Konmari Method Checklist | Konmari Checklist | Marie Kondo Method

Marie Kondo emphasizes minimalism and decluttering while keeping only the things that bring you joy. If you’re ready to get organized in a truly meaningful way, then the KonMari method is for you.

KonMari Method Checklist for Organization

Make a Commitment
Visualize Your Ideal Lifestyle
Eliminate Distractions
Discard Stuff Before Tidying
Tidy by Category (Not Room)
Organize in Order
Hold Each Item and Figure Out What “Sparks Joy”
Avoid Getting Too Sentimental
Tidy in One Day (or Weekend)
Follow the Specifics for Keeping Your Clothes Organized
Find a Defined Home for Everything
Remember That It Gets Easier

Kondo’s method of tidying up and organizing is designed to get you to part ways with meaningless stuff and keep only the things that you love to give you life changing organization as the result.

The KonMari Checklist embraces Kondo’s six rules for tidying up, decluttering, and organizing using the KonMari Method. Using this simple house cleaning checklist, you’ll learn to declutter your belongings and, in turn, declutter your life by streamlining what’s around you.

Who is Marie Kondo?

Marie Kondo is an organizing expert and consultant. She shot to stardom in early 2019 when her Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, first aired. But Kondo originally wrote books about her cleaning and decluttering methods, starting with The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which is now a series. Kondo has also written a children’s book and is in the process of releasing a book about organizing your professional life.

Kondo began her consulting business when she was just 19 years old, growing it into the multi-million-dollar business it is today. In 2015, she was named on Time’s list of “100 Most Influential People,” and she continues to inspire people all over the world seeking new, doable ways to organize and stay organized. In late 2019, Kondo opened KonMari, her online boutique with minimalistic home decor, organization tools, kitchen items, and more.

You can follow Marie Kondo and her company on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media channels, read her books and watch her Netflix show to get the full scoop on her cleaning and decluttering methods.

What is the KonMari Method?

The teachings of Marie Kondo focus on finding joy in your belongings while cleaning your space to rid it of belongings that don’t bring you joy. Kondo packages up her teachings into the KonMari Method, which focuses on six primary rules:

Committing yourself long-term to tidying up
Imagining your ideal lifestyle and how tidying fits into that
Discarding items you don’t need or use
Tidying by category rather than by room
Following each step in order
Asking yourself if your belongings spark joy

Kondo stresses the importance of following her tips in order - for example, organizing all the clothing in the home before moving onto book organization and purging - for the most complete house cleaning and decluttering. For this reason, many KonMari followers use a KonMari printable checklist or create their own printable checklist to remind them of each step. You can find a printable template with a quick Google or social media search.

Rather than hide your clutter behind sliding closet doors, for example, Kondo teaches you to purge things you don’t use and find a specific home for everything else. There’s no hiding stuff with the Marie Kondo method of organization. In turn, you’ll find a renewed sense of calm within the walls of your home and in your life.

Marie Kondo teaches that it’s best to tidy up your home using her method in one day rather than spreading out the task over several days. She’s also a stickler about purging books, papers, and sentimental items. Her methods are strict, and her style may not be for everyone. However, Kondo’s biggest fans trust the KonMari Method Checklist to bring peace and simplicity to their lives.

The KonMari Method Checklist isn’t like other tidying methods that tout organizing your miscellaneous items by room or using room dividers to make your space feel more functional and less cluttered. Marie Kondo’s way of organizing governs the order in which you organize items, how you fold clothes, and how you say “good-bye” to each book, decoration, or sentimental item you don’t need.

KonMari Method Checklist for Organization

1. Make a Commitment

The first step in the KonMari method of organization is to commit to doing it. Kondo teaches that following a decluttering checklist and purging your spaces won’t get you very far if you’re not committed to making over your home and life long-term.

Tidying up can seem overwhelming when you’re first getting started. The simplest tasks, like decluttering the mantels, to ridding bookshelves of books you no longer read, is enough to trigger panic in you if you’re not sure how to part with what you have.

This is why it’s so crucial to commit. Once you make a promise to yourself to follow through with starting the organizing process and keeping it going forever, it’s a difficult promise to break. Whatever you need to do to make that commitment happen, do it. You might write yourself reminder notes, for example, or create a Pinterest board of inspiring, well-organized spaces you’d love to mirror in your own home.

It might also help you to have someone with whom you’re close to joining in on the task. You can set goals and keep each other accountable for your tasks as you move through the KonMari method.

