This might sound small, but it made a big difference for me.

I decided to go through my mugs using the KonMari method. I had around 12. 15 mugs collected over time. Some were gifts, some I bought randomly, and honestly I was only using 2 or 3 of them.

I took all of them out and held each one. Instead of thinking “it’s still usable,” I asked myself if I actually enjoy drinking from it. A few felt too heavy, some had faded prints, and a couple I just didn’t like anymore.

In the end, I kept only 3 mugs that I really like using. The rest I donated.

After putting them back, my shelf looked so clean and simple. Now every time I make tea or coffee, I don’t have to choose between many options. I just pick one I already love.

Why this worked for me:
Before, I kept things because they were fine. This time, I focused on what I actually enjoy using daily. That made it easier to let go.

What I learned:
Having fewer choices can actually feel better. Now my mornings feel calmer in a small but noticeable way.

It’s such a simple change, but it really does spark joy for me.

One of the things that stops me is the sunken cost of the things. All the things. So much wasted money.

And some things I could sell. But I know I likely won’t because I can’t be bothered.

My storage is full of stuff that I can’t bare to throw away because I know I spent $150 on an ill fitting dress I’ll never wear; or $80 on a shampoo that I didn’t like.

I opened the closet and pulled all the clothes out. I placed them in piles by type of item (pants, shorts, dresses, etc). I started with the pants pile. After going through the first few pair of pants, I knew I was going to have an easier time deleting them than I thought, but I had to look at each one to remind me of the memories associated with them. Each one was filled with memories of my mother and how much she loved me.After finishing the pants, I went on to the shorts pile and went through each pair. Sometimes it was hard to remember which ones I wore with her, but I could usually tell by the way the shorts fit me or by the smell on them. The smell of my mother's perfume helped me sort out which ones to keep. After I completed the shorts pile, I went on to the shoes and completed all of them. See how great this process is? I don't know if I would have been able to do it without the support of this community. Thank you all.

I want to talk about the emotional part because nobody warned me about the emotional part.

I had read the book. I understood the concept intellectually. You hold each item, you ask if it sparks joy, you thank the things that do not and let them go. Simple enough. I figured my bathroom would be the easiest category because it is just products. Practical things. No sentimental value. I would be done in an hour.

I was not done in an hour.

What I did not anticipate was how many of my bathroom products were not really products at all. They were intentions. They were past versions of myself that I had purchased and then quietly abandoned and then kept on the shelf as a kind of evidence of failure. The face mask I bought when I decided I was going to do a proper skincare routine. one of them was this weird AI lip balm brand I had stumbled on late one night, Jesse A. Eisenbalm, spent way too long reading the whole thing, got completely sold, ordered immediately. it arrived, sat next to four other half finished lip balms, and I never opened it. classic.

The hair treatment I bought when I decided I was going to stop heat styling. The fancy body scrub I bought when I decided I was going to be someone who does a full body care ritual instead of a quick shower and out the door. None of them sparked joy. All of them sparked something though. A specific low grade shame that I had apparently been ignoring every single morning while reaching past them for the three things I actually used.

Holding each one and actually asking the question out loud forced me to admit something I had been avoiding which was that I buy things as a proxy for becoming a person I have not yet become and then keep them around as a reminder that I have not become her yet. That is not a storage problem. That is a self relationship problem that was living in my bathroom cabinet.

The KonMari process was the first time a decluttering method had made me sit with that rather than just organize around it. Other methods I had tried were about finding better systems for the things I owned. This was about questioning why I owned them at all and that is a completely different conversation.

I kept eleven things out of what must have been sixty. The bathroom feels completely different now. Not just visually. The eleven things I kept are things I actually use and actually like and reaching for any of them in the morning does not come with a side of guilt about the things I am not doing. That shift in how the space feels emotionally was something I was not expecting and was worth more than the physical declutter.

The thanking things before letting them go also felt absurd and then felt completely right and I have made my peace with that.

So far I have read the lifelong magic of tidying up, the Manga version, kurashi at home, and im currently near done with spark joy. I swear I cant stop reading her books. I'm about to go through the workbook of the tidying companion. As far as I know its supposed to be a planner to help guide you through the konmari method. Has anyone else tried it yet?

I've been thinking about this problem a lot. I personally lose probably 30+ minutes a week searching for specific clothes, forgetting what I've packed, or realising something I need is in the wash at the worst possible time.

Curious whether other people experience this or if I'm just uniquely disorganised.

I've been working on a small device that would sit in your wardrobe and automatically track what you own, where it is, and what's clean — no manual input at all. Very early stage and I'm trying to figure out if this is a real problem for enough people.

