How to Declutter in 30 Days (AKA: Konmari Method Round 2)

Do you want to learn how to declutter your entire home in just 30 days? Use this Konmari Method challenge to get your entire home organized and decluttered in just one month! (This post contains affiliate links)

You may remember that last year around this time, I went through the KonMari method of organizing from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, blogged the whole thing, and we all ended up with cleaner, more organized houses as a result.

It’s been a little over a year since we first KonMari-ed our homes, and I have to say we really have kept up with it pretty well. I don’t really feel like clutter is taking over our lives anymore and we really did change a lot of our habits after going through that process.

However, when we did our one-year check-in for the method, I mentioned that we were at a point where we felt like we needed to do another mini-purge.

And then we decided to move. To a smaller house.

We obviously don’t know how large our new house will be yet, but we do know that we’re looking at probably losing about 500 square feet – plus we are losing our workshop space. So, um, we have a lot of stuff to get rid of.

I’m really hoping we’ll be able to get our house listed sometime next month (keep all of your fingers and toes crossed for us!) so that means it’s crunch time. I’m determined to get rid of as much clutter as we possibly can before it’s time to move, and this month is when that’s gotta happen.

Oh, and in the month of September, we’ve also got a family day trip planned, both mine and Corey’s birthdays, Jackson is starting preschool, and I’m doing another big challenge that I’ll be chatting about next week.

So, you know. No big deal. We won’t be busy at all.

It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. (Right?)

How to Declutter: The Konmari Method Challenge

Anyways, the point is we have a lot of decluttering to do. There’s no way we’ll be able to fit everything in our current home into the new house when we move, and I don’t want to bring any more than absolutely necessary. Who wants to move a whole bunch of stuff only to realize that it won’t fit?!

So, since I have a ton of decluttering to do (and not a lot of time to do it), I thought it might be fun to set it up as a Konmari method challenge. I’m highly motivated by deadlines and if I call something a “challenge” I will get it done. Plus, I figure if I force beg a bunch of you to do it with me, I’ll have some accountability and it’ll be a little more fun. Because cleaning is always more fun when you’re doing it with friends, right?!

NOTE: The challenge is over – sorry!

Need to know more before you decide? Here’s the plan:

The KonMari Method Challenge

The KonMari method challenge will take place via email – which means that starting the Tuesday after you sign up, I’ll be sending out a weekly email to everyone participating with a quick overview of what we’ll be tackling that week (along with a review of how things are going in my house). I’m hoping it can be a fun, interactive experience where you guys can write back to me and tell me how you’re doing too. It always helps to have people to encourage you when you’re working on a big project like this, and I’m so excited to get to go through this with y’all!

The idea is that we’ll go through all of the different steps in Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and by the end of the month we’ll all have perfectly clean and organized houses, our hair will suddenly be perfect, and our kids will never misbehave again.

What? A girl can dream.

If you sign up for the challenge, you’ll also get signed up for my weekly newsletter and you’ll get my free eBook which walks you step-by-step through the KonMari method. It’s the perfect companion to this challenge because my emails will give you a general plan for the week, but if you’re feeling lost the book can guide you through exactly what you should try to tackle each day. My book spreads the method out over 30 days and we’re actually working with just under that at 4 weeks, so you may have to combine a couple of days if you’re following along, but it should be pretty simple.

Here’s an overview of what the Konmari method challenge will look like:

• Week One: Clothes + Accessories
• Week Two: Books, Papers, & Bathrooms
• Week Three: Kitchen, Living Spaces, Decor
• Week Four: Garage/Tools, Sentimental Items, Miscellaneous

I’m so excited to dive in and get this done – I’m hoping that by the end of the month we’ll be a lot closer to being ready to list our house. If nothing else, we’ll have less to pack when the time comes!

Oh, and just to give you a little incentive (or, I don’t know, to make you realize I actually am a complete and utter mess) let me show you a couple of the spaces I’ll be organizing this month.

Yeah, I’ve got my work cut out for me. So, if you’re looking around your house and feeling like you can’t join in because you have too much to do, never fear – you are not alone. I’m a pretty organized person but I have a couple of shameful spaces that need a lot of work.

I mean, I’m pretty sure that extra bedroom isn’t going to inspire anyone to want to buy our house.

For those of you who have it all together and don’t need to join in with us (teach me your ways!), I promise I’ll do an update once the challenge is over with the progress we make.