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Could transforming your cluttered space actually change your entire life? Marie Kondo’s revolutionary KonMari Method suggests that how we organize our belongings directly impacts our mindset, relationships, and overall well-being—making tidying less about cleaning and more about personal transformation.
The method, detailed in Kondo’s bestselling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and later adapted for workplaces in Joy at Work, centers on a deceptively simple principle: keep only items that “spark joy.” This systematic approach helps people confront their true relationship with possessions while creating lasting organizational systems that support their ideal lifestyle. Continue reading to learn how to use this method in your own life.
Table of Contents
The KonMari Method at Home
Let’s start with the high-level mindset. In her famous book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondo believes tidying is magic because, if done right, it can transform your whole life: a dramatic reorganization of our home can lead to dramatic changes in other areas.
For example, our unwillingness to discard something usually indicates either an attachment to the past or anxiety about the future. We all want to remember our past, and we all want a stable future—but when we let attachment to the past or anxiety about our future dictate our decisions, we focus on everything but the present.
- If you discover, through tidying, that you have a deep attachment to the past, it’s probably affecting other areas of your life, like your job and your relationships. The same goes for anxiety about the future.
- There are only three ways to deal with your belongings: do it now, do it sometime, or avoid it until you die. It’s better to face things now, if we can, so that we don’t have to deal with them later.
The best tools for maximum organization are awareness and values. Being aware of your ideal lifestyle and knowing the values you want to align your life with are more important than any ability to sort objects.
This might sound serious, but tidying can be fun. You’re learning about yourself, assessing your belongings, and working to create a home and lifestyle that’s exactly what you want it to be. By tweaking your mindset, you can be the master of significant change in your own home and life.
The Step-by-Step Process
Tidying is really just the sum of two physical acts: 1) deciding whether you want to keep something, and then 2) deciding where to put it. If you do these two simple things the right way, you can actually achieve perfection in your home.
Here’s the KonMari method, at the highest level:
- Get all your belongings in a single category (e.g. clothing) across your entire home, and put them in one pile in the same room.
- Pick up each individual item, and decide whether to keep or discard it.
- For the items you keep, organize them effectively.
- Move on to the next category (e.g. books).
KonMari goes through five categories in specific order: clothing, books, papers, misc., and sentimental Items. This sounds easy, but in practice, you’ll find it hard to discard items and to confront how much stuff you have (which is why you own more stuff than you need right now).
Ikki Ni: In One Go
Ikki ni, in Japanese, means in one go, and this is an important facet of the process: do it all in one go.
In the KonMari method, tidying “all in one go” means:
- Taking all your items of a category in your entire house and putting them in one pile, instead of going closet by closet or room by room.
- Sorting through the whole pile, picking up each item, and deciding what to keep and what to discard.
- Organizing what you keep in the storage space available to you.
Ideally, you’d discard and organize a whole category, start to finish, in one sitting, and then do categories back to back as soon as possible.
But most of us have jobs and responsibilities that prevent us from tidying this way, so “in one go” really means powering through the process as much as you can in the time you have available to do it.
Kondo advises that “all in one go” can still mean the process takes you up to 6 months total, tidying when you have the long stretches necessary to do so. But it’s only 6 months out of your whole life to get your space in order and make a change that will affect the rest of your life positively.
A lot of organization advice says that you can make tidying easier by doing a little bit at a time. But this doesn’t make it easier; it makes it harder, and it makes you more likely to rebound back into clutter.
- Doing it little by little makes us feel like we’re organizing, when in reality we’re just doing things halfway and unfinished.
- If we tidy just a little bit every day, we’ll be tidying for the rest of our lives, and who wants to do that?
- It’s easy to lose momentum this way, and it takes more energy over a longer period of time.
- This is why it’s better to do it as a marathon: tidy up in one go. This makes sure you finish the job completely, which prevents you from rebounding.
The kind of big-picture tidying Kondo talks about shouldn’t be done every day. She views this kind of tidying as a special event. Special event tidying should be done in a short amount of time while your spirits are high, while daily tidying should consist of putting the things you use back where they go. Only once you’ve completed the special event task can you actually do the daily tidying effectively and without much effort.
Tidying all in one go helps you see the most dramatic results fastest—and this is the easiest way to change your mindset. You’ll know what it feels like to have a house that’s totally organized to your own standards, and you’ll be surrounded by objects that make you happy. Why would you ever want to go back to a cluttered life after that?
Go by Category
This is a fatal mistake most people make while tidying: going by room instead of by category.
Most of us have similar items in different locations, like coats in a coat closet in the hall and clothes in a dresser in the bedroom. If we tidy by room, we end up doing the same kind of work over and over—this can lead to burnout.
Tidying by category lets us do one kind of work in totality, no matter where the objects are in your space. Plus, most of us have no idea how much stuff we own, so tidying by category is the wake-up call we need…
The KonMari Method at Work
The KonMari Method was adapted for professional settings in the book Joy at Work by Marie Kondo and organizational psychologist Scott Sonenshein, and it offers a systematic approach to creating and maintaining an organized workspace. Unlike conventional organizing strategies, which typically focus on storage solutions and short-term cleanup efforts based on locations or categories, this method focuses on transforming your mindset and encouraging joy-based decision-making to achieve lasting results.
