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KonMari Spring Cleaning Tips

Spring has sprung and it's time for a good spring cleaning. For many of us, this means decluttering and getting rid of all the junk that's making our drawers, closets and shelves look messy. Enter the KonMari method. This comes from the 2014 book by Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, and is basically this: you should only keep the things that bring you joy. With that in mind, here are our KonMari spring cleaning tips.

Set aside one day or weekend for spring cleaning. We know this can seem daunting, but completing a bunch of small tasks over time just means that you're cleaning all the time. You want to spend spring enjoying the beautiful weather, not cleaning.

Clean by category, not by room. According to the KonMari method, you should take all like items, put them in a pile on the floor and go through them. Then move on to the next category. The suggested order is clothes, then books, paperwork, miscellany and finally - the hardest category - things with sentimental value.

Pick up each item individually and ask yourself, "does this spark joy?" If it does, it goes in the keep pile. If not, it goes in a bag to be thrown away or donated. It's as simple as that! Be honest with yourself, and don't keep something just because you feel like you should.

Now is the time to clean. At this point, your shelves, drawers and counters should be empty, so this is the time to give everything a good scrubbing and start with a clean slate.

Find a place for the things you're keeping. You should do this step only after you've gotten rid of the items you're not going to keep. Clutter often comes from simply not returning an item to its spot. Prevent this problem now by putting everything in a logical, easy to find place.

Label it! It may seem silly to do because you know that your t-shirts are in the bin under the bed because you just put them there. But in six months when you go to store your winter coats there, you'll forget that that bin is for t-shirts and then you'll just forget that there are t-shirts there all together. Grab a sharpie and some envelope stickers and label all of your storage.