Steps to Keep Organized

The Konmari Method is described in the book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo.

Step One: Make Organizing an Event

Work quickly and organize completely, in one shot, as a special event. Do not work gradually or make regular incremental progress. The idea is to create a "shock" that will motivate you to stay tidy, long term.

Set a deadline. Commit to completing the organization process within a specific time frame. If the process will take longer than one day, commit to a regular schedule. For example, if your deadline is one month from now, commit to working daily or each weekend in the weeks ahead.

Step Two: Make Piles

Round up everything that needs to be organized, and pile them by category - not by location. Categories could be: Books, clothes, dishes, electronics, office supplies, and so on. This simultaneously frees space and makes the amount of "stuff" in each category visually obvious. The idea is that we often don't realize how much excess we have until we see it all in one place.

Step Three: Keep and Discard

Go one-by-one through each item in each pile, hold it, and ask yourself "does this spark joy?" If an item doesn't make you happy, discard it. The idea is to frame the decision in terms of what's truly worth keeping, rather than what you might want to get rid of.

To know whether an item "sparks joy," hold it in your hands and notice how your body reacts. Do you feel a sense of excitement or inspiration? Keep it. Otherwise, discard it.

Is an item necessary, but it doesn't spark joy? Keep it, or decide to replace it with a better version if possible.

Perform this process in the following order: Clothes, books, documents, miscellaneous items, mementos. The order is important to building momentum. Clothes come first because they're they typically create the most organizational progress in the least amount of time, thus providing motivation to keep going. Mementos come last because they tend to inspire nostalgia and stop the organizing process.

Step Four: Put Away

When only the items that "spark joy" remain, put them away. Just as they were brought out and piled in categories, they should be put away in locations by category rather than by room.