Declutter Tips from Marie Kondo

Tidy once and you'll never need to do it again. If you put your house in order, all you'll need to do from now on is to put your things away at the end of the day. People think it's best to tackle one room at a time or to do a little every day. Marie believes the secret is to tidy in one shot, as quickly and completely as possible. Start by discarding and don't even think of putting things away until you've finished getting rid of things you no longer need. When you tidy your entire living space in one go, rather than little by little, you change not only your space but also your mindset. The same impact can never be achieved if the process is gradual. As soon as you start to think 'I wonder if this will fit in this drawer', the essential work of going through everything to decide whether to keep or chuck comes to a halt.

A proper clear out involves three actions.

• Take the time to examine every item you own.
• Then decide whether or not not you want to keep it.
• Finally choose where to put what you keep.

The storage myth

• Storage methods promise quick ways to remove visible clutter - but just create the illusion that the problem has been solved.
• You need to be ruthless, even for things you feel obliged to hold onto, like a present that you don't like. You may feel guilty, but think about it like this: the true purpose of a present is to be received.
• For the clothes you choose to keep, fold as many as possible - you can fit 20 to 40 pieces of folded clothing in the space required to hang 10. Fold each item into a neat rectangle and store standing up rather than laid flat. This way you can see everything at a glance.

Don't do the following:

• Don't keep anything you don't use.
• Don't keep things at your parents' home.
• Don't scatter your storage spaces around the house - store items of the same type in the same place.

Does it bring me joy?

• Tackle your belongings by category, rather than one room at a time, so you can compare like with like.
• Start by going through your clothes, then books, papers, miscellaneous items and, lastly, sentimental keepsakes, as they're often the hardest to throw out. By the time you reach them, you should be in the swing of it.
• Starting with clothes, take everything out of your cupboards and drawers and pile them up together on the floor, then go through them one at a time. For each one ask 'does this bring me joy?'. If it does, keep it. If not, throw it out.
• In the end the things that remain are the things that you really treasure.

Say thank you and let it go

• It's human nature to resist throwing things away. It's easy of an item is broken, but harder if it can still be used, contains useful information or has sentimentalism ties.
• When you come across something that is hard to discard, ask yourself why you have it in the first place. Why did you buy certain clothes if you never wear them? If you bought something because you thought it looked great but never wore it as it didn't suit you, it's fulfilled two functions:  it gave you joy when you bought it and it taught you what doesn't suit you. Say thank you and recycle it.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo