How the Marie Kondo Effect has Changed the Way I Shop
I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you about the #MarieKondoEffect—she’s practically taken over my entire Facebook news feed! In case you’ve been living under a rock since the new year started, Marie Kondo has a wildly popular show on Netflix about the Japanese art of organization, and she’s essentially changing people’s lives for the better. She takes you through her multi-step process of cleaning out your entire home and only keeping things that spark joy for you. This really resonated with me, especially in the aspect of clothing. That’s generally my method when it comes to shopping—I don’t always buy the most practical pieces, but rather the ones that fill me with joy and excitement. However, after not giving my closet a thorough inspection over the past 6 months, I realized it’s time to do a detox and say sayonara to a few things.
Marie Kondo’s method for organizing your clothes is really interesting, and also a little bit crazy if you ask me. She says the best way to approach it is to make a giant pile of all your clothes on your bed, that way you can really see how much you have. You’re probably thinking (as I was)…you want me to do what?! I was a bit hesitant to do this at first, but I figured that if half of America is talking about her, then she must be doing something right! Once I rounded up all my clothes on our bed, it was really eye-opening to see how many clothes I actually had. Which makes me entirely not allowed to use the phrase “I have nothing to wear!” ever again. It forced me to go piece by piece and truly ask myself, “Does this item spark joy for me?” If the answer was no, I probably wasn’t going to magically start loving that item within the next several months. Time to either donate or post it to Poshmark!
It took me several hours to go through everything, but after it was all said and done I felt so much lighter! The other neat thing I realized in this process that there were still so many things in my closet that spark joy, even years later. Like this cardigan and floral blouse that I bought a year ago. When I first tried them on in the store, I instantly felt this surge of joy and happiness—they just felt like “me”. Of course, as time goes on we can lose those feelings about certain things in our closet, which probably means it’s time to part ways. But I love Marie Kondo’s method of only keeping the things that truly spark joy, and that’s exactly how shopping should be too! If we only bought the things that made us feel good, then maybe our closets wouldn’t get so out of control ;)
I definitely want to continue doing Marie Kondo’s organization method every 6 months, just to keep things in check and to make sure I’m parting ways with necessary pieces. If you haven’t seen her show yet, what are you waiting for?! She is a breath of fresh air and such a positive light in these families homes, helping them sort through their cherished items and live their best life in a clutter-free way. Happy Friday friends! I hope you have an amazing weekend! If you have some free time, maybe you can sort through your clothes and try to organize your closet—let me know if you do. I’d love to hear about your experience! xo