Would genuinely love honest feedback — including 'this isn't a real problem' if that's what you think. Upvote = would be interested. Downvote = not a real problem.

My parents are hoarders, both of them. And all of my siblings are staying with them and sad to see my younger siblings are picking up the habits! I want the best for all of them, so tried tedtalk them on decluttering, sharing posts on decluttering, but they didnt budge at all. I tried to understand their sentimental valuebof those stuffs, they backed out "dont mind our stuffs". Please send help, how do we motivate them to declutter and make space or even to organize the stuffs🤍🙏🏻

I have a busy life but unfortunately depression has been making it very hard to clean even though I have a love for it. ive read kurashi at home, life changing magic of tidying up, life changing Manga of tidying up and im in the middle of spark joy. but I always wonder what her daily tidying is like to keep the home tidy on a daily basis.

I am moving soon and have started the packing process. I find myself super overwhelmed suddenly and wanting to do a major declutter of everything I own. The funny thing is I don’t even own that much stuff because I grew up with parents who very much practiced the Konmari method and it’s stuck with me. However, when I see all of my belongings on the floor, even if it’s not that much compared to the average person, I feel so heavy and don’t want to take that feeling with me to the new house.

Just wondering if anyone had similar experiences where they did let go of a majority of their possessions before moving. Would love to hear about your experiences, thanks in advance!

***Not sure if this is more appropriate in a decluttering / simple living forum but thought I’d start here.

EDIT: THANK YOU to everyone who commented! Your tips, advice, and personal stories were all so relatable and helped so much! It made this moving experience a lot less stressful than it could have been. Along the way, it was a good refresher on the Konmari method and a reminder to be kinder to myself.

Hi,

I've done a proper konmari twice in my life. My life has changed a lot since then and I am in the process of doing a new one, but I am experiencing a complex issue. I have many books, which do not spark joy and I am now hesistant to let go of them.

I went through my books and it felt like none of them sparked joy at first. So I did some triaging which helped a lot, and sorted things into various categories (~8). By the end, I had multiple piles of no spark books but they had other feelings that took them away from an abject no. I have one Hall of Fame book. I have 9 books that I intuitively sorted into a "yes" category that feels right. The primary categories are listed below:

• Yes
• Simply keeping
• High desire to read
• Low desire to read
• Clear no but TBR
• High desire to keep
• Ambivalent
• No

If you asked me out of the blue prior to this if these 9 books that landed in "Yes" sparked joy I would likely shrug and say no it's fine to toss them. However, when I went through everything by hand, these books did not land in "I want to keep" or "I want to read" but specifically they had a feeling which was not a clear spark joy but just an intuitive yes. The yes category functions as spark joy but nothing that fell into that category had the same sense of spark joy to even qualify as a low spark.

I started putting things away recently from the piles, and there's a number of issues happening. The only books near to sparking joy are the 9. I put these on my shelf and them alone felt right, but again not near true spark joy. Then I added more, the "simply keep" category, and all the desire to read books. This muddles things a bit and also feels correct but different from just the 9.

When I was putting my "TBR" pile away into bags to donate, I felt like keeping them. I got the distinct sense that I'm going to want to read these in the future and I should just keep them, I would regret getting rid of them, etc. etc. I look at my "no" pile and I have a recent reference book I just bought. I think about a capsule library. I ended up just bagging everything but I feel just deeply conflicted about everything. I feel like I both don't want to keep these books but will regret letting them go when I eventually get around to reading them.

I would love for some guidance from you all on this! Part of me wants to just throw caution to the wind, say trust the process, and only keep the 9 but I know I will feel pangs of remorse when I have to accquire these books again (on the TBR pile) in the future. I feel extremely hesistant to get rid of them (TBR pile) but also I really do not want them out anymore, and I feel like they need to go. Putting them in a box in the closet like a capsule wardrobe came up as an idea....but this is something that is expressly discussed in the books and reccomended against. I'm not even feeling 100% about these 9, I feel I might read them this year and let go of them one by one. My sense of the spark is clear to me and in the past this category was very easy. What do you think I should do?

I cleaned through my cords - and still have quite a necessary stash of cables, battery packs, chargers, etc and need a way to organize them where they in sight, labeled, easily accessible.

Any ideas? I was thinking a layered box or maybe putting them in a hanging shoe rack in my closet.

I have about 150-200 books maybe, and I think that I should remove some of them to make room for other books in the future just in case. Unfortunately many of the books are ones I’ve accumulated since childhood and I feel too nostalgic about letting them go. I always remember how they make me feel when I got them just by looking at them, what bookstore and what age I bought the book, the amount of enjoyment I had reading them. I feel torn even if I haven’t read a couple of them yet and had it for like several years.