2. Visualize Your Ideal Lifestyle

Next, you’ll visualize what you want your life to look like. This part of the KonMari Method Checklist focuses on bridging the connection between home organization and life organization. Following the Marie Kondo method can help you learn that a decluttered home can have positive effects on your personal life.

Imagine how you want your life to be. You might choose to lie down, close your eyes, and daydream about your perfect life. You can also draw, write, or sing what comes to your mind. Be as specific as possible, though, even going so far as imagining every detail of your ideal day.

Once you have it figured out, hold onto your thoughts. You should keep referring back to the images you have in your mind to keep you motivated on your organizing journey. According to the KonMari Method, it’s this picture of what you want your life to be that will get you closer to your final goals.

Your visualization will also spill into Marie Kondo’s beliefs that your belongings should spark joy. As you imagine your perfect life, be sure to include only visualizations of people, activities, and objects that bring you joy to keep the positivity flowing.

3. Eliminate Distractions

Just like clutter has the potential to impact your thoughts and ability to focus, distractions can impede your ability to focus on the clutter. To declutter your life, you need a distraction-free time and place to get moving.

In some cases, that may mean getting a babysitter for the kids and pets so that you can focus on purging your clothes, photos, and miscellaneous items without noise and interruptions. Doing so may also assist in your ability to remain focused on your vision of an ideal lifestyle as you complete each step in Kondo’s checklist.

It’s best to turn off the TV and keep your phone in another room while you work. If it helps you focus and visualize your perfect lifestyle, you can turn on a playlist of your favorite songs or listen to calming tunes.

4. Discard Stuff Before Tidying

The official KonMari Method Checklist says to “Finish discarding first.” What Kondo means by this throw out things you no longer need before you begin to organize everything. Otherwise, you’ll wind up trying to organize extra items that you should have purged instead.

The KonMari Method teaches organization by category: clothing, books, papers, komono (miscellaneous items, like home decor, makeup, and kitchen utensils), and sentimental items. It’s also necessary to organize in this order. Your purge should also follow this order to help you move along in the process.

For example, start with each bedroom closet and clothing drawers. Remove anything you haven’t worn in a few months and don’t see yourself needing anytime soon. Then, move onto bookshelves, drawers, and anywhere else you store books you need to get rid of.

Once you’ve shortened the list of items to organize, you’ll find it much easier to begin cleaning and tidying using the Marie Kondo method.

5. Tidy By Category (Not By Room)

It’s in the nature of most of us to want to organize from room to room. Getting one room finished before moving onto the next can give you the motivation to keep going until your whole house gets a refresher.

However, tidying up by category, not room, is an integral foundation piece of the KonMari Method. Marie Kondo encourages you to follow the same order as you did when discarding - clothing, books, papers, komono, and sentimental items - when it's time to tidy.

Kondo’s method focuses on the items that typically cause the most significant delays in the organizing process. Books, for example, can hold sentimental value for some people, which can make you delay sorting through your collection. By targeting the items that are commonly the bottleneck of tidying, you can nip them in the bud right from the start. Additionally, the order in which Kondo suggests you organize starts from the easiest to the most difficult items to organize, with clothes being the easiest of the group and sentimental items the most challenging.

It also makes more sense to sort through a category of items spread throughout the home at one time so that you can get a true sense of how much of that item you have and how best to organize it. It can also help you keep similar items together rather than having them scattered in separate areas of the home.

6. Organize in Order

This step falls in line with the previous one of tidying by category instead of each room, but it’s not quite the same. This rule is Kondo’s reminder that it’s necessary to follow the steps of her process to avoid distractions.

For example, you’re probably going to find papers and sentimental items when you’re going through clothing in your closet, but don’t lose focus. If you do find items that don’t go along with what you’re sorting right now, simply place them to the side in a neat pile to circle back to when it’s their turn.

Kondo teaches that you should have an order when sorting each category, too. After you bundle all items from the category you’re working on, you can hold each one, decide if it “sparks joy,” and if not, discard, donate, or gift it. After you do that with all items, you can move onto organizing.

7. Hold Each Item and Figure Out What “Sparks Joy”

Think back to the ideal lifestyle you envisioned at the start of this process. What about that lifestyle brings you joy? This is exactly what Marie Kondo wants you to think about as you go through your stuff piece by piece.
Kondo’s key phrase, “Does it spark joy?” is crucial in deciding what to keep as you declutter. As you hold each item in your hands, ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” Kondo recommends thanking the items that don’t spark joy for the role they’ve pla