Is KonMari Contagious?
Here’s How To Catch KonMari Fever!
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If you have not yet read the fabulous Marie Kondo’s “The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up”, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy today. It is so worth your time if you are looking to create more happiness, calm, and organization in your life through the art of decluttering. My three friends and I recently got together to help a friend of ours declutter her closet. The effects were contagious. After five hours of purging her closet, we all went home and did the same to ours that very night.
The art of decluttering and freeing yourself of “things” is contagious. While we were tackling our friends closet, we all kept saying, “I am doing this tonight! I cannot wait to go home and purge my closet!”.
Even though I had recently parted with over 60% of my own closet, I knew that there were still things that I had that I no longer needed that were taking up space. I couldn’t wait to do another clean-out once I got home.
The work we did on my friends closet paid off big time for her. According to the KonMari method for cleaning out your closet, the first thing that you do is take everything out of your closets and pile it in one spot in your house.
Step 1: Gather everything you own, take it off the hangers, and pile it in one sorting spot.
My friends and I were going to divide and conquer to make this go as quickly as possible. First, we counted the pieces. Our friend was starting with 428 items of clothing. Wow! We also noted that she had an alarming amount of tags on her clothes (implying that they have never been worn). Part of the process in decluttering your closet is to decide what “Sparks Joy” (Marie Kondo has an entire book dedicated to going into detail about how to decide what actually sparks joy in your life). If it sparks true joy, you keep it. If it still has a tag on it, you cut the tag off and welcome it into your closet.
If it does not spark joy anymore (even if you have never worn it), you thank the item and put it in a donation bag. I was in charge of presenting our friend with each item of clothing. She was very good at deciding if it was going to be kept or donated. She did try a lot of the pieces on to see if they fit (she has recently lost a lot of weight). We were there to help her decide if the item was a keeper or not.
We also helped her to identify if she already had a similar piece of clothing. If she did, she would choose to keep one of the two pieces. One of our friends was in charge of folding for the donation pile, and another was in charge of hanging the keeper items back up on hangers.
It took us about four hours to get through everything on her hangers. And listen to these numbers:
-Started with 428 items
-Ended with 167 keeper items (these are clothes that Sparked Joy)
-Counted 104 tagged items, most of which were placed in the donation pile. Kept items were de-tagged.
-Achieved over 60% wardrobe reduction
Donation pile - five jumbo bags of donations - a 60% reduction!
This was a giant reduction in clothing. As you can see, she has so much more space in her closet. Her hangers are no longer touching each other.
Top: BEFORE, Bottom: AFTER
Our friend has so many free hangers now. She does admit that shopping in itself brings her joy, which explains all the tagged items. Moving forward, if she brings in additional items, she needs to purge one old item for every new item. This method will help her to stay clutter free as she picks up new pieces of clothing along the way.
Look at all of these open hangers!
Once we all went home, all three of us purged our closets and cabinets. Decluttering, cleaning, and organizing is contagious. I get all sorts of good feels from purging my belongings.
I was successfully able to purge an additional 53 items from my already-lean closet. Here is another donation pile of mine that I am very proud of!
Purged 53 Clothing Items From My Closet
Our other friend went home and purged an epic 58% of her wardrobe. She started with 295 items of shirts, tshirts, sweaters, sweatshirts, and coats, and ended with 123 items. Her donation pile of KonMari goodness was HUGE!
A Contagious 58% Closet Reduction
Our other friend went home and purged her closet AND her cabinets. She has a toddler, and anyone with a toddler knows how out-of-control the colored sippy cup and bowl collection can become. She purged over 15 useless sippy cups and was able to organize her cabinet into a tidy space. She recently redesigned her kitchen - which is a perfect time to declutter.
As you can see, yes, decluttering and purging your home is contagious. I highly recommend getting together with friends to do this in your own home (or at a friends house). In the end, all four of us purged over 700 pieces of clothing from our wardrobes. We were able to thank those pieces for serving us for a few years (errrrr, or 10 years!), and let them go to have a second life with someone else through donation. Few things in life are as refreshing and inspiring as a decluttered home and closet.