Page 102 - South Mississippi Living - March, 2019

HOME & GARDEN tidy up
102 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • March 2019 FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net
story by Kelsey Sunderman-Foster photos courtesy of Terri Brown
Since the series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo aired on Net ix in January of this year, Kondo has taken the internet — and the world — by storm.
The show highlights Kondo’s personal methods of cleaning up and is based on her best-selling book series The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. While the act of tidying up might not seem life changing at first, people who have tried her method speak evangelically about the experience.
“I have read two of her books
and I am a big fan of the Kondo method,” says Terri Brown of
Simple Organization Solutions. “Her technique really helps transform
the way we think about ‘stuff’ and physical things.”
For those who have heard Kondo, the phrase “spark joy” is probably familiar. In her books, Kondo advocates “the best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is to take each item in one’s hand and ask: ‘Does this spark joy?’ If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it. This is not only the simplest but also the most accurate yardstick by which to judge.”
While it might seem a little weird at first to question if your personal items “spark joy,” what it basically comes down to is that we should focus on choosing what we want to keep rather than what we want to get rid of.
“I think one of her most important messages and overall themes centers on our emotional attachment to items,” says Brown. “One of her best points is that you will always have the memory even without possessing the physical item that reminds you of it.”
method, but she also has some great tips on optimizing storage space.
For instance, she teaches a folding technique where clothes are stacked
in drawers vertically rather than laid horizontally, allowing you to see each item in the drawer (and not make such a mess when removing them).
Rather than organizing room by room, Kondo advocates for tidying up in categories. For example, deal with every single one of your books at one time, otherwise they’ll continue to creep from room to room, and you’ll never rein in the clutter. “When it comes to organizing, it is best to look at the trees, not the forest,” Brown said. “Organizing your whole house at one time is impossible, but dealing with one tree, one small space, is doable.”
Decluttering is a big part of Kondo’s
Create Order
WITH THE MARIE KONDO METHOD OF ORGANIZATION
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Simple Organization Solutions by Terri Brown sosbytsb@cableone.net
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