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10 Comments

  1. I love the KonMari method!! I’ve always been organized, but this process brings you to a new level. Especially folding the clothing. Living in Alaska, we have a ton of clothing for work, weather, exercise, outdoor activities, etc. All stored in two small closets, two small dressers and a couple of baskets under the bed. We’ve chosen to downsize from a 3200 sqft home to a 700 sqft studio and my husband and I enjoy it so much! Our organized, little cozy space is perfect and we haven’t missed anything we’ve parted with so far.

    1. Yes! The folding method is HUGE!

  2. I LOVE it! I’ve been able to have the dressers leave my kids rooms. My oldest boys have totes under their beds, which means NOTHING gets thrown underneath and their small room looks bigger. My girls’ room is down to their bed and 1 piece of furniture. All their clothes are in their closet and they have a day bed with a trundle. Very minimal. The kids all love having less clothes to fold and the extra space AND having less toys to clean up. Who knew?! My husband isn’t on board completely but since I do the majority of everything only his clothes aren’t more minimal. We’ve been at it for a few months total but I started on my journey with her last year. It’s amazing how many thing have left our home! I’m about to go through everything again. The more leaves the better I understand “spark joy”.

    1. It’s really so great, isn’t it?!

  3. I LOVE the concept of this method, so I tried it while on the road of a 3 month trip to Iceland! I have five shirts and two of them are multi purpose…one is used for pools and the other is used as a nightgown.
    Except for one of the shirts, I am really getting tired of these shirts! Believe me, they do NOT spark joy! But I need them! They are of great value to me, because without them things would get quite complicated. For instance, with the nightgown/lounge shirt, I can just slip it on after a long day of touring around the country! But joy???? NO!

    SO, I am still a little stuck on the “joy” concept! Could it be that the idea of joy means something a little different in Japan than it does in the US?
    Though she uses the term in California, I am still a little confused by the term “joy”….at least in this context!!! Does it include my nightgown/lounge shirt…even though the thing frustrates me no end?

    THANK YOU‼️ Kate Florio

    1. Hey, Kate! You’re actually absolutely right – there is actually no literal translation for “tokimeku”, which is the Japanese word that Marie Kondo actually uses in her book. “Spark joy” is a pretty accurate translation, according to the research I’ve done, but you have to remember that “sparking joy” can mean more than JUST something that makes you happy. For example, it makes your life easier to have those two shirts – as you said in your comment, your life would be more complicated without them. If you ask me, that’s something that sparks joy! Anything that makes your life easier or smoother is a great example of something that sparks joy. For example, my plunger doesn’t give me a thrill of happiness when I see it, but I would certainly be upset if I needed it and didn’t have one!

      My suggestion in your specific scenario would be to keep the two shirts and begin to look for replacements that you find more exciting. When I have a piece of clothing that I need to keep that I don’t necessarily love, I keep it short term while I search for a replacement that TRULY makes me happy. You can see more about this concept in the updated post I recently wrote about the Konmari method for clothing – you can read it here: https://www.loveandrenovations.com/konmari-method-clothing/

      I hope that’s helpful!

  4. I HATE the KonMari folding method. I mean, it looks amazing and works well… when the drawer is full. If the drawer isn’t full, everything starts flopping and unfolding all over the place. Ugh.

    1. Shoe boxes. Divides the drawer up into a smaller more supportive segments.

  5. Esther Radakovich says:

    I have the book… I’ve read the book…. I’m totally on board with the book….my wonderful husband? ….not so much. I would absolutely LOVE to get on track with this method! We moved into our first home (Yay! Life Goals!) back before we were married in February of 2016. The home is a good size, 1,080 sq.ft, one story, 3 bedroom 3 bathroom kind of deal. Prior to our home purchase, we had been living in my parent’s upstairs bedroom for four years. FOUR. Everything we owned while we lived together prior to that (we lived in a two bedroom apartment) has been in boxes since then. We have no children yet, so two of the three bedrooms in our new home are currently FULL of those boxed belongings. There are things in there that I’ve completely forgotten about…all the more reason for me to get rid of it now instead of letting it sit in a box! I’m fine giving up/donating/selling things I no longer use, or have no intended use for, but my husband is not so much down with this idea.
    He came from a single-parent family that moved quite often, and moreso abruptly in his later teenage years (homes abandoned due to his mother not paying rent), as well as a fire that had unfortunately destroyed most of their belongings in their last home. Since then his mother has passed away due to illness, and he is now alone. He carries a lot of the things she gave him while we lived on our own, so I have absolutely no say in those items. However, over the years he’s collected outdoor recreation, gun and car magazines that he holds on to to “reference later” (he’s a car enthusiast). We’re also gamers, so we have a collection of games ranging all the way from NES to PS4 – I play them once and get rid of them unless I know I’ll have a craving to play them again – but my husband will not sell/trade ANY. Whatsoever. Even if he doesn’t ever play them ever again.
    I don’t know how to appropriately approach the idea of minimalizing or going by the glory of this wonderful book in decluttering without hurting his feelings or touching an area of his past that may be sensitive to him. Any suggestions on how to get your loved ones involved in this process if they’re not fully on board to begin with?

    1. Congratulations on the new home! I understand what you mean, Corey wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of doing it either, haha. What I have done over the years is to focus on purging/organizing the things I do have some control over – things that are mine, things he doesn’t mind me purging, etc. Then, I’ve let him know that I have no problem with him keeping things that are sentimental to him, but he needs to figure out a way to store and organize it so that it doesn’t disrupt day-to-day life.

      Once he saw how organized the rest of the house was getting and really began to notice a difference in how clean our home felt, it was really easy to get him on board with purging more! It took me many years to get him to a point where he’s comfortable with purging, but my biggest tips are not to push too hard and just do what you can without him – hopefully he’ll end up deciding to hop on board all on his own!