Are you feeling anxious and disorganized lately? After spending this extended period of time inside when we would normally be at work, visiting friends, travelling or shopping, it is easy to feel a little claustrophobic. The roots of your anxiety could relate to organization (or lack-thereof) and clutter in your home. Studies have shown that messy areas in your home can be very distracting mentally. Luckily, there are some simple things you can do to de-clutter your home and improve your state of mind!
The KonMari method is a way of cleaning your home and clearing your head created by the professional organizer, Marie Kondo. You may recognize her from her popular Netflix show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. It certainly takes skill to create a television show about cleaning that hooks an audience, and her method of cleaning can be used to organize your own home. The whole basis of this method is only keeping items that spark joy.
Essential steps to the KonMari method:
- Commit to cleaning up. Think about what you would want your ideal space to look like.
- Remove every item from its current storage place and place into a pile, to pick through one by one, determining each item’s fate. To determine whether you will keep it or discard it, simply ask yourself, “does this spark joy”? If not, you should discard it.
- Thank the discarded items for serving their purpose before you toss them.
Working through each room in your house using this method should enable you to reach your cleaning goals. Once you have a “discard” pile, consider whether the items could be donated, recycled or if they must go in the trash. Certain companies will pick up your donated secondhand items free of charge; Big Brothers in Vancouver does exactly this. To book a pickup online, click here.
For more information, check out these websites:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/high-octane-women/201203/why-mess-causes-stress-8-reasons-8-remedies
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/organizing/a25846191/what-is-the-konmari-method/
