There’s no point in just cleaning and decluttering if you don’t have a goal in mind. The KonMari Method requires you to visualize the end goal. Asking yourself “What does my dream house look like?” may help you imagine the clean open space in your house. If your current house is cluttered, there’s a good chance if you were given your dream house, it wouldn’t take too long to clutter it up as well! Try to imagine things in detail – where would your furniture go? Would it be the same furniture? What other ornaments will you have around the room? Etc.

This is where it gets practical. For this step you may need to get everything into one place – empty drawers, shelves, desk tops, etc and put everything in one place. For most of us this is a big job in itself – this isn’t meant to be a 5 minute clean up. You’ll probably find things that you’d forgotten you had or haven’t used in a long time. Before doing any tidying, make a separate pile of things you no longer want or need. It may take some time (even days or weeks), but that’s ok, since you’ve made a commitment you’ll know you have to keep going until it is all done.

Often when we ‘tidy up’ or have a clean out, we do so one room or one cupboard at a time. Having already grouped your items and taken out the items you no longer want or need, you’ve half completed this step. It is important that you think about all your items as a household and not just a room so that you can simplify and not have the same items cluttering each room. When you sorted through each category such as clothes, books, old furniture, sentimental items, etc, you can then think about where items should be put.

While Marie Kondo has a specific order of how thing should be sorted and discarded, you’ll find that the majority of people who have tried it don’t stick to the exact order and still make things work. In fact, there are a lot of checklists that people have made and each are slightly different from one another. You may find that you have categories of items that don’t fit into anyone elses checklist, so you’ll just have to stick closely to a list. Sorting t-shirts before pants isn’t so important as that you actually sort through both.

While going through your checklist and sorting items for your newly cleaned/simplified home, the thing that you’re supposed to ask yourself is “Does it spark joy?”. Does the item you’re holding make you happier? Does it make your life easier? Does it bring back good memories? If it doesn’t do any of these things, then it’s probably time to say good bye to it! Finish letting go by thanking the item if it has been useful in the past and then add it to the discard pile!