5 Steps To A Decluttered Home With Marie Kondo

5 Steps To A Decluttered Home With Marie Kondo

Lockdown certainly provides a lot of time for self-reflection, and this is bound to get us thinking about the space in which we decide to call home. This June at Preloved, it’s all about the ‘Summer Sort-out.’ We’re encouraging our community to put all this spare time to good use by clearing out your surroundings. You could even win a Premium Membership with us as a result of your decluttered home! Whether that be a messy office space, a spare room used for storage, or a garage full of rubbish, it’s time to declutter and get rid of our unwanted belongings so that they can be loved again in another home. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right?

However, letting go of certain items or making the decision to give up things that have wonderful memories attached, is a lot easier said than done. So how exactly do we declutter and overcome the barriers that will lead us to a more organised and simple life? Well, we bring in the professionals for that much needed motivational boost. So, who’s up first?

Organisational expert, tidying guru, and declutterer of the decade are just a few of the respectable titles associated with Marie Kondo. You may recognise her name from the Netflix series “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” where she provides inspirational home transformations through simply clearing out the clutter. You can also find all her life-changing advice in the world-renowned bestselling book “The lifechanging magic of tidying up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.”

Want a quicker round-up of the ‘KonMari’ method? Well, you’ve come to the right place for a decluttered home! Here are our favourite tips from the Japanese organising consultant, who claims to spark joy in the world through tidying up.

1. Organise by category rather than location

Although it seems well-organised and effective to tackle your clutter room by room, Kondo has other ideas. For example, you may have lots of books, bedsheets, or towels distributed throughout your home and not restricted to one room. So why not tackle them head-on all at once? That way, it makes it easier to know exactly what to keep and what not to when you have them all in front of you!

2. Passing on your excess stuff to your family members doesn’t count

Sometimes you may feel a close relative would genuinely benefit from a valuable item of yours, like giving your parents a picture of them on their wedding day. But these are exceptions! You can’t simply pass on all your hoard to other people, as this doesn’t solve the problem. It does not count as decluttering when you’re compromising another home’s tidiness. Take control. Even if you could never imagine completely parting with something nostalgic, you have to ask yourself, can a family member actually gain from owning this item, or am I simply burdening them with my stuff?

3. Seriously, what do you need paper for?

We’re talking bills, junk mail, birthday cards, payslips, old magazines, important documents that aren’t actually that important! I’m sure we all shove things in the closest drawer we can find that ‘might’ come in handy one day or that we can deal with next week and never see it again. In this day and age, Kondo insists that paperwork is a thing of the past and that you should go digital or online where you can to avoid the clutter. If it really is that important, you can be notified by email.

4. Ask yourself, does it spark joy?

This may sound rather cringeworthy, but it actually works. When looking at an item in your house, say ‘does this spark joy for me’ in your head and if you don’t get an instant positive reaction or you can’t justify how it would make you happy, then it’s time to move on! All our belongings should spark joy otherwise what is the point in having them? It’s only wasteful both in terms of space and money, so wouldn’t somebody else be able to make better use of it?

5. Don’t buy storage before you’ve had a clear-out

Buying fancy storage systems will only create more mess if you don’t first declutter everything that you intend to put in them. The only reason you want to buy expensive storage is because you already have too much clutter to organise in the first place! So, sell or give up your items for free on second-hand websites like Preloved before you waste any money on storage furniture.

If you now feel inspired and would like to enter our decluttering competition, click here! You could win a Premium Membership!