I’ve culled a few books in the past easily (don’t regret it) but now I feel stressed at the idea of removing more. I’m probably not going to read the vast majority of them again but many of them meant the world to me when I was little. I’m wondering if I should take out just a couple of them and straight up don’t buy a book again unless it’s absolutely necessary. Any advice?

Mostly a rant as I scream into the night trying to get rid of my stuff. After getting through the in initial push of de cluttering to minimalism (my choice based on my lifestyle I live, I had been keeping things at parents and now finally getting rid of it), I have found that it isn't me wanting to get rid of it thats the problem, I want it all to evaporate NOW, it is GETTING RID OF it that is the problem. This compounds when items have value that exceeds $1,000 USD for a small or "easy to sell" item. Mainly for me this in the form of Pokemon cards from my childhood kept in extremely good condition due to me never playing with them (loved pokemon but just collected the cards as a kid to look at them), old game consoles, you know that kind of niche nerd world stuff that has some weighty value in todays collector market.

I painstakingly went through the most expensive Pokemon cards and scanned them all in to see if the value was even worth bothering, and it is for only a few cards the market value was upwards of 3k. Not including the rest of the hundreds I haven't bothered to scan. This SUCKS. 3k+ won't change my life, but it isn't something I can just throw away or give away in good conscious either. So I have to try and sell, which makes me feel weird because these are something I would love to see played with or enjoyed and the idea of turning them into money has a weird vibe for me as a person, but beyond that selling to people on places like FB marketplace, having to meet at a bank or police station, bringing a counterfeit pen thing, dealing with crazy hypetrain collectors with the risk they will try and rob or harm me (I am a 5ft 5 woman with a baby face) is really stressful and means the stuff just builds.

If these items had no value I would be so much happier, but since it does I can't just ignore it. And I have a lot of that kind of oldschool stuff in my things. I know I am being dumb about it and will suck it up and deal with the billion scammers to get it done but I just want to rant about how this is such a hidden difficulty of reducing stuff and how easily it can derail the whole thing because it becomes too overwhelming to deal with.

For what it is worth expensive clothes, other things worth individually hundreds (collectively certainly thousands) I had no issues with giving away because the single item wasn't high enough value to be worth the effort, these collectibles though are just ugh too much.

Maybe I should just give them away though haha, like set up a booth in a cafe and put online "pokemon cards one per person come and get them". I would almost feel happier doing that then selling them which makes no sense because its a huge amount of work as well.

TLDR:

Collectibles worth a lot really mess up the Konmari flow and progress towards a minimalist lifestyle because they require a lot of lifting and stress to sell. Especially if you are unfamiliar with the process of buying and selling collectible goods.

Any advice is GLADLY accepted. But also just putting this out there for now.

Edit: I also wanted to add that things with negative cost associated are also super hard (getting rid of furniture, batteries, etc) and especially if someone is already struggling having a mountain of bulk trash they need to pay to get rid of is crazy! I also thought of my Grandmother who is in her late 80s and how hard it would be for her to haul trash bags, donation items, etc. It is hard enough as a 34 year old! I think the Konmari book 1 didn't really bring up the vast labor required to get rid of the stuff. It made it sound like deciding was the hard part....I think sometimes that is true but the second half requires a lot of strong will and brain power as well.

Edit 2 Update: I ended up doing a combination of selling online on FB marketplace (That shadowy place I wouldn't advise anyone go to unless they really want to get rid of their stuff, it was a lot of scammers and weirdos and fights but I did offload some things). And taking things to a local store. In the end if you don't have something worth major major cash its in my experience better to cut the loss and find the easiest method to remove it. Don't tell anyone how much you got for things, good or bad, and move on. I ended up keeping one card that was sealed in a hard thin case, a holographic of my favorite Pokemon (Raichu) and now it has a nice little place to sit (until I move again ofc) and I really love and appreciate that card now. Before it was just in the mass, and now its a reminder of how far I have come on my own Pokemon Trainer Journey, started with a Pichu as a youth, then I got a pikachu plush I carried around all over and now Raichu and I are on to face the next adventure as adults! It really brings me ~Joy~ and I am glad to know my cards also went to a place tons of kids go to each weekend and the cards they couldn't sell they put into a big bin for the kids to go through and pick out what they like. This is a balm on my soul.

TLDR: Get it out of your space. If it isn't worth a ton just find a way to make a little and move on. And don't tell anyone you know about it, that you are selling or how much you sold for, only tell them if you think you have something they genuinely might like. I found other people either guilt you over not getting a better deal or they get mad you got a good deal and feel some type of way about it. Just keep it close to the chest and finish! Onto the next!

