I am a borderline hoarder.  Because I only moved once, I kept so many things throughout my life.  I have old elementary school vocabulary quizzes and 15 colored shirts of the Philadelphia Sports and Social Club.  The reason I keep things is the fear that I will need this item in the future.  What if I lose it?  What if it breaks?  On top of this, I have the worst memory and would forget an item and continue to buy more of them.

My original tidying philosophy was to let things build up and do it all at once.  Would you do the laundry for a few articles of clothing?  No!  My time is better spent elsewhere. I get into my cleaning spurts where I clean for hours (although not as frequent as my wife would like it!)  She grew up in a home where it was very tidy and always clean everyday.  This is always a major conflict of ours.

I decided to make a change in 2017 once my father passed away.  My family went through my dad’s old things and threw away 99% of his items.  I realized what really matters in life is not about the things that you own, but the life that you live and the lives that you impact.

My pursuit of happiness started when I read “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo.  I heard many great things from friends and family.  I decided to rip off the band-aid and submerge myself into her tidying methodology 100%.  The basis of Marie Kondo’s method (also known as the “KonMari Method”) is to hold every piece of item that you own and ask yourself one simple question: “Does this bring me joy?”  If it does, you keep it.  If it doesn’t – throw it away.

3 essential points that I got from the book:

1. Developing Focus: Although it does go into great detail about organizing, it taught me that a clean home will create focus.  By organizing your house/work space, you are able to focus on your things that are important in your life and what you value (relationships, finances, health, career, etc.), not your home/objects.  If you think about the purpose of the object, it can help you achieve your goals/values.
   • I can attest to having a clean and neat area when I was studying for my actuarial exams.  My mind would subliminally drift to my workstation and focus on the messiness instead of the study material.
2. Mindset: Tidying is about developing the right mindset:  we need to take really good care of the things that matter to you.  By surrounding ourselves with things we love, we can focus of our energy on other key aspects of our life.  This allows you to pursue your goals and ultimately become happier.
3. Rip off the band aid: “The secret of success is to tidy in one shot, as quickly and completely as possible”  There are two different types of tidying – a special event and everyday.
   • Special Event:  The once-in-a-lifetime event is where you go through a dramatic transformation.  I agree with her that the special event must be done all at once.  There is something psychological about seeing instant results in order to feel that something has changed.
   • Everyday: The everyday tidying is simply building a daily habit of putting objects back to their home so that you can quickly find it again next time.  Once you get this daily habit, you have changed your mindset and it won’t become a chore to do!

4 Steps to Organizing and Tidying Up

1. Begin tidying up by Categories, not rooms – This is counter-intuitive for me.  I have typically organized by room, but I remained messy and unorganized.  As Einstein said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.”   By focusing on category, you can become more efficient at organizing.  It is a waste of time and emotional energy to constantly determining one type of item repeatedly.
   • Categories (in order of first to last): Clothing, Books, Papers, Komono (Miscellaneous), and Mementos
     • Start with Clothes – it is typically the easiest to do and one that we most frequently clean.
     • End with Mementos- they are the hardest to get rid of because they might have some functional, informational, emotional, or sentimental value that cannot be replaced.
     • You can also break down the categories into sub-categories.  For instance in clothing, you can start with tops, bottoms, clothes that can be hung, socks, underwear, bags, accessories, clothes for specific events, and shoes.
2. Put Every Category/Sub-Category in One Room on the Floor – Seeing every item in one room will enable you to efficiently decide on what to keep or discard.
3. Ask yourself: Does this item bring me joy? –  Marie Kondo states that you pick up each item and ask yourself – does this item bring you joy?  If yes, keep it.  If no, thank the item (say it out loud or in your head) for its purpose and discard it.  It is important to express gratitude for the item, so you can discard it without guilt.
4. Discard everything of the category before you start organizing –  It is more important to discard everything before you organize.  You will end up storing things that you don’t need and become a hoarder.  This book is helping you build the mindset of a clear and uncluttered space that is filled with only things that you love.

Once you begin the process, it does get easier and easier discarding things.

Brief Discussion of the Categories

There is a great checklist from Making Lemonade that I found to be helpful: http://makinglemonadeblog.com/free-printable-decluttering-konmari-method-checklist/

