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Cleaning by the method of Marie Kondo: how to clean up the house once and for all

The Marie Kondo method of cleaning is a great way to perfectly organize and declutter your home once and for all. This simple method requires you to sort each item within the house into categories and decide if it sparks joy or not. Items that don't spark joy should then be discarded or donated. After organizing all your items, you can begin to tidy up your space by tidying up in the right order, starting with clothing, books, documents, miscellany, and finally, memories. This method helps clear out the unnecessary and keeps only items that bring you joy, improving overall mental clarity.

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A mess is a common cause of tiredness and a broken family relationship. Cleaning is often considered flour and routine, but Marie Kondo, the best-selling author of the Japanese art of Tidying Up Home and Life, offers a different path. Her method is the rejection of objects that no longer please the soul. It’s important to sort things out by category, and not just clean one room after another..

Marie Condo Cleaning System Rules

Mari Kondo Cleaning Principles

The main goal is to qualitatively transform a person’s life as he desires. This is facilitated by a favorable basis – a clean, tidy house, where every thing pleases the owners.

Marie Kondo’s philosophy and order are based on five rules:

  1. Introduce your perfect lifestyle. Decide what should be in it and what should be disposed of. For example, you need more calm, order, less stress. Things that do not help to maintain the chosen course do not deserve a place in your home.
  2. Understand item categories, not with rooms.
  3. Things pleasing the soul will be companions on the path to an ideal life. All the rest is a burden, and to abandon them means to free oneself from burdens. It’s wasteful, self-respecting.
  4. Be thankful for unnecessary things for their former service.
  5. Keep items that delight you so that they feel loved., remained accessible and took up as little space as possible.

Checklist

Category breakdown

Marie Kondo divides things into 5 categories as people become attached to them. First come the objects with the least emotional response, and in the end – the most complex.

Category Checklist:

  1. Clothing. It’s easier to determine that the heart is no longer warming, and it’s easier to give up unnecessary things.
  2. Books.
  3. Papers (documents, letters, bills).
  4. Memorable, personal items.
  5. Other items.

For convenience, each category can be divided into subgroups, for example, a wardrobe:

  • upper body (shirts, sweaters, sweaters, t-shirts);
  • hanging clothes (jackets, coats, suits);
  • lower body (trousers, jeans, skirts);
  • socks;
  • Underwear;
  • bags;
  • accessories (scarves, belts, caps);
  • clothing for special occasions (swimming trunks, swimwear, uniform);
  • footwear.

Category Cleaning

Focus on a group of objects, not on rooms. Use the rules of the art of disposing of unnecessary things.

Cleaning procedure by category:

  1. Collect in front of you all the objects of one group.
  2. Alternately, take each of them in hand and ask yourself if it causes joy, a response in the soul. Marie warns – at first it will be embarrassing, but over time it will become clear that this is the easiest and most accurate way to distinguish a valuable item from an unnecessary.
  3. When a thing warms the heart, then leave it. If not, honestly thank for the service, and then sell, donate or throw away.
  4. Choose a place for each remaining item that pleases. Marie advises storing things of the same type in a specially designated place – a closet, chest of drawers, on a shelf, and not putting them all over the house.

Complete one category first, and only then proceed to the next.

This will help not to mix up different things. When the house is in order, only pleasing objects remain, and the rest are taken out of their native walls, then it will be necessary to remove it less often.

Vertical storage

Vertical storage

The clothes hanging on the shoulders are convenient to get, but it takes up a lot of space. If the house has small cabinets or chests of drawers, then it is more economical to store things there.

There are two ways to do this:

  • Horizontal stacks (familiar). It is difficult to find and get the right thing in them – you have to delve into the whole heap. In addition, such piles take up a lot of space.
  • Vertical folding (Con Marie method). The clothes are in neat rows, it is easy to identify and take the right thing. This method saves space in the closet, chest of drawers. In addition, the clothes do not wrinkle, because the press does not press on it, like a horizontal pile.

The idea of ​​vertical folding is to respect things, extend their life.

The main principle is to give objects (clothes, towels or even bedding) a rectangular shape.

They stand like a folder in a stand, do not go beyond the box, shelf.

