It's a new year and while I try to stray away from new year's resolutions, I decided this year I HAVE to make a change. I'm nearing 30 and my room still looks like it did when I was in high school. There's half empty water bottles strewn on the floor. Clothes are piled up on "The Chair." I think we all know "The Chair." But I figured since I'm an adult it's time that I properly put things back where they belong, and what better time to start than in the new year? Also, this Tweet showed up in my timeline and I felt personally attacked!

So it was as if the universe and Netflix Gods heard me because on new year's day Netflix dropped a new series called "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo." This Japanese author goes into people's homes and helps them face their cluttered homes and magically fix their cluttered lives as well. She basically has them clean up their homes.

Marie Kondo has what she calls the "KonMari Method" and it's all about choosing joy. Tidying up with this method encourages you to tidy up by category and not location. The categories, you ask? You start with clothes, then books, papers, move on to what she calls "komono" (which are basically miscellaneous items) and finally sentimental items. After binge watching all of the show, I felt motivated! And I decided to start the KonMari Method. I started with clothes of course and followed the way she did it on the show, you basically throw everything into a pile and hold EACH AND EVERY ITEM of clothing up to yourself and ask "does this bring me joy?" If it does, you put it away- if it doesn't, you thank it for its service and either throw it or donate it. Here's what I started with:

Joanna Barba

I had to find joy somewhere in this pile! After a few hours, I got into a groove and actually felt a little relieved. It was very therapeutic. When I got the clothes that I wanted to keep it was time to put it away. Now, Kondo has a very specific way of putting clothes away in drawers. I had to make room for my clothes in drawers that looked like this:

Joanna Barba

Joanna Barba

With a little patience and some rocking tunes, I was able to make room and ended up with this:

Joanna Barba

Joanna Barba

The families in the show take WEEKS to KonMari their entire house. I only did it in one weekend and considering, i think I made some great advancement. I actually have been able to keep it this way for a few weeks now and I'm super excited to move on to the next step: books! There's a lot of controversy surrounding the KonMari Method and books lately, but after being able to accomplish the clothes section, I'm super optimistic about the rest!