It seems like a new home organization trend pops up every few years, but one has definitely revealed itself to have a bit of staying power. We’re talking about KonMari. The method was crafted by Marie Kondo (KonMari… Marie Kondo… get it?), and it has helped a ton of people make their homes look absolutely fabulous. The best part about KonMari is that it is actually surprisingly simple. If you’re interested in learning a few of the basic tips, check out this list! Incorporate a few of these and you’ll be in homeowner nirvana in no time.
Only hold onto what makes you happy
This is a pretty simple one, but it’s also perhaps the most important decluttering tip that you can ever receive. From Marie herself, you should only “keep what brings you joy.” All that stuff that you have laying around in your basement or your attic? Does that really bring you joy? If not, toss it out. This will help you get rid of the useless items, and it will give you more space to appreciate the things that you actually love. It might be hard to get rid of something that you’ve had for a while, but it’s worth it.
Group your items by their size
Everyone has their own take on how things should be organized, and this is especially true for clothes. People will organize their closets and drawers by color, by season, by age… you get the idea. But Marie suggests something completely different: she says that you should be organizing by size. This gives all of your drawers a really nice, logical progression. Your brain automatically knows how big something is, so it will save you a ton of time that you would have spent looking for something. This works well for clothes, but it also works for all other household items.
Don’t clean by room
Look, cleaning is an overwhelming process for most people. And when we say “most people,” we also mean us. Whenever we realize that we need to clean our homes, we also put the process off by a few days just because we can’t decide which room to start off in. But you don’t need to go about things like that! In fact, it’s much better to try to organize your home by category rather than by room. You can start with cleaning the toys, then the papers, then the furniture. These bite-sized pieces are easier to plan around than rooms.
Keep important things out in the open
How often have you walked into your kitchen and then realized that the one thing that you need is way far in the back of some hopelessly high-up cabinet? Yeah, let’s stop doing that. We tend to place things in less logical spots simply because we don’t think through our organization all that much. So try this out: if you use something often, keep it in an easily accessible spot. That box full of envelopes that you always use to write letters should be easy to find and easy to grab. Try it out, it can really help!
Quit being so sentimental
If there’s one thing that often gets in the way of us throwing out old, useless items, it’s sentimentality. There’s nothing wrong with being sentimental per se, but it is definitely the reason why there’s so much clutter in your closet. And we understand. It’s hard to throw out that old pair of ice skates that you bought for your first date with your significant other that you have now been with for five years. But you haven’t used them in five years! The sentimental attachment is to the memory, not the object. Remember that as you throw it out!
Respect your belongings
Here’s a small tip that can actually make a huge difference in your attitude. You need to realize that the items that you own deserve your respect. You bought them for a reason. If you are just tossing your shoes into your closet without a second thought and leaving them disorganized on the floor, that’s a clear sign that you aren’t respecting them. This can also be a bit of a litmus test for what you should keep. If you can’t bring yourself to respect something, that might just be a scene that it’s time to get rid of it.
Don’t doubt the process
For many people, starting the process of home organization can be really difficult. But once you’re in it, it’s actually pretty fun! But then day one of cleaning turns to day two… and day two turns to day three… you see where we’re going with this? By the time you’ve sunk a few days into your home and it still doesn’t look perfect, you might start to lose hope. Don’t! You need to be able to trust the cleaning process. Things aren’t going to be perfect quickly. Just believe that you’ll get to that finish line eventually, and you will.
Fold your shirts the right way
If you’re someone with a ton of closet space that is able to hang up all your shirts… good for you. But not all of us have that luxury. Most of us have to fold up our shirts and tuck them neatly into drawers. That’s not really all that bad, but it definitely comes with a big negative. If you’re bad at folding shirts, they are going to look wrinkly and old when you pull them out. So let’s learn to fold shirts the right way! A quick Google will get you there. It’s really not complicated at all.
Use the pile method
We tend to overcomplicate things these days. We think that we need some sort of algorithm for everything that we do. But cleaning is much simpler than that. The best way to organize your belongings is, in fact, the simplest way possible. What you need to do is to sort your things into piles! This will give you a quick visualization of what you have way too much of. Is that silverware pile towering to the ceiling? Maybe a quick trip to Goodwill can help you out. Do you have more winter coats than anything else? Sell ‘em!
