Does It Bring You Joy

In April of 2015, Time Magazine released their list of The 100 Most Influential People in the World, and a young Japanese woman by the name of Marie Kondo, made the list.  She’s not an actress, or an artist, or even a philanthapist. She’s a modern day Mary Poppins who wrote a book about how to become more tidy.

“Whaaa…?!”

That was my response, when I heard a Time Magazine executive giving an interview on television about the newly released list, and talking about her specifically, and the booked she wrote titled The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like things to be tidy; I just hate the process of getting there, so the idea of how her book could have ever become a best seller was totally beyond my comprehension.  The magazine’s spokesperson went on to explain, however, that Marie Kondo’s tidying philosophy is to let go of everything that no longer sparks joy in your life, and the more I considered it, the more I realized that concept really did resonate with me, so out of curiosity, I bought and read the book.

The KonMari method is about getting rid of everything you own that no longer brings joy to your life, letting go of things by acknowledging with gratitude their previous usefulness to your life while also recognizing that usefulness may have expired, and then intentionally keeping only the things you do still use and enjoy.  With clothing as an example, you then fold most everything into neat rectangular forms which can be lined up easily inside a dresser drawer.  She further recommends (and I agree because I like how it looks) to order the items in the drawer in harmony with Feng Shui…i.e. in the below drawer you’ll see my clothes are all arranged in the drawer from dark ones up close to the front, moving to lighter colored ones toward the back.

Does It Bring You Joy - PaulaReyne.com - drawer pic 1 - 640x416

What I love about it, is that I can see exactly what I have in the drawer as soon as I open it, and I don’t have to dig around to find things.

I’ve been using the KonMarie method for my clothes now for just short of a full year, and I’m totally sold on it, because not only can you see what you have at a glance, but once you remove an article of clothing stored this way, it’s also extremely easy to see where to replace it, whenever you’re ready to put it back (notice the 3 vacant spots in the below picture).

Does It Bring You Joy - PaulaReyne.com - drawer pic 2 - 640x480

You might still be a skeptic, and I can’t blame you for that.  I used to hang everything in the closet except socks and underwear, so I really had to try it for myself, and so that’s really all I’m suggesting…

Try it for yourself;  I think you’ll really like it!

About Paula Reyne 62 Articles
I'm an entrepreneur-wife-mother turned-blogger who lives in Plano, TX with my husband and two fluffy, baby cats.

17 Comments

  1. I am a pretty organized person and have no problem letting go of things but never thought about putting things that are darker towards the front and lighter towards the back…makes total sense and now I have to check out this woman more! Thanks for sharing via #MidLifeLuv

  2. I love that idea. I’m so glad I saw this. I had no idea there was Feng Shui for how to arrange clothes in a drawer. I’m fairly neat but can never find things in my dresser drawers because they have other clothes piled on top of them. Thanks so much. I’m inspired.

  3. I’m so glad you enjoyed the post, Rebecca. I love the new way of organizing my dresser draw items. Things are so much easier to find, so I bet you’ll really love it too!

  4. Terri, it absolutely does stay that neat all the time. That is why I actually tried it all out at home, for a couple of months before writing the blog post just to test it all out for myself, and what I found is that it’s so easy to maintain, and my things are so much easier to find now, that I really can’t ever see going back to the old way of storing my clothes. I hope you find it works the same for you.

  5. ‘Glad you liked the blog Beth. I think you’ll find it quite fascinating the change it make to your life. It really is almost like magic what a difference it makes.

  6. What a great idea, Fran. If your daughter is willing to give it a try, I feel sure she will really love it. I can just imagine seeing a drawer full of college t shirts and things all neatly lined up in the drawer. What fun – plus it just makes it so much easier to spot just the right thing to wear, plus it’s really easy to spot exactly where to put newly laundered items away. Good luck to both of you!

  7. This so all so true. Thanks for the info about the book. Living and working clutter free is pure heaven but most of the time I reside in clutter hell! My answer was buying modular units with big pull-out boxes – I have them all over the house. But actually getting rid of stuff you don’t use is much better – that’s hard though! I am one of the – ‘oh I may need that one day’ brigade. But of course, we never need the things that have been stored in our lofts and basements for years! Will definitely be re-thinking what to do with my stash of ‘stuff’. Thanks.

  8. Based on Facebook ravings, I purchased and it’s on my bedside table waiting in queue. I’m very curious. And I did not know this. I have done this with my closet for years but not my drawers. Thanks for sharing!

  9. Nice to meet you too, Gilly. I love the new #MidLifeLuv Linky party. I always find good new stuff there, and it’s awesome to make new friends – like you! 🙂

  10. Thanks Kimberly. It’s awesome to be a part of #MidLifeLuv, and I love the Linky parties you and Elena host. You two are amazing! I do also genuinely hope you find the new folding system as helpful to your life as I have; I like it so much better that I know I’ll never go back to the old way of doing things. 🙂

  11. I am nowhere close to being a ‘tidying up superhero’, like Marie Kondo is, but the one thing I do share in common with her is that I’ve always pursued having a clutter free space (even though it’s often challenging to attain in real life). I like her method of folding a lot, so I’ve adopted it as my own. With regard to letting things go, I read an article years ago by some organization guru (too long ago to remember who it was), but they suggested that in deciding what to keep and what to throw away, that if you haven’t used something in a year, you probably can get rid of it with no real impact to your life, so I’ve been using that as a general guideline ever since, and it works well for me, so you might consider trying that.

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