The Konmari Method

 I always thought I was pretty good at keeping my drawers tidy but over the last few years I have accumulated items and my drawers filled up and before I knew it they weren't tidy and I would just squeeze things in. It was a perpetuating cycle as the messier they became the less inclined i was to want to tidy them up.

Two Christmases ago my then 18 year old daughter, who likes to be organised, requested Marie Kondo's "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up". She read it from cover to cover on Christmas day! After that she kept suggesting I read it. I didn't think I needed to as I knew how to tidy just fine - lots of years of experience after having children!

Recently I was browsing at the library and I came across this book and decided I would see what all of the fuss was about. I read it in a couple of days and decided she had some interesting points to make. I could see that she had an understanding of the deeper issues behind disorder and by dealing with the mess it would help with some of these issues. I decided I would try out some of her suggestions and tidy up my clothes drawers.

I didn't strictly follow her rules and get out all of my clothes at once as my hanging space is pretty organised and sorted out. I went one drawer at a time and pottered with it over several days. The folding style was the new thing to me and took a bit of practice, Stacking things in a file rather than on top of each other was something I already did in my underwear drawer so it was just a case of extending it to my other drawers.

It was reminiscent of when i was a kid and used to like the process of tidying out my drawers in the school holidays, pulling everything out, vacuuming the dust of of the corners then folding and putting everything away with great satisfaction. I enjoyed it and I did feel so much better afterwards. 

Here are my P.J. drawer and my gardening/old clothes drawer - before and after. I managed to send a few things to the fabric recycler and discover some forgotten items I had buried at the bottom and now the insides of my drawers feels like new again! Let's see if I can maintain it!