Be thankful for what you have
Most home organization tips out there are generally centered around completely getting rid of everything that you don’t need. KonMari definitely has a few tips like that, but that doesn’t mean that Marie Kondo wants you to dislike everything that you have. In fact, her view is totally opposite of that. She believes that we should be grateful for everything that we have. Whenever you do decide to get rid of something, you should take a moment to thank it for what it did for you. This will make it so that you don’t regret getting rid of it.
Give everything a spot
As we live in a home, we start to collect things. As we collect more and more things, they start to be put into random spots that aren’t really related to what they are. This is how clutter develops. This will become evident as you clean your home. But now that you have space, what do you do with it? Marie suggests that you give every item in your home a little spot. It doesn’t have to be complicated. A small basket with a label is actually a great way to do this that doesn’t require much effort.
Do it in chunks
A lot of us get into “cleaning moods.” Do you know what we mean by this? You’re sitting around watching Friends on Netflix for the 18th time, and suddenly you’re gripped with the desire to go and clean your entire house. And you won’t stop until it’s done! You get one hour into it, your energy fades, and you go back to not caring about the clutter. Don’t do this! Set a timer and take it in chunks instead. Clean for one hour today, one hour tomorrow, and one hour Friday. This will prevent you from burning out on cleaning.
Get rid of your useless paperwork
We don’t really get why people hold onto paperwork these days. Okay, that’s a lie, we do kinda get it. Back in the day, having all of your paperwork organized into a big drawer meant that you were legally an adult. If you had no paperwork, you were a child. That was the law, we’re pretty sure (disclaimer: we are not lawyers). But now we have computers that can store our paperwork for us. See where we’re going with this? It’s time to shred your old papers and toss them into the bin. The recycling bin. Duh. Save the environment.
Donate rather than throw away
If there’s something that you don’t want in your home, what’s your first thought? For most of us, we almost immediately throw those things into the trash. It’s the easiest way to just be done with them. But not everything is meant to be thrown away. If there is still some life in whatever it is that you don’t want anymore, consider donating it to the local thrift shop. You can even make two piles while going through your belongings: one for trash and one for donations. A trash bag labelled “donations” works quite well for this.
Don’t stack clothes on top of one another
It’s time to totally reinvent how you think about clothes storage. Almost all of us have plenty of drawers filled with pants, shirts, shorts, and whatever else that we have. And if we had to guess, your drawers feature all of your clothing items just stacked on top of one another. This might save you some space, but it makes it almost impossible to look through your clothes to decide on an outfit. Instead, store your clothing “vertically.” This will easily allow you to take stock of what you have when dressing yourself. It’s counterintuitive, but it’s a lifesaver.
Start from a clean slate
Have you ever heard the term “tabula rasa?” If not, you’re going to want to become a bit familiar with it. We hate to say it, but the best way for some people to clean is to just begin with a clean slate. That means that you need to walk up to your closet and take everything out of it. We mean everything. If you’re someone who has a ton of clutter around, this can be the easiest way to just get a clear view of what it is that you need to do. It’s work, but it’s worth it.
Look at your own behaviors
In a sense, it’s actually relatively easy to clean your home. What’s actually difficult is making sure that your home won’t get cluttered again after you spend days working on it. And how do you ensure that? Well, you have to take a long look at your own personality and behaviors. We aren’t all blessed with an innate ability to self-analyze, but just work on it. Try to notice what you do that leads to your home becoming cluttered. If you can go on this path towards self realization, you can set yourself up to have a clean home forever.
A good place to start
We’ve already covered how difficult it can be to start cleaning a cluttered home, and one of the biggest reasons for that is because it can just feel impossible to know where to start. If you’re unsure of how to begin, head to your entryway. Why start here? It’s the natural starting point in every room! Everyone that enters your home is going to see your entryway. Even the people who don’t step inside will see your entryway from outside. Making this clean will invite you to clean the next space… and the next space… and so on.
Maximize your cabinet storage
Kitchen clutter is one of the hardest things to deal with. Most of us don’t have huge kitchens, yet we still need to have all of the essentials. That means that pots and pans are going to be taking up a huge amount of your storage space. We say this to remind you that it’s really important to try to maximize your cabinets. Hang things up on the inside, grab some organizers to keep things in place, do whatever you need to do to make everything fit in an uncluttered manner. Those cabinets deserve your attention!
