How to Declutter Your Home Before Moving – The Marie Kondo Way

Moving into a new home can be a hectic task, yet the excitement of getting a new start makes it all worthwhile. If you are planning your next home move but are dreading it instead of feeling excited, there may be a couple of underlying factors as to why this is the case.

Perhaps you’re now confronted by the number of things you don’t use that are eating into your space or you might be anxious about bringing the clutter from your old home right into your new one?

The Marie Kondo method is helping thousands of people around the world free their home of clutter. To make your home move a whole lot easier, decluttering is the first step. We’re about to walk you through doing it the Marie Kondo way.

Who is Marie Kondo?

Marie Kondo is an author/celebrity consultant organiser who rose to fame upon the release of her Netflix series: Tidying Up With Marie Kondo. The decluttering expert bases all her work on a fool-proof system that produces a more organised and tranquil lifestyle.

What is the Marie Kondo Method?

The Marie Kondo or Konmari method outlines 6 fundamental rules to declutter and organise your home. While these guidelines are effective, your success with this process lies in your attitude towards it. Here are the steps involved:

Step 1. Commit Yourself to Tidying Up

The first step in this process is to make a firm decision to achieve your goals and stick by it. Sometimes we make impulsive decisions, but we don’t follow through with them. This has an adverse effect on our mental well-being and leaves us in a place that is worse than where we started.

Ask yourself why you want to do this. Focusing on the good that you’ll get out of doing it will help you put things into perspective. This increases your likelihood of completing the task. In your case, getting a fresh start in a new home is reason enough to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.

Step 2. Imagine Your Ideal Lifestyle

Visualising what you want will improve your chances of achieving it. This step is about mentally preparing yourself for the lifestyle you are planning. Only then can you get on to tidying your space with the right mindset.

Imagine having moved into your new home and living your ideal lifestyle. Be very specific about the details and engage your imagination as much as possible.

Step 3. Start Discarding and Get Through It!

Now we’re really getting down to business, but this phase isn’t as simple as it sounds. When we imagine decluttering, the act of throwing out a bunch of stuff comes to mind. If that is all there is to it, wouldn’t all our homes be well organised?

Well, they aren’t, and that’s because decluttering is harder than we like to admit. Kondo’s guidelines help you tackle this issue head-on. So, ensure that you make it right till the end of this blog. Also, keep in mind that you have to finish what you started or you’ll end up having to move unnecessary items into your new home, only to have them collect more dust.

Step 4. Tidy by Category

Kondo advises tidying your entire space according to five categories as opposed to doing it room by room, which is what most of us are used to. The categories are:

Clothing
Books
Paper
Komono (Kitchen, Bathroom, Garage and Miscellaneous)
Sentimental Items

Step 5. Follow the Right Order

The categories listed above are in the order of things that are easiest to most difficult to approach. Hence, it is crucial that you follow the right order to get through with things the right way.

Step 6. Ask Yourself if it Sparks Joy

Now comes the real deal. This is the pivotal rule throughout the entire process of organising your home that makes it so effective. The key to getting it right is to be completely honest with yourself.

Here’s how it works; you pile up all your things on a chosen spot, hold each of it in your hands and ask yourself “does this spark joy to me?” If it doesn’t, you discard it, and if it does you keep it.

While it’s hard to imagine doing this with your kitchen utensils, bathroom supplies and what’s in your toolkit, have a go at it anyway. It might surprise you when you find that some of the most used things in your house actually sparks joy within you.

Once you’ve decluttered your home with the Konmari method, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You won’t be dragging the unhealthy mess of your past into your new home, where your ideal lifestyle awaits you.