First Folds

At this point of my life, my mother (who loves, and I mean loves, cleaning) isn't even bothering to tidy up after me because everything ends up messy again in five minutes. So I decided to get my life back together and because I'm taking Japanese as well, I decided to read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art Of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Kondo teaches the same method for all her clients, no matter their personality and she doesn't worry about creating complex categories for each one, she simply states, "Effective tidying involves only two essential actions: discarding and deciding where to store things. Of the two, discarding must come first." (Kondo 28) And though I'm the type of person that can't throw away and can't put back things, I'm willing to give this method a shot and see if it works for me!

Kondo has a way of organizing clothing which sounds like a great method for a person like me who is too lazy to put things away but wants things extremely organized. She recommends creating subcategories when you are tackling the challenge of throwing out clothes and storing them:

"Tops (shirts, sweaters, blouses, etc.)

Bottoms (pants, shorts, skirts, etc.)

Clothes that should be hung (jackets, coats, suits, etc.)

Socks

Underwear

Bags (handbags, messenger bags, backpacks, etc.)

Accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc.)

Clothes for specific events (swim suits, kimonos, uniforms, etc.)

Shoes (sandals, sneakers, heels, etc.)" (Kondo 65)

I've organized my clothes already into piles and have discarded a good chunk of them that don't fit me anymore or aren't my style. Now we get into folding different types of clothes and storing them in specific ways. My closet consists of a hanging rack, and nine drawers which I store things in. Though I do laundry once in a while, Kondo teaches us a specific way to fold in her book. The end goal is to have all your clothes in the same shape, a simple rectangle. She instructs, "First, fold each lengthwise side of the garment towards the center....Next pick up one short end of the rectangle and fold it toward the other short end. Then fold again in the same manner, in halves or thirds." (Kondo 76) 

Kondo also recommends to store things standing up rather than laid flat like how they are displayed in stores because what creates wrinkles are the pressure that is applied to the clothes. Because clothes are stored in a pile, the weight of clothing on top of one another acts like a press which creates those wrinkles. These are pictures of my drawers before and after.

For a person who loves cute socks and receives a lot of cute socks as gifts, I end up balling my socks which is the wrong way. It's stated in bold to "Never, ever ball up your socks." Kondo explains that they take a brutal beating in their daily life with you walking everywhere with them being trapped between your foot and your shoes and being in your closet is their only time to relax. You simple fold them the same way as you did with clothing and she specifies, "For low-cut socks that just cover the feet, folding twice is enough; for ankle socks, three times; for knee socks and over-knee socks, four to six times." (Kondo 82).

I found that I could close my drawers much easier and I didn't have to push the socks down when I shut my drawers! I can also store even more clothing articles than before. 

Will you change anything about the way you fold clothes now? If you try drawer storage, how many wrinkles do you have in your clothes now compared to before? Can you store more clothes now than before?

Kondō, Marie. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Trans. Cathy Hirano. N.p.: Ten Speed, 2014. Print.