Marie Kondo and Declutter Tips for the New Year

So… the new year has happened and we’ve heard some of you have been binge-watching the Marie Kondo series on Netflix?!  For those of you who don’t know who Marie Kondo is (really?) you are in for a delightful surprise.  The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up has become an essential book for minimalists and a global movement.  Marie Kondo herself is the cutest, sweetest most respectful little lady to kick your butt into gear.  She will have you in a tidying up frenzy and well on the path to minimalism in a matter of weeks.  You won’t be surpriused to know that removing rubbish as the result of a clearout is one of our common jobs.

Marie believes we should only hold on to the things that truly bring us joy.   For those items that don’t make the cut, we should apparently thank them and let them go.  Which as you can imagine has prompted some fabulous memes.

The Kondo Method is fairly easy to understand and involves taking every item out and systematically testing it for the ‘spark joy’ factor before returning it in an more organised way.  The down side is that this actually creates a giant mess to start with.  If you’re not sure how to tell if an item sparks joy or not pop it into your ‘pending’ box to review later.

The management and storage of things is a time consuming activity that takes up a lot of headspace in a family home.  One thing that is true: once you’re on the path to minimalism and set on a reduction of ‘things’ in one’s home you tend become very aware of,  and place limits on,  what is brought into the home  to start with.   

The beginning of the year is the ideal time to start getting rid of your rubbish via a giant clearout and you know who to call for those items left at the end.