Thinking of jumping onto the decluttering bandwagon?

Perhaps you’re feeling inspired by the new Netflix show ‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’. Or your newsfeed has been cluttered with various images of newly decluttered homes - and you want to give it a go too.

If you’ve just moved into a new home or about to sell, now is the perfect time to start practising the KonMari method. You can sort out all of your belongings, ready to start a new chapter in your life. It’s especially important for the hoarders out there. You know who you are!

Ultimately, the idea is to declutter your house once - then never have to do it again. So it’s worth a shot, right?

What’s the KonMari Method?

The KonMari decluttering method was established by Marie Kondo - a Japanese organising consultant with life-long experience in the art of decluttering. She’s written four books, including the popular title ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ which has been published in more than 30 countries.

The ‘KonMari Method’ involves gathering all of your belongings together, one category at a time, then only keeping items that “spark joy”. You then choose an appropriate place to store those things from now on. It’s actually a harder process than you might think!

3 Easy Steps for Decluttering

Don’t feel overwhelmed. We’ve broken the KonMari method into three easy-to-tackle steps:

1. Discard by category

Kondo has formed a particular order for decluttering, based on the difficulty of certain categories. You start with your clothes, then books, papers, komono (miscellaneous), and finish with mementos.

If you need to, you can break the category into subcategories such as shirts, skirts, bags, hats, etc. Make sure you’ve collected all of the items from various hiding spots in your home. You need to assess everything together.

2. Keep items that “spark joy”

As you go through the process, hold each item in your hands and ask yourself “Does this spark joy?” Does it thrill, move, or inspire you?

If the answer is yes, keep it.

But if you hesitate, then it’s time to donate - or discard!

Kondo says it’s important to physically hold the item to absorb the emotional impact.

3. Organise your space

After you’ve finished discarding, it’s time to choose the best storage method for your ‘joyful’ items. Kondo has two rules about this - store all items of the same type in the same place and don’t scatter storage space.

Don’t invest in new storage solutions unless you absolutely have to. You’ve probably freed up space as the result of decluttering anyway!

One of Kondo’s key recommendations is to store everything ‘upright’ in the vertical method. For example, store your clothes with the folded side up - side by side. They’ll look a bit like a row of book spines. "This will allow you to see what's inside at a glance and take inventory of what you own," says Kondo.

Another important piece of advice is to do everything in one go. You need to keep up the momentum and avoid too much time lapsing between categories.

After following the process, you’ll be left with a beautifully organised clutter-free home. Ready for your new life!

If you’ve decluttered your home and now ready to sell, Listing Loop is the perfect platform for getting in touch with potential buyers.

We're here to help

We're always happy to help with all the dramas and stressors of house buying and selling.

And if you're particularly tired of house-hunting, we've even partnered with buyer advocates who can check out homes for you and organise sales assessments and negotiations.

Our off-market and pre-market marketplace gives you VIP access to properties so you can get in first.

Just sign up at Listing Loop or download our app.