Adventures in Polishland

Happy Wednesday! Today I am excited to begin a new series here on my blog all about my journey implementing the KonMari method in my life. You may have heard of the famous book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I recently read its companion book, Spark Joy, in which Marie breaks down her KonMari method and explains step-by-step how to tidy your home. I absolutely fell in love with this book, and I knew I had to begin implementing her method right away. In today’s first post about my KonMari journey, I will quickly share about my decluttering history, and then my process trying the KonMari method for the first time with my clothing.

If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you’ll know that I’ve been simplifying my life for the past two-three years. I’ve spent a lot of time decluttering my belongings, and I’ve shared the process with you when it came to makeup and nail polish. I cannot tell you how many bags of clothing, household goods, books, and more I’ve donated over the past couple years, but I somehow still have more stuff than I need or want. I think this is mainly due to merging all of my college and law school things with everything that I left at my parents house when I moved to school. I will admit that I’ve been a pack rat all my life, finding a lot of meaning in what I deem to be sentimental items. After getting rid of so many belongings on my own, I was ready to read Spark Joy by Marie Kondo and adopt her tidying process. I knew it would give me that final push I needed for all of those items to which I have emotional attachment.

You can learn more about the KonMari method by reading one of her books, but, in essence, it focuses on only keeping items that bring you joy. I absolutely love this tidying method, as there is no room to rationalize about whether or not I need to keep an item. If it doesn’t bring me joy in some way, it needs to go. I’ve decided to follow the KonMari method as closely as I can to see if it can work for me. I know there are many opinions about this method ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. I see a lot of value in the KonMari method, and am sharing this personal journey with you in hopes that it will inspire you to rethink how you declutter and organize your home as well.

Marie Kondo lays out a specific guide to decluttering, and it begins with clothing. The KonMari method requires you to gather each and every item in a category from everywhere in your home and place it in a giant pile. You then hold every item individually and decide whether or not it sparks joy. I know this might sound a bit ridiculous, but I soon got the hang of it! My first eye-opening experience was looking at my giant clothing pile. I put my clothes on my full size bed, using a spare sheet as a drop cloth. Woah! My pile was HUGE! I did not expect it to be so large, as I think I operate on quite a limited wardrobe. Of course, this pile includes all of my clothing, from socks and underwear, to jeans and tops, to jackets, and so on. Still, I did not anticipate having such a huge pile through which to sift!

Overall, I found the sorting process quite easy. Because I’ve been regularly donating clothes, what was left in my wardrobe were mainly items that sparked joy. I didn’t get rid of too much, but I was able to fill a kitchen sized garbage bag with clothing to donate, create a small pile of clothes I want to sell, and a decent size pile of things to put in the garbage. I like to sell name brand clothing that is in excellent condition on the website ThredUp. While I would ultimately like to donate all the rest, some of my clothing was quite old and damaged. For instance, the t-shirt sitting on the top of the pile is so worn with age there are several holes in the back, and the design is washed out almost completely. Needless to say, those items no longer brought me joy!

Here is a look at everything I kept. While I was, at first, a bit disappointed that I did not get rid of more, I had to remind myself that the quantity of the items does not matter so long as they all bring me joy. I did keep a pair of jeans from Target that I eventually want to replace, so I made a note of that in my planner. I highly recommend keeping a notebook handy so you can record when there is an item you want to repurchase or upgrade in the near future when you have the money.

My next step was to fold and store my clothing using the KonMari folding method. Marie recommends folding as many clothes as you can, and provides detailed instructions on how to achieve the desired result. I admit that it took me quite a while to fold all my clothes, and I often had to refold items before getting the hang of this new-to-me method. That being said, I am beyond thrilled with the result! Not only can I fit a lot more clothes into my drawers, but they are easy to see and access. The above photograph shows my top drawer filled with camisoles, everyday t-shirts, and sweaters. I’m so in love with the look of the drawers, and now that I’ve used this storage method for a little while, I’m happy to say they are also functional and easy to use.

Everything that cannot be easily folded, such as coats, dresses, professional clothing, and fluttery tops, hangs in the closet. Following Marie’s recommendation, I grouped items by category, faced them to the right, and went from long to short. This is completely different from how I used to organize my closet, but I’m really enjoying the result. I got used to this change in just a few days.

The entire process of tidying and storing my clothes took me four hours and ten minutes. I did this on a Sunday and did take breaks! While I was quite tired at the end of the day, I felt very accomplished. Not only did my drawers and closet look amazing, but I already felt more joyful. I definitely think the state of our surroundings impacts our mood, and after completing the first step in my KonMari tidying campaign, I felt awesome.

I hope you enjoyed this first blog post in my new series documenting my KonMari journey with all of you! I will be posting about my tidying campaign every Wednesday on this blog, so make sure to follow so you will see all of my updates! Next week will cover clothing accessories, such as bags, jewelry, scarves, etc. Please let me know in the comments how you liked this blog post, and if there is anything you want me to mention about the KonMari method in my next post.

Buy Spark Joy by Mari Kondo on Amazon HERE to learn more about the KonMari method.

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