Sparking Joy Through Your Piles of Crap with the KonMari Method

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I am not the cleanest or most organized person, and it drives my husband crazy. (But I do have to have my home office and my photography studio stay clean and organized!)

Here is a snippet of a conversation we have had over and over again for 10 years:

Him: “Why don’t you just put it away. It isn’t that hard.”

Me: “I know it isn’t hard. I just don’t feel like it.”

Him: “Well, I don’t feel like it either, but someone has to do it.”

Me: “And it ain’t gonna be me.”

(I am such a great wife.)

konmarie, cleaning, clean, messy house, dirty house | Albuquerque Moms BlogThere have been two times in my life when I went crazy cleaning and organizing. One stood out more than the other based on the recycling and truck loads we took to Salvation Army.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I got a really bad case of the “nesting” phase. I thought that I needed to clean out every single square inch of my house and get rid of everything so I could make room for #2 because I thought I would never ever be able to go through everything again.

My twin sister told me about the KonMari method and how she had been starting to do it in her home, and I was ready to jump on something to clear this house out.

Marie “KonMari” Kondo, author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, talks about going through everything that you own (down to post-its!) and asking yourself if it sparks joy. If you look at a piece of clothing and it excites you to wear it and you love wearing it, you need to keep it! If it gives you no emotion or doesn’t spark joy, get rid of it. Sometimes we hold onto those shirts that spark a memory, but we don’t really like wearing it. She talks about taking the shirt, realizing the memory, thanking it for giving you that memory, and then getting rid of it.

I know that this sounds a little bit weird and cheesy, but it really works!

KonMari has a method of folding and/or stacking everything so you can see what you have, and they aren’t just in a pile or thrown in a drawer.  Can I be honest though? I didn’t follow that part of the method. My sister did, and I thought that was too much work and I didn’t want to do it. Are you surprised? But! I had a closet full of everything that I LOVED to wear, and joy filled my heart when I was picking out what to wear for the day.

Two years have passed since that whole thing happened. Here is a snippet of my husband’s and my conversation now:

Him: “So when are you going to KonMari this place?”

Me: “Am I pregnant? No. Why don’t you do it, Mr. Clean?”

(I am such a great wife. We really do have a good relationship. I swear.)

Did I mention that my husband is a clean freak? I load the dishwasher, and he unloads it because there is a “certain way” to load the dishwasher. He remakes the bed because the sheets need to be tucked a certain way. If he drives my car, he will take every single thing out of it and put it on the garage floor before he gets in to drive. This is real life.

I write this out because the KonMari tendency is coming out again, and I cannot wait. Already, I have started to go room by room. I put on music and just go to town on our crap. Why do we have so much stuff?

If you are wanting to do some in-depth spring cleaning and organizing, check out the KonMari method! I really love this method and my husband likes the results. I printed this out and highlighted as I went. Good luck!


Originally published March 2018.

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