Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
(If you don’t know where that phrase comes from tune into this commercial and wait for 1:50 where Jonathan has his breakout acting moment / a catch phrase was born.)
This tidying up has been tough work. In America, when we discuss tidying, most people think of dusting and picking up some toys. That’s not what The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up means. In the book, when KonMari talks about tiding, she really means “gutting your house” which is far more extereme…and necessary if one is actually going to see results and make permanent changes.
We tackled clothing this past weekend. It’s fairly easy to discern which clothing “sparks joy” but it just seems like there is so much of it! We started out by sorting Josephine’s clothes and that took us several hours. Doing our own wardrobes was even harder (especially since I am still nursing and haven’t worn or fit into several items in close to a year because of weight gained thanks to the meds I take for induced lactation).
In this post, we will discuss KonMari’s methods when it comes to tidying your clothing and storing it. Let’s do this thang.
First things first, you must ask yourself, “What things will bring you you if you keep them as part of your life?” Once you get into that mindset, you are ready to begin.
KonMari recommends gathering every. single. item. of clothing you own and piling it all in one place. Don’t leave any piece out of the pile, since she says if you find something after you’ve done that category, you must discard it since it wasn’t important enough to remember in the first place. (Unless it’s in the laundry.) So grab all your winter coats, old t-shirts, bins in the attic of off-season attire, etc. Get it all together and thrown into a giant pile to start sorting.
(That’s not ACTUALLY our clothes. You would’ve seen our clothing pile but Wrigley, our dog, ate the photo memory card.)
She then places an emphasis on every item needing to be handled. By picking up each item individually you can more readily discern if it bring you joy.
Once you’ve sorted your way through the pile, take a brief rest because the hard and satisfying part is about to begin. It’s time to begin implementing the KonMari folding technique. She’s very specific about how to fold and store your clothes to get the most from your space but also more easily visualize your items.
The key to storing things in to stand them up as opposed to laying flat in the drawer.
Mind. Blown.
I don’t know why we never thought of this before but immediately upon folding and storing per her instructions, I could feel order being restored to our dressers.
Let’s go over how to fold your clothes, KonMari style:
And now how to stack them in the drawer:
Once you’ve mastered the dressers, where she encourages most of your clothes to be, she moves on to closets. KonMari suggests that clothes go into the closet according to their category. Tops are with other tops and pants are with pants, etc. Overall, the clothes should rise to the right, creating a more comforting feeling.
There are a few other small tips, such as never ever balling up your socks since it stresses them out….but we’re just not implementing that one. I like to fold socks by balling them up and that’s how it will be. I’ll get a shoe box and keep them neatly contained but we are a sock balling family for life.
And that’s how to tidy your clothing. Intense but very freeing once it’s done. Knowing I can now go to my closet and find only things I love is incredible. No more “hating my clothes” like I used to say. And being able to have breathing room in my closet and drawers is amazing. Goodbye are the days of crammed up closets and drawers stuffed to the point of overflowing.
I can see why she calls this stuff “life-changing magic!” 🙂