Kondo and Sonenshein break down the method into three steps.
Step #1: Visualize
The authors recommend visualizing your ideal work life as an important first step in the KonMari process: Imagine your physical environment and how you want to feel at work, including specifics of your daily routine. They argue this mental blueprint motivates you and gives you a concrete target for your tidying efforts. According to the authors, people often fail to maintain a tidy workspace because they haven’t established clear, meaningful goals or understood their deeper motivations. Without this foundation, even well-intentioned tidying efforts collapse under everyday pressures.
(Shortform note: The “Day in the Life” exercise offers a structured approach to workspace visualization by having you craft a detailed narrative of your ideal workday. Start by describing your morning routine, how your workspace feels, when you’re most productive, and how you end your day. Include sensory details like lighting, plus emotional states like flow and satisfaction. This technique helps your brain visualize specific changes needed in your environment. Research and workplace design practices suggest that people who practice this kind of visualization exercise are better able to identify the environmental and organizational features that support their most effective work habits.)
Step #2: Keep What Sparks Joy
Next, the authors say you should use “joy” as the main criterion for what to keep. They describe joy as a physical sensation—a little thrill or flicker of excitement when you touch an item that truly resonates with you. In a professional context, this might mean appreciating how well a tool functions or recognizing how an item supports your work goals.
(Shortform note: While Kondo describes joy as a physical sensation, spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, authors of The Book of Joy, define joy as a state of being independent of external circumstances. Unlike Kondo’s momentary spark, they frame joy as an enduring feeling unaffected by life’s ups and downs. This suggests workplace joy might come from finding a deeper purpose in what we do, not just getting the job done.)
While in the home context, Kondo recommends keeping only items that spark joy, she and Sonenshein recognize that workplaces contain necessary items like tools and documents that may not spark personal joy but are essential for professional functions. Thus, in a professional context, they recommend sorting items into three categories: those that spark joy (items that genuinely excite you, like a favorite pen or meaningful award); those that have “functional joy” (items that may not thrill you but effectively support your work, like well-designed software or reliable equipment); and those that have “future joy” (items that contribute to your long-term goals and aspirations, such as professional development materials).
(Shortform note: Kondo and Sonenshein’s workplace joy categories align well with prominent workplace motivation theories. “Items that spark joy” connect to what psychologists call intrinsic motivation—activities we enjoy for their own sake, which research shows boost creativity and quality of work. “Functional joy” parallels the concept of identified motivation, where we value something not for immediate pleasure but for how it enables our larger goals. “Future joy” items correspond with what organizational psychologists term delayed gratification, a trait associated with higher career satisfaction and advancement.)
Step #3: Tidy All At Once
Just like organizing your home, Kondo and Sonenshein emphasize the importance of tidying in one focused effort rather than spreading out your tidying sessions. Piecemeal approaches typically lead to rebounding clutter, whereas tidying in one go helps you establish clear systems. They recommend setting aside specific time for a “tidying festival”—a concentrated period dedicated to organizing your workspace completely. This prevents the common cycle of partial tidying followed by gradual clutter accumulation. In shared workspaces, Kondo suggests choosing times—such as early morning or after hours—when you won’t disrupt colleagues.
(Shortform note: Kondo and Sonenshein’s tidying festival approach echoes deep-rooted cultural cleaning traditions from around the world. In China, families thoroughly clean before the Lunar New Year to sweep away bad luck and make way for good fortune. The Iranian tradition of Khanh Tekani or “shaking down the house” involves a comprehensive cleansing before Nowruz (Persian New Year), from washing rugs to clearing closets. However, other traditions focus more on the slow process of tidying over time; for example, the Swedish practice of döstädning or “death cleaning” is the gradual decluttering in preparation for one’s death.)
KonMari Method FAQ
What is the KonMari Method?
The KonMari Method is Marie Kondo’s signature approach to tidying, built around a simple principle: keep only the items that “spark joy.” It’s less about cleaning and more about transforming your mindset, habits, and living environment.
What are the main steps of the KonMari Method?
At a high level, the method involves:
1. Gathering all items from a single category.
2. Handling each item to decide whether to keep or discard it.
3. Organizing what you keep.
4. Moving through categories in a specific order: clothing, books, papers, miscellaneous items, and sentimental items.
Why does the KonMari Method recommend tidying in one go?
Kondo argues that tidying little by little drains energy and often leads to relapse. Tidying “ikki ni” (in one go) helps you build momentum, complete your decluttering fully, and experience immediate results that motivate long-term change.
How long should a full KonMari tidying process take?
Kondo says a complete tidying “festival” typically takes no more than six months if you work on it consistently. It’s treated as a one-time special event—not something you do repeatedly throughout your life.
Does the KonMari Method work at the office?
Yes. In Joy at Work, Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein adapt the method for professional settings to help people reduce clutter, stay organized, and create a workspace that supports joy and productivity.
How do you avoid clutter from returning after using the KonMari method?
By completing your tidying all at once, setting up clear systems, and only keeping items that truly serve you, you minimize the chance of rebound. After the “big” event, everyday tidying becomes simply returning items to their designated places.
Learn More About the KonMari Method
If you want to learn everything there is to know about the KonMari method, you can read our detailed guides to the full books below.
