Week 2 of the Marie Kondo Tidy Challenge focuses completely on clothes. On her website, Marie Kondo recommends splitting the tasks up into individuals days.
On the first day, you are supposed to take out all of your clothes and pile them into one place. I could not justify doing that. My family lives in the house and I work here full time.
I knew that I would not be able to comfortably work if I had clothes piled everywhere. Instead, I opted to brush up even more on my tidying knowledge by skimming through her two books, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and “Spark Joy”.
I planned to go through all the clothes over the weekend.
Tips on What Sparks Joy
- Go through all your clothes and pick out your top 3 favorites. That is what joy feels like.
- Try hugging each article of clothing to see how your body responds.
- For essential items (screwdrivers, dishes), focus on what they do for you and thank them for the purpose they serve.
- If there are clothes you are uncertain about, they are considered to be in the grey zone. If you choose to keep them, do it with confidence.
- Remember, there are only two options, keep the piece of clothing or get rid of it.
- Remember to keep your focus on the items that you are choosing to keep rather than everything you are getting rid of.
For those who are really struggling with what sparks for you, here are some additional tips I found in Marie Kondo’s books:
- “Feelings of fascination, excitement, or attraction are not the only indications of joy. A simple design that puts you at ease, a high degree of functionality that makes life simpler, a sense of rightness, or the recognition that a possession is useful in our daily lives”
- “Don’t throw away things that bring you joy simply because you aren’t using them. You could end up taking all the joy out of your home. Instead, get creative and find ways to utilize those seemingly useless things.”
Going Through the Clothes
The first step in going through your clothes is to take every single piece of clothing that you own and put them on a pile together in one spot. In her books, Marie Kondo specifically states that anything you forget about adding to the pile is gone. No second chances here.
As I took my articles of clothing out of the many places I had them stored, I tried to keep them in piles based on the order Marie Kondo states to go through them.
Here is the order Marie Kondo suggests going through your clothes:
- Tops and Bottoms
- Dresses
- Pajamas
- Jackets/Coats
- Intimates
- Athletic wear
- Swimwear
- Purses
- Shoes
- Other accessories
Marie Kondo states that the reason for the particular order is that it is best to start with the clothes that are closest to your heart. The heart is where you feel joy, which means those items will be easier to make a call on whether they spark joy.
As a way to make this process easier, I tried putting my clothes in the above order, which worked out rather well. It helped to increase the speed at which I was going through the clothes.
It is also important that you touch every single article of clothing as you are going through the process. Touching your clothes may elicit a response in your body that will help you determine if it brings you joy.
Recommended Storage of Clothes
Storage of Clothes – Drawers
The largest part of storing your clothes is learning the proper folding method. Marie Kondo has an excellent video on YouTube that covers the proper KonMari Fold.
I remember when I first started watching “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” on Netflix I thought it was a little pushy that she insisted you use her folding technique.
Since I’m following her method to tidy up, I thought I’d at least give it a try. Let me tell you, using her folding technique makes your folded clothes look so pretty!
Just seeing the neatly folded clothes looking so good brings me joy.
If you are like me and don’t like being forced into specific methods, at least give it a try. Then after you see it complete for the first time, make your decision as to whether you will continue to fold this way.
I know I will. My dresser drawers look so pretty now, it actually brings a calming feeling to me when I look at them.
Here is a breakdown of a few of my drawers:
As you can see in the sock drawer picture above, the drawer is not nearly as joyful or relaxing to look at as the t-shirt drawer below.
Unfortunately, my pants were too tall to stand up in my dresser drawer, so I had to lay them down. Marie Kondo does not recommend laying clothes down if you can avoid it. It is better to organize clothes in the standing position, similar to the t-shirt drawer above.
In her books, Marie Kondo also notes that using the KonMari folding method takes up less space in your drawers. Who doesn’t love to fit more clothes into one drawer!
Instead of having my t-shirts and tanks split into multiple drawers, I am now able to fit them all into a single drawer. My clothes now all happily fit in my bedroom instead of split between my bedroom and the spare room.
It is such a happy feeling!
The last tip I will share with you in regards to putting clothes in a set of drawers, is to consider the color order. Marie Kondo recommends putting the light colors in the front and slowly have them go darker towards the back of the drawer.
Storage of Clothes – Closets
Store items of similar materials together. This tip goes for the whole tidying process. She recommends splitting items into cloth, paper, and electric.
For clothing, the books recommend keeping the categories very high level. Keep the thicker, wool-like clothes together, and the lighter, thinner fabrics together.
There is a specific list of clothes that are suggested to hang in clothes versus putting in drawers.
Here is the list of items Marie Kondo recommends hanging in closets:
- Coats/Jackets
- Suits
- Skirts
- Dresses
When you hang these items in the closet, hang them by clothes in the same category.
Her other pointer is that the clothes should rise to the right. That means the heavy and long go on the left. On the right would be the lighter fabrics and shorter in length clothes.
Here is how my closet is looking right now. As you can see, I still have a few items that are non-clothing related that will be looked at in the upcoming weeks as we continue on the challenge.
You will also notice that I have quite a few items hanging not included in the list above. I do have most of a drawer available at the moment. However, I do have clothes in the laundry. Once I have all my clothes in the dresser, I will see if I have room to fold and include more of the shirts into the dresser instead of the closet, which is Marie Kondo’s recommended storage method.
Feelings after Week 2 of the Marie Kondo Tidy Challenge
The aftermath of the Week 2 challenge was a total of 5 bags plus a few extras donated to Goodwill.
After the picture here, I was still tidying and found another bag worth of stuff to donate.
I insisted we run the donation items to Goodwill right away the day that we went through everything. I didn’t want all the items sitting around, waiting to be second-guessed.
Let me tell you – getting all of my unused clothes and items that I didn’t like much anymore out of my house, felt so good.
There were only a few items that were bad enough to be thrown away. It felt good to give the items to a place where someone else might find good use for them.
Not only was there the good feeling of donating the items. There was an unexpected feeling of lightness on my part.
For a while, I had been sitting around with almost a feeling of guilt. Having all these items around me that I didn’t use had been weighing on my mind.
I didn’t realize how much physical items could weigh on your mind until I got rid of many of them.
It seriously felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders! And that is only after Week 2 of the Marie Kondo Tidy Challenge.
I’m excited to see what Week 3 of the Tidy Challenge brings. Huge shoutout to my husband, Travis, for being willing to go on this journey with me.
Take the Challenge With Me!
Knowing what a positive impact Week 2 of the Tidy Challenge had on me, I invite you to join in on the challenge with me.
The Marie Kondo 8 Week Tidy Challenge is a manageable and nicely organized way to get into tidying your house.
Please share the goals for your house and what you hope to aspire towards.
Curious about what Week 1 of the Tidy Challenge entailed? Check out my blog article on that here: Marie Kondo Tidy Challenge: Week 1.