For the convenience of sorting, Marie suggests using shoe or other boxes instead of dividers or cells. Small ones are suitable for storing socks, scarves, hats or underwear. Large, deep boxes come in handy for t-shirts, shirts, blouses or sweaters.

ConMari folding method

If you use this method, you can store any things vertically, from socks to sweaters, bedding. It is important to follow the folding procedure..

Socks:

  1. Lay one on top of the other.
  2. Bend the bottom of the pair (tips) to the top (elastic band), but with an offset of about 1 centimeter from the edge.
  3. Fold again, only bottom to center.
  4. Bend in half.

Folding socks

Underwear:

  1. Put your panties in front of you.
  2. Fold in half lengthwise (crotch to waist).
  3. Fold left edge to center.
  4. Completely cover the left side with the right.
  5. Bend the crotch to the waist again.

Folding underpants

Pants, trousers, jeans:

  1. Flatten your clothes in front of you.
  2. Lay one leg on top of another.
  3. Bend the corner in the perineum.
  4. Fold the bottom of the pants (cuff) to the waist, but indent about 1 centimeter.
  5. Mentally divide what happened into three parts. Put the lower one on the central one without going to the upper.
  6. Bend in half.

Jeans folding

Cleaning the apartment in the Japanese system – tips from Marie Kondo

Remember that the main goal is not to throw out as many things as possible, but to leave at home only objects that delight the soul. If you have mastered the art of disposing of unnecessary things, the methods of folding and vertical storage of Con Marie, you can proceed to additional tricks, techniques, secrets of cleaning.

Keep track of what things get into your home

Trash cleaning

If you give free rein to family members, they will bring to the threshold a bunch of junk. This is especially true for children. Every day they find “prey” – toys from the Kinder surprise, colorful candy wrappers or even the remnants of food that they took to school. Everyone quickly forgets about such garbage, and the house quickly becomes littery. Therefore, it is important to strictly monitor what your family brings from the outside..

Identify what clutters space and creates clutter

Cleanliness at home is supported by knowing what specific things make up the mess. Decide on them, remove the excess. A pack of drawings from school lessons from fine arts has accumulated – leave only the most memorable ones that please the soul. If there are a dozen pairs of shoes at your doorstep, consider whether you need to buy even more..

Find your place for every thing

Order in the kitchen cabinet

The mess can make up the necessary items that do not have a permanent storage area. Children often throw clothes on a bed, an armchair, and even on the floor if they have nowhere to hang, fold or place. At the family council, determine which corner of the wardrobe to allocate to each person. Make sure everyone has their own hangers.

It is more convenient to store newspapers, bills, mailings in the organizer for documents or wall pockets than leave them on the table. Allocate one cell for each family member or for all kinds of papers so that important mail is not lost among advertising booklets.

Take a box or box for different things

Organize an “unloading zone” in the hallway so you don’t throw things around the house. For example, a ceramic bowl is suitable for coins, phones, keys. The bulk basket at the door is good for insignificant mail (newspapers, booklets, catalogs). For storage of other trifles take away a special box. This technique will eliminate the clutter. There will be strictly limited areas for items, and trash will not spread throughout the house.

Get rid of old documents and papers.

Paper order

Japanese cleaning by the method of Marie Kondo teaches throwing away everything that does not belong to any of the three categories:

  • need to use now;
  • need for some time;
  • required indefinitely.

Free cabinets from unnecessary things

To get rid of unclaimed clothes, get a special box at home. If you put unnecessary things there, you will save space in cabinets, save the wardrobe from clutter. When the box is full, donate its contents to charity, sell or discard.

Look for ways to make the most of your space.

Toy storage

To prevent children from cluttering up their rooms, give them toy baskets. Store food in airtight jars, vessels. This saves space and extends the shelf life of food.

Think about packing your clothes before the season arrives – the wardrobe will become more spacious.

For example, in autumn, put all the shorts, sandals, sundresses in boxes, and then take out jackets and boots. In the spring, pack winter clothes and prepare for warming.

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Comments: 1
  1. Avery Kelly

    How effective is the Marie Kondo method for cleaning up and decluttering your house? Are there any specific steps or tips to follow in order to achieve a lasting and organized space?

    Reply
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