1. Clothing –  The Proper Way to Fold/Store Clothes
   • Dresser: When you look at your dresser, you should be able to see everything you own in seconds.  Her folding technique allows each item to stand up individually rather than flat.  This website has a nice tutorial on her folding techniques: http://goop.com/the-illustrated-guide-to-the-kondo-mari-method/
     • I found Ikea’s Skubb collection to be helpful for organizing the drawers
   • Closet: Marie Kondo recommends that your clothes rise to the right, which means jackets and dresses would be on the left, while pants/skirts and shirts are on the right.
2. Books
   • In the end, you are going to read very few of your books again.  Marie Kondo recommends to get rid of most the books (general – fiction, nonfiction, practical – references, cookbooks, visual – photograph, collections, magazines) you have.  The ones you keep are those that belong in the hall of fame.
3. Paper 
   • Marie Kondo’s rule is simple – get rid of everything that does not fall into one of the 3 categories:
     1. Currently in use
     2. Needed for a limited period of time
     3. Must be kept indefinitely (tax returns, contracts, etc.)
4. Miscellaneous
   • Contains: CDs/DVDs, make-up, accessories, valuables, electrical equipment and appliances, household equipment and appliances, kitchen goods, bathroom essentials, and other.
5. Mementos 
   • One great quote from the book is that “No matter how wonderful things used to be, we cannot live in the past.  The joy and excitement we feel here and now are more important.”  This is the hardest part of the discarding that I still struggle with.

5 Conclusions & Results (6 months later!)

1.  Dramatic Results Require Dramatic Action – I ended up getting rid of over 58% of my wardrobe (see below).  It took me about a full day to go through my wardrobe, but it was worth it!  Laying out all of my clothes by section and going through each section was powerful.  I reduced the amount of space I needed in my closet in half and got rid of a dresser drawer!  This gave me the motivation to spent the next few days going through the other categories on the list because I found visually see the improvement!
   • With my discarded items, I went through a few routes:
     • Sell it (eBay, Craigslist, consignment like Swap.com)
     • Donate to Goodwill
     • Trash it
       

       Item	Joy	No Joy	Total	% Joy	% No Joy
       T-Shirts	22	62	84	26%	74%
       Sweaters	19	15	33	56%	44%
       Pants	25	20	45	56%	44%
       Polos	8	9	17	47%	53%
       Dress Shirts	13	26	38	33%	67%
       Vests	3	4	6	42%	58%
       Shorts	10	12	22	45%	55%
       Jeans	2	1	3	67%	33%
       Underwear	10	22	32	31%	69%
       Undershirts	5	14	18	25%	75%
       Hoodies	2	4	6	33%	67%
       Socks	21	31	52	40%	60%
       Workout	25	8	32	77%	23%
       Ties	8	8	16	50%	50%
       Belts	3	3	6	50%	50%
       Total	174	237	410	42%	58%

2. Gaps/Surpluses in Wardrobe – I realized that I had no dress shirts, t-shirts, and underwear that I liked in my wardrobe.  My body changed its shape from college to today.  I used to lift and do little to no cardio in college.  Today, I’m a runner and do light weights.  My chest and waist have both gone down, yet my clothes haven’t kept up with my new body.  On the other hand, I had a surplus of dress pants, where many of which I never wore.
3. Staying Clean is Easier – The biggest thing that I dreaded about cleaning was that it was going to take me hours (if not days) to do before.  By delaying the inevitable, it built up cleaning the house into a huge project/ordeal and not something I wanted to do.  Cleaning the house in the special event made future tidying easier and not feel like a chore.  By tidying up a little each day, you can build a habit of quickly putting things back to their home in a matter of minutes.   It also has made both my wife and I happier as she doesn’t have to nag me about cleaning anymore!  Although folding laundry takes more time now, it allows me to see everything in my dresser drawers in a second and preserves the elastic bands on the clothing.
4. Getting Dressed is Easier – Now that everything has a particular spot in the house, getting ready is much easier.  I am no longer running around the house in the mornings searching for my keys or wallet.  I find myself misplacing fewer and fewer things.  Additionally, I have narrowed my ward robe down to about 5-10 essential items that I know I like to wear and are in great condition.  With less options, I can reduce my decision fatigue for the rest of the day.  In essence, let’s say we have 100 decision brain cells in a day.  By reducing the cells needed to select my outfit, I can allocate those cells to focus on other priorities in the day.
5. Burden off of my Shoulders – Years and years of old baggage has literally been removed from my shoulders.  I can go into my wardrobe and not worry about picking a bad undershirt that might be stained or loose fitted.  Also – by thanking and expressing gratitude, it truly does lift the guilt that you may have when discarding items.
   • On a side note, there have been plenty of studies on happiness when expressing gratitude (see Shawn Achor’s TED Talk  (cut to the 11:00 minute mark to see his 5 tips to become happier)
   • Tony Robbin’s said: “The antidote to fear is gratitude. The antidote to anger is gratitude. You can’t feel fear or anger while feeling gratitude at the same time“

Overall, the book is a little bit cheesy, but the methodology is sound.  I would recommend that everyone read her book and find a good weekend/set of days to implement her KonMari method.   There truly is some magic to being tidy and organized.  I threw out all of my Philadelphia Sports and Social Club t-shirts, but I still have my elementary school vocabulary quizzes.