Making your bed is important
There is an important step to the KonMari morning routine that many of us ignore: making the bed. Why is that so important, you might ask? Aren’t you just going to get back into it at the end of the day? Well, yeah, but that’s beside the point. Your bed is supposed to be a comfortable, relaxing, beautiful place in your home. Are you ever going to be fully relaxed if the sheets are messy and the blankets are all over the place? Nope. Remember to wait a bit before making your bed, though, or else you’ll trap in heat.
Look to the walls
Organizing might be totally easy if you live in a big home. But what about those of us that live in tiny apartments or little houses that just don’t really have a lot of room to store things? If that describes you, don’t start panicking. You’re not out of luck, you just have to think a bit more creatively. One great way to open up some more storage space in a small home is to use your walls. Install some hooks, shelves, or anything else on the wall that will allow you to store some items. Think outside the cabinets!
The solution is clear
Seriously guys, the solution is clear. Like, really clear. Literally clear. We’re talking about clear containers. Ha, get it? Okay, fine, we’re not funny, but this tip is still useful. You know those dry goods that you have laying around in an unsightly manner? Pasta, cereal, and the like can actually be stored in clear containers. Not only will this help it keep longer, but it also looks much nicer in organizational terms. Plus, you’ll always know how much cereal you have left without digging around in the box. That’ll help when grocery shopping day comes around.
Keep your spices organized
There are a lot of little spaces in our kitchens that go without much attention when spring cleaning comes around. Perhaps the most important area to add into your cleaning routine, however, is the spice rack. How annoying is it to go and look for thyme only to be digging through little bottles for five minutes? The answer: very annoying. Take some time to make sure that your spices are organized in a way that makes logical sense to you. You’ll thank us the next time that you’re cooking up something delicious and don’t want to waste time.
Think outside the box
There are a lot of things that we hold as rules when it comes to cleaning, but that doesn’t need to be the case. Rigid thinking has no place in the household! If you really want to get your home organized and looking beautiful, you are going to want to think outside of the box. There are lots of storage items throughout our homes that can be used in creative ways. A bookcase doesn’t just need to hold books, you know. You can store whatever you want on a bookcase! Take this principle and apply it all over your home.
Don’t neglect the area under your sink
If we were just walking into a home for the first time and had to guess what area of it was the most cluttered, we would guess the area under the sink. For whatever reason, most of us just toss hygiene items under our bathroom sinks without a second thought. Not only does this just look lazy to anyone who visits, it also is just an organizational nightmare. Instead of doing this, go out and buy a few containers and toss some labels onto them. This can turn your sink into a valued part of your home storage.
Make those towels look pretty
When it comes to storage and organization, there really isn’t a right or wrong. You can do things however you please as long as it works for you. But with that said, we definitely think that there is a better way to store your towels than the way that you are probably doing it. Stacking them on some shelves looks just fine, but it looks so much better if your towels are neatly tucked away in a little basket. It’s small changes like this that can end up making a huge difference in how a certain room looks.
Don’t hold onto your old bathroom items
Go step into your bathroom. How many old bottles of shampoo do you still have under your sink? What about expired makeup products? Most of us have at least a few old products in our bathroom that just need to go. A lot of these items have expiration dates and holding onto them just doesn’t really make any sense. Try out investing in smaller, more high quality products rather than buying a large amount of cheaper products that expire more quickly. You’ll have less clutter in your bathroom, and things will just generally look much better.
Hide that laundry hamper
Laundry hampers are incredibly useful. Just being able to toss your dirty clothes into a storage container and then later taking that same container down to the laundry machine is super convenient. But we don’t love how laundry hampers look in our rooms. To deal with that, consider buying a cabinet that your hamper can go into. It hides it while also letting you store a few other items as well. Plus, you get to decorate the top of it however you like. This isn’t totally necessary, but it definitely makes a room look much classier and put together.
Pay attention to your kitchen counters
Organizing your home is one thing, and it’s a very important thing. But your home isn’t fully cleaned once you finish up your organization. You need to, you know, actually clean the surfaces around your home! The surfaces that you need to start with are your kitchen counters. These pick up so much grime and grease over time that they need a ton of attention. You really should try to clean your kitchen counters relatively frequently. You should also look into moving unnecessary items off of your counters to make them look nicer in general.
Store things under your bed
Okay, you’re getting rid of things, putting things in new places, and just generally organizing all the items in your home. You even put some stuff on the walls, but you’re still running out of space to put things. What else can you do? One excellent trick to use in this situation is to utilize the space under your bed. While you can just toss some things under there (under where?) and be done with them, it’s much better to get some drawers or storage units to organize whatever is put underneath your bed. Plastic tubs work well.