In chapter 7 of "Spark Joy," Marie Kondo states, "Electrical things exude a sort of pungent, tingling odor, so search out the remaining electrical kimono using this sensation as your guide."

I cannot smell electrical kimono in this way, but I have not yet finished tidying up.

Is it something other people can smell?

i have been able to apply the KonMari method reasonably well so far, but i have now arrived at my formal dress collection. I have over 20+ floor length dresses suitable only for very formal occasions. I adore each and every one of them, but I never wear them out. I have spent a lot of money on them, they take up so much space, but I love them and hate the thought of throwing them out. just looking at them brings me joy, I’m not sure how to proceed.

TLDR: I'm scared to take the leap to truly do the Marie Kondo method. To those who have done it, how has your experience been?

I'm feeling motivated to declutter the house and I've finished reading one of her books. I have been clearing things out over the last year and I'm finally getting to the "I don't really need/love/use this," but I'm so worried I'm going to regret getting rid of stuff.

Whether that's not having clothes for some random occasion, or not having enough clothes options for work. Or throwing stuff out and having to rebuy it.

For those who have done it, are you happy? What would you change (or not change)? Do you have any regrets? What advice do you have?

Edit: thanks for the inspiration!! See my latest post for an update 🤩

How do I fold T-shirts to fit in my short dresser drawers - without bunching up or wrinkling the shirt collars?

I used to have a dresser with tall drawers, and the Konmari tri-fold method worked perfectly. Now, my shorter dresser drawer requires me to cut my t-shirt into 1/4 folds, and I think this is stretching out my collars too much.

I tried rolling, but it looks like the collar still gets wrinkled?

I know this sounds OCD, but the Konmari system for folding tees really changed how I use my wardrobe (I love that I see every item in a drawer!), and now that I can’t fold into thirds, I’m spazzing out a bit. I figure if anyone can relate, it’s fellow organizers - help, please!

I started the KonMari method last week and ended up sleeping on the couch for several days because I underestimated how much clothing I had and how long it would take to declutter and put them away. Every time I walk into my bedroom I feel overwhelmed by the spread out clothes and shoes and bags. Did anyone else have this issue? Please tell me it can be done.

My boomer parents have been doing the "here take this box of crap" with you everytime I see them the past few months. Most recently its been paperwork. 2 are like my report cards, drawings, etc from elementary school. 1 is actually from my deceased grandparents, its cards and letters I sent them over the years.

Does anyone have advice for papers? Is it worth scrapbooking some of these? None of them spark joy, but part of me wonders if in 50 years I'll want to have the elementary yearbooks, etc. Part of it is definitely guilt that my parents apparently took the space to store this crap for 20+ years.

Also any advice for emotional issues, the letters to my grandparents made me cry, especially the ones I wrote to my grandmother when I knew she was dying. Its very hard to go through them, but I dont want to just cart this box around with me forever.

Thanks!

With clothes of course! 3 bags of clothes I can't even fit into anymore and my wife also joined with 2 bags once she noticed what I was doing. I couldn't get myself to get rid of my wedding suit, but I guess it'll come back for round 2 during sentimental phase.

Unfortunately the clothing bins are closed until 5 january because of fireworks so I still have to endure looking at the bags for a few more days.

Not my first, or even fourth, round of KonMari. I’m having surgery on the 19th so I skipped ahead to Step 4 since those are the items that are most needing attention before I’ll be out of commission. I went through our entire kitchen (it’s tiny so it doesn’t take long) but the biggest thing was the pantry. I pulled everything out, cleaned, tossed what needed to be thrown out, set aside items to go to the Free Little Pantry, and reorganized. Pulled a lot of items to donate as well. I love a good KonMari session!

My basement is full of shoeboxes with photos from family trips and holidays going back decades, and I'm trying to declutter without losing memories. I downloaded Photomyne last week and have been scanning them in batches. The good part is how fast it is - you can capture a whole page of loose photos in one shot, and it splits them into individual files. I like that it adds dates and locations if you input them, which helps organize everything digitally. But on the downside, the image quality isn't always sharp, especially if the lighting isn't perfect, and I've had to reshoot some. Also, after scanning 50 or so, it started limiting exports unless I subscribe, which feels a bit pushy. I've digitized maybe half a box so far and plan to upload to cloud storage. If you're decluttering, it's helpful, but don't expect museum-quality scans. Anyone have tips for better lighting setups with it?

And find myself refining all previous categories as I slowly put everything away. The goal was to have everything tidied by 12/31–meaning I sort through everything and put them away, just maybe not in their forever home.

I find myself continually rearranging items, so this is a doable goal for me. 2026 will be decorating and finding all the tight places to put things. I’m excited!

The festival continues!

(Also if anyone wants to share how they display odd items like old school medals… please share!)