The Life-Changing KonMari Method™ of Folding Clothes

If you are into organizing your home to your best advantage, you have probably come across the name Marie Kondo, the author of the book “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and the KonMari Method ™ of folding clothes. With her unique tips and advice for organizing your home, particularly how to fold clothes, Kondo has taken the social media “neat freak” niche by storm.

Learn more about Marie Kondo, the organizational guru and her Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, then check out some instructions for folding and storing your own clothing using the famous KonMari Method ™.

Who is Marie Kondo?

As a child, Marie Kondo was always very interested in tidying up. At the age of only 19 she started her own business as an Organizing Consultant and the rest, as they say, is history. Today Kondo is a world-renowned Organizational Consultant, a best-selling author, a hit on YouTube, and a household name among organizational freaks.

Kondo’s best-selling writings and work are focused on using her patented method to help people declutter, simplify, and organize their lives. One of her endearing characteristics is to connect with the house she is planning to help organize and ask it for permission to proceed.

Before offering tips for tidying and organizing, Kondo encourages people to reduce the clutter in their lives by objectively viewing the amount of stuff they own and stepping back to visually evaluate their situation. They are gently guided to hold each item and decide whether it brings them joy, is neutral, or can be discarded.

What Makes the KonMari Method ™ of Folding Different?

Most of us know that the simple task of organizing a drawer can actually become a massive pain when you don’t have the right techniques. We are constantly looking for ways to arrange our clothing in a way that will avoid the whole lot becoming a jumbled mess within a day or two when the items of clothing we are looking for are often found at the bottom of the pile.

This is where the KonMari Method ™ of folding is so amazing as it takes care of this problem in a very simple way. When you fold your clothes according to the KonMari style, each item will stand up, almost like an envelope, rather than lying flat. This way you can see everything in the drawer and it is easy to remove an item of clothing without pulling out everything else. And because items of clothing are not stacked on top of each other, it also prevents wrinkling.

How to Fold T-Shirts the KonMari Way

Imagine opening your t-shirt drawer and finding the one you would like to wear without rummaging through a stack of other clothing. Here’s how to do it:

 

1. Lay the shirt down flat face down.
2. Take hold of the sleeve and the bottom of the shirt and neatly fold it in until the shoulder is in line with the center of the neckline, carrying on the fold all the way down the center to the bottom.
3. Fold the sleeve back from the midline towards the outer edge.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 on the other side to form a long rectangle.
5. Working from top to bottom, fold the shirt in half leaving about an inch of room at the bottom.
6. Fold in half again from top to bottom.
7. Repeat step 6 and the shirt will now stand upright when you place it on a hard surface.
8. Place your folded shirt in an upright position into the drawer and carry on folding the rest of your t-shirts. Try to keep the width the folded shirts uniform so that they will stand in a neat row from front to back in the drawer.
9. Enjoy your newfound organization.

Folding Underwear using the KonMari Method ™

 

1. Place the underwear on a flat surface facing up.
2. Fold the item in half lengthwise from crotch to waistband.
3. Fold the left side in towards the middle up to the inner edge of the right leg hole.
4. Fold the right side over onto the left side.
5. Fold the item once more from the crotch side to the waistband.
6. The item can now be placed in the drawer standing upright.

 

There are many more variations of the KonMari Method ™ to help you organize your drawers and cupboard space.  Numerous video tutorials are available online demonstrating these folding methods, many of them starring Marie Kondo herself.

If this article has inspired you to kick-start your plans to declutter and organize your home, first check out the post below that identifies where the most clutter is found in a home before proceeding to pick up 5 tips on how to bring order to your abode the KonMari way. You can also call us here at ThinkMaids if you need help or any further information on our professional services.