My experience doing the KonMari method.

Back in 2016, I decided to give the KonMari method a try.

“Life truly begins only after you have put your house in order.” – Marie Kondo

My experience

Back in 2016, I was very disorganised. No matter how much time I spent tidying up, things seemed to rebel against my ordering efforts. I used to waste a lot of time and stress out because everything was all over the place.

So, I decided to give the KonMari Method a try.

I did the once-and-for-all event that would mark a before and an after in my life. The whole process took me approximately 1 year.

Back then, I could only advance in the tidying endeavour during the holidays. This is something that Marie Kondo discourages, but I did it like this anyway, because I had limited time.

Clothes 👗

I started with the clothes, as she states. It was, indeed, the easiest and most fun category to do. Deciding which clothes sparked more Joy filled me with optimism and a sense of getting results fast.

I could easily donate the clothes that were hidden forever in my wardrobe, so letting them go felt like I could help someone else with some clothing, while at the same time, give those clothes a second or third opportunity to be worn.

There's one part of the book "La magia del orden" (the translation to Spanish for The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up) that gives special attention to being the youngest sibling.

Marie Kondo wrote that the youngest siblings almost always struggle to recognise their true clothing style, because they are used to receiving old clothes from their oldest siblings without having to decide whether they like them or not.

That statement still makes me reflect, not only because it's true for me, but also because I think it has a more profound implication. What I truly want is a question I normally struggle with.

"Because the question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life".  Marie Kondo.

Books

The book category was harder than the clothing one, but relatively easy for me, too.

I'm a big fan of libraries and a great consumer of audiobooks and ebooks, so I didn't have much problem letting go of books that didn't spark Joy for me. Many of them were gifts and "must-reads". I also have to say that my paper book collection wasn't that big.

I donated some good books to the library (they don't accept old books), took others to a second-hand book store, and took some others (those with many missing pages) to recycling centres. My family also offered to keep some of the books that I no longer wanted. This is something Marie Kondo discourages, but we couldn't help it, since many of them had some value.

Rest assured, my Harry Potter collection is well-kept and keeps sparking Joy, despite its very worn appearance.

My opinion about the Book category.

Although the order of categories worked wonders for me, I don't think putting books in the second place of ease of decluttering it's the best approach for people who have intentionally built a great collection of valuable books.

If you are a book enthusiast and are thinking about doing the KonMari method, I would recommend that you skip this category entirely (and save humanity by safeguarding the knowledge). Especially if you have truly valuable books, like rare editions with substantial knowledge.

It can feel very savage to throw so many pieces of art and knowledge away. It's understandable and even honourable to want to keep them.

I grew up reading "Los bonsáis gigantes" by Lucía Baquedano, my favourite children's book of all time, and another gem to keep forever as Joy-sparking. This book is a dystopia of a world where books are prohibited and the story revolves around the efforts to hide them from the authorities, and look for ways to escape from the oppression.

Although this book is a dystopia, my documentary-life-phase taught me that there have been periods and places in history when knowledge, art, and beauty are considered threats, and they were eliminated with total cruelty. An example of this is the Chinese "Cultural" Revolution.

That's why I believe future readers of The Art of Tidying Up (let's say in hundreds of years) will have to understand the historical context when the book was written: a globalised world where freedom of speech is the norm in most places (although not good enough), publishing a book is way easier than centuries ago, and consumerism is considered a problem.

I also encourage readers to pay attention to the life situation of your Present and wonder whether throwing books away is beneficial or not for humanity, depending on the circumstances.

Papers.

Throwing away old papers was so liberating. It was easy to dispose of them because paper is easily recycled in my city.

The difficult part was that I had an enormous amount of old notebooks and exams. I remember Marie Kondo saying that one tends to keep notes from University, or last studies. Well, I used to have notebooks not only from University studies, but from Secondary and Elementary School too. Now I wonder why?

I was always very creative with my notes and used to fill the margins with doodles and colors. I think that's why I used to keep them. After pondering it for a while, I thanked them all for allowing me to learn and explore my creativity, and let them go.

