I love the spark joy and thanking for items part but the folding was too hard for me because I couldn’t see the difference from one item to the next with her folding method. I was always picking up the wrong shirt guessing incorrectly which one I wanted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She (Kondo) even abandoned it, after having a baby. (And making tons in the book I am sure.)

Pretty funny!

(Perfection is an illusion people)

She has 3 kids and a more “relaxed” approach to life now, it seems.

But “more relaxed” is probably still less cluttered than the vast majority of people. She used to clean her purse out every night, for heaven’s sake (I don’t know anyone who decided they needed to do that after buying her book).

I feel like a lot of people are using “even Marie Kondo stopped decluttering after having a baby” as an excuse for their own mess.

The people who get mad about her are the ones who have issues. (FWIW, my house was never cluttered, but if people found her process for decluttering helpful, and she made money from it, it seems like a win-win to me).

Answering op, I didn’t have time to read all responses.

Yes a lot of it has. I still have habits affected by her book and show.

What isn’t looking great, I haven’t put much time or effort into. Or is kids area. But even then, there are still a lot of improvements.

I follow a couple of other declutter people now, and all in all, every bit of it inspires me to not mind chucking stuff / buy less / buy better quality.

If you did the Marie Kondo method, did you do it all at once? How long did it take you to do each category?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has stuck for me, in that I bring a lot less stuff into the house than I used to and am less tied to keeping things for the “just in case”. My house isn’t perfect, but it’s manageable. I also use her folding methods, which are great for helping you see what you have.

Just in case is my nemesis.

How did you break that habit?

Not PP, but the "keep only those things that spark joy" helped me break the "just in case" habit. Like I kept an extra comforter around just in case, but realized that I didn't love it. If I thought I really needed an extra comforter, why not look for one that really makes me happy every time I look at it? Then when I see it taking up space in my closet, I don't get irritated by the lack of space, but feel happy to see it.

+1. I keep paper copies of all my kids health forms "just in case." In this instance, it's not that the paper copies "spark joy," but I do feel happy to know that if the electronic copies of those forms fail for some reason, I know I have the paper copies and can get to them quickly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has stuck for me, in that I bring a lot less stuff into the house than I used to and am less tied to keeping things for the “just in case”. My house isn’t perfect, but it’s manageable. I also use her folding methods, which are great for helping you see what you have.

Just in case is my nemesis.

How did you break that habit?

Not PP, but the "keep only those things that spark joy" helped me break the "just in case" habit. Like I kept an extra comforter around just in case, but realized that I didn't love it. If I thought I really needed an extra comforter, why not look for one that really makes me happy every time I look at it? Then when I see it taking up space in my closet, I don't get irritated by the lack of space, but feel happy to see it.

Anonymous wrote:It has stuck for me, in that I bring a lot less stuff into the house than I used to and am less tied to keeping things for the “just in case”. My house isn’t perfect, but it’s manageable. I also use her folding methods, which are great for helping you see what you have.

Just in case is my nemesis.

How did you break that habit?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still fold, and her method helped me tremendously with releasing stuff.

However, I always stall out at paper, when I follow her method.

It was definitely her least descriptive area. I need more advice for paper than "Get rid of it all." I'm in academia, so probably have more paper than an organizing consultant.

Ugh. Paper is the worst for me.

It has stuck for me, in that I bring a lot less stuff into the house than I used to and am less tied to keeping things for the “just in case”. My house isn’t perfect, but it’s manageable. I also use her folding methods, which are great for helping you see what you have.

Anonymous wrote:Yes! But - I am a teacher and in the summer I "re-Kondo" which is more like refolding my clothes, going through kitchen cabinets, fixing things that have gotten messy. It's not nearly the effort of the first time.

This. I "Kondo'd" our linen closet that also holds bathroom items, etc., and it has never gone back to the frightening mess it once was -- despite having kids and DH using that closet nearly every day.

I still fold my clothes the way she instructed

Yet another vote for "It helped me think about whether to bring something into the house and when/how to get rid of stuff"

And because I'm no longer drowning in stuff, I can get rid of things in more ecofriendly ways than 20 trash bags, like they showed on one episode of her Netflix series.

Sort of. Spouse and kids aren’t really on board so it’s uphill for me.

Anonymous wrote:I still fold, and her method helped me tremendously with releasing stuff.

However, I always stall out at paper, when I follow her method.

It was definitely her least descriptive area. I need more advice for paper than "Get rid of it all." I'm in academia, so probably have more paper than an organizing consultant.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She (Kondo) even abandoned it, after having a baby. (And making tons in the book I am sure.)

Pretty funny!

(Perfection is an illusion people)

I never thought she was trying to make people have perfect homes. Rather, I took her method as a way to make sure the things that surround me are things that are truly meaningful to me.

I agree. I think she said that if you really love all your stuff, keep it. But most people don't really love all their stuff as much as they like space and freedom.

My stumbling block is economic security. There was never enough money growing up to buy new clothes that fit and we had to keep whatever we had (sewing up holes, ignoring stains) because there wasn't likely to be more. I think her book talked about letting go of that worry and trust the process, but it's hard.

+2. The best thing about KonMarie is that it helped me to save SO MUCH MONEY by not buying things I don't need or love.

The key is not to buy things in the first place...not to have to declutter or worse buy organizational products.