Thanks to Netflix’s new star, you can really clean up
ABC News
If you haven’t heard of Marie Kondo, you may be living under a pile of clutter.
The home organization guru sparked a phenomenon with her KonMari method of tidying and her bestselling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Now, she’s the star of Netlfix’s Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, which features her traveling across the U.S. to teach American families how to clean up.
The first thing Kondo says to ask yourself when deciding whether or not to keep things is, “Does the item spark joy?”
If the answer is no, then it should be donated or given to a friend, according to Kondo.
Being able to determine which items spark joy is a skill that must be developed, Kondo told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
For example, most people’s closets include clothing in a variety of different sizes. When it comes to those items, Kondo has one question to ask: “[D]oes it make you want to go exercise so you can fit into it? Or does it make you dread that you have to exercise because you want to fit into it?”
Kondo suggests tackling clutter by category, not location, and following her six rules, which are, in order:
1. Commit yourself to tidying up.
2. Imagine your ideal lifestyle.
3. Finish discarding first.
4. Tidy by category, not by location.
5. Follow the right order (clothes, books, paper, miscellaneous items, sentimental items).
6. Ask yourself, “Does it spark joy?”
Viewers have also been quick to take to social media to show off their tidying, including Kondo’s most famous organizing trick, the KonMari folding method: folding clothes in halves or thirds so you end up with a rectangle that stands upright in drawers or on shelves.