Marie Kondo was right on this. I have never needed my notebooks, and I don't miss them at all. I don't even remember what I could miss from there.

I selected the pieces I liked the most and that aligned with future endeavors like my creativity research, and archived them in a single file folder. I have actually used some references from these notes recently in my article"5 Key Benefits of Practicing Creativity for Our Society.

I also kept a box of stories I created in childhood, and my beloved journals from all stages of my life. They went immediately to the Sentimental Items category.

Komono

Komono was one of the hardest categories, because it's about all sorts of stuff without a home. Clips, watch batteries, unpaired earrings, and so on. Tiny parts of broken pieces, lots of "shoulds", "maybe I'll find the matching piece somewhere", "this would be a great DIY", etc.

It's hard because there's a lot of thought process involved, just like in the other categories.

The difference with the other categories is that, when finishing a single tidying task, it looks like you've done nothing, because it doesn't bring any visual change to the room. The complexity increases because usually there are hundreds, or even thousands, of these tiny objects all scattered through the house.

Maybe, a good approach for this category would be to start with the biggest objects, so you can keep the motivation going on, and leave the tiniest to the last.

My concerns about the komono category.

My biggest worry about the komono category is that it is the most polluting of all the categories. Many of these objects are not recyclable.

It's also difficult to sell these items because most of them are cheap and useless stuff. However, many of them are still "in good condition".

They can't be sold, they aren't recyclable, they are ugly, nobody wants these objects... It's long-lasting garbage :(

After doing the KonMari method, I became more conscious about my shopping habits. I now avoid buying cheap stuff that will break easily and try to buy quality objects that will last instead. I also try to ask myself whether they are necessary and try to buy things that I can easily send to recycling centers, donate them, or sell them.

In the city I live in, there are special places for used batteries and electronics, but it is usually a hassle to go there. I realized that I used to keep a lot of objects because I wanted to dispose of them properly, but since it was difficult to go to those places, I chose to keep them instead.

Now, with every purchase, I think about my future self and make things easier for her by not buying unnecessary stuff. I also got somewhat enthusiastic about the Zero Waste trend for a while.

Sentimental items

This was for sure, the most difficult to address, but the most liberating too.

Although I've seen people who have let all their sentimental items go (mostly minimalists), I decided I would allow myself to keep as many sentimental items as I wanted. It's a personal experience, after all.

I already had 3 special drawers for my writings, letters, drawings, photos, and mementos.

I also had a lot of sentimental items scattered around all my room. Some of them didn't bring me sheer Joy, but they were precious somehow, or they reminded me of someone important. Putting those objects into the sentimental items category cleared my mind and allowed me to focus on the present moment, without drastically throwing away the objects.

After doing a very difficult decluttering of old diaries and journals, I decided I would leave the same amount of space dedicated to sentimental items all my life: 3 drawers maximum. From that moment on, every time I wanted to add a new sentimental item, I would have to check the drawers and let go of the least difficult item. I still do this and so far it's worked fine.

My journals

The most difficult but enlightening part of the process was confronting the HUGE amount of old diaries, journals, and cathartic writings I had accumulated over decades.

My writings have always been something that I cherish dearly. It had never occurred to me to throw them away. At some point in my life, I even had to start writing on the computer because I realized that there would not be enough space for all my writings if I continued writing on paper.

The KonMari method tempted me to throw away some of them. But... which ones? What would I keep? What a difficult question. The only way to answer this question was to read through all of them.

So, I did read ALL of my writings, starting from age 9. Basically, I relived all my life.

The intensity of this experience was, in fact, a life-changing experience that's worth another piece of writing itself. It gave me a clear understanding of myself and a great opportunity to ask important questions about my future.

Final thoughts

The KonMari method was a very positive life-changing experience for me, just as the title of the book states.

If you are considering doing the method, I truly recommend it. Just make sure you adapt it to your circumstances so the experience feels enjoyable.