrible!
It’s a dangerous game we play when we try to uphold ourselves to a standard of perfection that simply doesn’t make sense. Therefore, this “tidying for aesthetic achievement” approach acts as a damaging process of self-sabotage.
Marie Kondo’s method of tidying provides a wonderful process to avoid this unrealistic standard of perfection.
This is because no matter your desired level of organization, you can feel the mental health benefits of tidying on a small scale by applying Marie Kondo’s method. The process focuses on the very basics of organizing and blazes a path that you can customize for your own needs.
Does it take a long time? Sometimes.
Is it hard? We won’t lie, yes, it can be hard.
Does it work? If you let go of perfection and let it work, yes. It works well!
We’ve seen the method work for all types of people including those in the ADHD community (often with us as their body-double and guides), the senior community, single moms, people going through life-changing transitions like break-ups, divorces, moves, marriages, having kids, even times marked solely by a change of heart.
There’s no better time to start the KonMari Method® than when you simply decide it’s what you’re going to do. Once you make this decision, give yourself the time, space and, most importantly, the self-compassion to commit.
Maybe you’re wondering what that could look like. Here are some real-life examples from our experiences with clients who have completed a KonMari Method™ organization project (and we’ve also added our own personal testimonials at the end):
One client decided they would use the KonMari Method® to help them out of a funk to transform slowly and steadily towards a life they enjoyed that included a home where they could rest and recharge.
Another client had settled into a new home with their partner and wanted to declutter their things, which had been piling up over the years. This client wanted a reset and to lighten the load to bring in new energy to their home and worklife.
Abbie’s KonMari® Story:
“I hadn’t felt like myself in years. I was in a relationship that drained my energy and sapped my joy. I was also stuck in a past life that I missed and craved. After reading Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up I decided I’d try the method as a way to confront my life, my home, and myself. It turns out I was buried in objects tying me to a past that had me frozen in a mental and emotional limbo. It took me some time, but I finally went through all of my belongings. Not only did I complete the tidying marathon, I realized I’d had fun. I decided to look into becoming a KonMari consultant, met Erin (owner of Organized For Good), became a certified Green consultant, and joined her team a few months later. Oh, and I also found the courage to ditch the iffy relationship, too. I still do tidying mini-marathons whenever I get the urge. It’s a small thing, but even a little decluttering gives me the reset I need and a sense of relief.” -Abbie Pannell
Erin’s KonMari® Story:
“It was 2015, and I had just moved into my (then boyfriend, now husband)’s house, and we used the KonMari Method® as a way to come together to examine our belongings and create more space for each other in this new phase of our relationship. At first, it felt like I was doing it mostly alone, because he seemed to be committed to the idea that everything he owned brought him joy. Everything was going into the keep pile, while I was clearing out my stuff like crazy! But eventually, when we were looking at the communal spaces, something shifted, and he seemed more open to the process and more open to the idea of change altogether. It was as if he recognized that creating the right conditions for our environment could really have an effect on our peace as a couple. This felt so profound for us, that I decided to train with Marie Kondo and incorporate this practice in the work that I do with clients. Eric and I are still in that same house, ten years later, married and with a 4-year old who shares our space, too. We have reiterated the process many more times since then, so it feels just right for the current chapter of our lives. It still gets messy from time to time, but overall it remains an anchor for us, supporting us through all the ups and downs of marriage and life.” -Erin Mursch
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably someone who is very interested in completing a Marie Kondo tidying marathon for yourself. Maybe you’ve even tried and lost your momentum because of the many obstacles a marathon can present (like additional chaos and overwhelm).
We hear you, and we see you.
We strongly encourage everyone interested in Marie Kondo’s organizing method to give it their best shot, and we are always here for back-up if you need someone to:
hold you accountable
fully support your vision for what’s possible
hold your hand when it gets tough
If you live in the Austin area, live somewhere with limited KonMari Consultants®, or are interested in virtual decluttering sessions, we encourage you to chat with us today about your vision and tidying needs by booking a free, 15-minute consultation here.