Don’t go overboard with knick knacks
One of the most fun things about having your own home is decorating it. You get to put up all those items that you have held onto over the years. It’s a great way to express yourself. But there are ways to go overboard. If you are constantly adding new knick knacks onto your shelves to the point that they distract from the room itself, it might be time to cut back. You should be careful with how many you use to decorate, as they collect dirt and just don’t look that clean overall. Put up the ones that matter.
Be nice to your bookshelves
Bookshelves are excellent storage items. Not only can they accommodate all of those novels that you’ve been hoarding over the years (nice limited edition Harry Potter books, by the way), but you can also toss some tchotchkes and pictures onto them as well. But that doesn’t mean that every inch of a bookshelf needs to be used. In fact, bookshelves should have plenty of breathing room on each shelf. Also, while we’re talking about it, don’t just keep a book around because it fits on your bookshelf. If you don’t want it anymore, consider donating it and freeing up space.
Reevaluate your cable management
There are a lot of tried and true tricks that you can use to organize your home. But in these times, there are also a few uniquely modern issues that require uniquely modern solutions. Our homes are filled with technology, so what do we do with all of those cables that are laying around? We suggest that you take a long look at your cable management. It sounds intimidating, but it’s really not. Just get some zip ties or even rubber bands to help keep your cords together. This will also keep them from getting tangled which is a plus.
No more coffee table clutter
Most of us use our coffee tables as that space where you just toss everything that doesn’t have its own space. But that’s not what they are meant for! A clean coffee table looks a hundred times better than a messy one. Try to sort through all those old magazines and letters that are sitting on your table. Get rid of the ones that you don’t need and file away the ones that you want to keep. Boom, your coffee table is suddenly clean! A clean coffee table looks much nicer and more mature than one covered in papers.
The flow is important
Okay, this is a bit of a complex subject, but it needs to be brought up regardless. We’re talking about the flow of your rooms. There’s not really one tip to rule them all when it comes to flow, so you’re just going to have to experiment. But think about the flow of your rooms as you walk through them. Does it feel awkward to navigate between the different furniture items? Is there a ton of junk that is in your way? Are you stepping on things? If you answered yes to any of those, rethink the flow and reorganize.
Drawer organizers are a big help
Organizing your drawers is super important, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Most of us just want to get through the laundry process as quickly as possible, and that means that many of our clothing items just get haphazardly stuffed into drawers. A simple way to make this process much easier is to just invest in drawer organizers. These little dividers make it very clear where things are supposed to go. If you have them, you can just stuff things in like you did before, but they will now be organized when you do it! Perfect.
Get some closet organizers too
So you’ve got your drawers organized now. That’s great! But what about your closet? That dark, messy, cluttered space that you try not to think about when you’re not getting dressed. Yeah, that. Well, you can apply the same principle to your closet that you applied to your drawers. Get some great organizers and watch in wonder as your closet seems to organize itself! Okay, you’ll still have to do the work, but it’ll be much easier. Try to pick out organizational tools that serve more than one purpose to really maximize your storage capabilities.
Take a look at your linen closet
An organized bedroom closet is one thing, but you need to make sure that all of your different closets are looking fresh. Let’s talk about the linen closet. Most linen closets are just filled with blankets, sheets, and towels that aren’t really very organized at all. So what to do? It’s actually very simple. Don’t be afraid! A few wicker baskets really do the job here. If you want to take your closet organization to the next level, get a few labels for your baskets to remind you which is which. Not a huge change, but it works quite well.
Keep your laundry supplies out of sight
No one ever really thinks about making their laundry rooms look good. But why is that? They are rooms in our homes just like all others. The only real difference is that laundry rooms are utilitarian. But so are bathrooms! So why not make your laundry room look a bit nicer? An easy way to do that is to get some nice bottles to put your laundry supplies into. Just take a look at this photo. All of their supplies are in bottles or jars, and none of the original packaging is to be seen. Doesn’t it look nice?
Clean nightstands are important
Unlike coffee tables, we don’t expect you to take everything off of your nightstands. Nightstands are there for a reason. You’re meant to put a glass of water, a book, a lamp, and whatever else on them. But there is a point you can reach where your nightstand becomes way too cluttered. Is it covered in things that you just put there because you didn’t want to put them in their rightful spots? Pick those things up, put them away, and your nightstand will look a whole lot better. You can leave the lamp though.
