Without further ado, now is the right time to finally do the cleaning and organising you have repeatedly postponed. It is the time to learn the KonMari method, a decluttering approach devised by Japanese organising consultant Marié Kondō (which by the way is pronounced “maree-eh”, NOT as Marie in French) and for which she has risen to world fame.
The hard-and-fast rule of the KonMari method is to follow the right order when tidying up. First come the clothes, then the books, the papers and the komono (small items). Finally, you can sort out your keepsakes.
Whenever you are doing a clean-up job, start determining which items “spark joy” and you therefore want to keep. According to the Japanese Tokimeki Organising Association (based in Shinagawa, Tokyo), the more you declutter, the more you feel like doing it.
Start from your wardrobe. Pile up your clothes on the floor, and divide them by categories, namely summer clothes and winter clothes. You will be surprised by the amount of clothes which fall into these categories and by how similar many of them look.