I feel honoured to be standing here on such a wonderful stage today

Everyone at SXSW is talking about big things

but I would like

to talk about

something even

bigger

my

grandmother

my grandmother live in Miyazakia, a very peaceful place in Japan

her house is not big and

She does not own anything especially nice

But she took very good care of her things

her house was always clean and tidy

Even inside her drawers were beautifully organised

Just like her house, her presence was simple and beautiful

She never got angry

No matter what happened

She was gentle

I admire her very much

she would always tell me

Value what cannot be seen from the outside

Normally people can't see inside your house

however the way you organize the area and

how to treat your belongings

will greatly affect your way of thinking

More than we imagine whether our house is tidy or not

Has a great impact on our life

Tidying is a big thing

Now I'd like to ask you a question

Is your house tidy?

If you answer is no, don't worry, I can help you

The answer is what I call the Konmari Method

Let me show you some Konmari transformations

before, and after

before, and after

another before, and after

what a change

Tidying with the Konmari Method will not affect only your house

It will

change your life

while you are tidying using the Konmari method you will also understand yourself more and

Design your life you want

Today, I am going to tell you

how to put your home in order in a way that will change your life forever

But before this in order to understand for you how my method was created

I would like to talk about my story

I started to have an interest in tidying up when I was 5 years old

I really like home lifestyle magazines that my mother subscribed to

when I was 15 years old

I started tidying seriously

I tidied up

and I read every book related to tidying

And I tidied it up

every place I go

One day, I tidied up my own room

Next today, my brother's room

Next day, my sister's room

then, the kitchen,

living room, bathroom, the friend's room, friend's room, friend's room, classrooms after school

and then back to my own room

I tidied up every day

When I was 19 years old, I became an organizing consultant

My graduation thesis was about Tidying

So safe to assume, I am a crazy tidying fanatic

Without further ado, let's go on to the main subject, what is the Konmari method

There are four Rules, Rule 1

Imagine your ideal life

Before you tidy you need face your truth, you need to face yourself

Why do you want to Tidy? What is your ideal life?

Be specific

I'll give you one example of my client

Please imagine as you are resting

my client ideal Life is

pure white wall and

floor

There're simple yet essential furnitures and nice front

Nothing else on the floor, very neat like hotel room

before I go to bed

a sense of lavender aroma, classic piano music playing in the background

doing good yoga

drinking chamomile tea before go to sleep

that is the life I want to live, my client said

This is how specific you should be

You should be able to picture yourself within your ideal life

if it is difficult to imagine your ideal lifestyle

think about things you want to do inside your house and

write it down on a piece of paper

for some people is

meditating before go to bed

for others, it's

drinking coffee with your favourite mug in the morning

Imagining your ideal lifestyle is so important

Setting your final goal will help keep you motivated while you are tidying

So you should never skip this process

Rule number 2

Tidy in one go

if you want to become an organized person

Shock your mindset and change it completely

In order to do this

You need a dramatic change in a short time

You need to experience, just a tidy home,

just once

Your fastest step is to set a tidying deadline

Tidying is not daily work. It is a special event

If you have worked tidying deadline you are ready to start. Let's talk about the process

Rule number 3

When you tidy, do it by category not by location

Thinking

today this closet, tomorrow the living room, does not work

So I suggest when you sort your clothes

Gather all of your clothes and put them in a pile

all clothes

I mean everything

Find all of your clothes in your house

Including the item in your bedroom, your closet, in your dresser,

maybe your car,

Gather all of your clothes and put them in a pile like this

When you sort books, do the same thing

Gather all of your books and put them in a pile like this

Why is this important?

By making a pile you can see everything you have

imagined all of your clothes stacked in a pile

You will probably be shocked by how much you own

one of my client who collected tea cups

When she gathered all of her teacups together, it look like this

so many teacups, and she was in shock

By seeing and realizing how much you own

You will be able to choose what to keep with a calm mind

So how do you choose what to keep?

It is the most important part of a Konmari method

To choose the item that spark joy for you

if the item spark joy

keep it

if does not

Get rid of it

Does this item spark joy?

what I want to tell you today is this

When you are tidying

You should focus on things, what you want to keep

Not things what you want to discard

if you try to tidy by looking for things to discard

You will become unhappy

as a matter of fact I used to be like that

It is my story during high school

When I was in high school. I thought tidying meant discarding things

every day after school

I look for things to throw away

Even though I kept throwing things away

My home did not feel tidy

This caused me a lot of stress

I was focused on the things I didn't like. I focused on the negative

One day my stress reached tipping point

I passed out in my room

I did not wake up for two hours

I am probably the only person in the world to pass out because of tidying too much

Yeah, that's right

But I was afraid

I have this strange voice in my head

the voice said, look at things more carefree

I don't know if it was the voice of tidying God or just my imagination

but when my mind opened and

looked around my room

It felt as if everything in my room was shining

at that moment I realised

my way of tidying until that day

was wrong

I thought

That's it!

The important thing about tidying is not choosing things to discard

but choosing things to keep

I must choose only items that makes me happy

things that spark joy for me

From this moment tidying became a positive thing for me and began to work well

It is my aha moment

So exactly how do you choose what sparks joy for you?

The key point is to touch each item one by one

Just looking at is not enough

Touch each item

When the item in your hand speaks in your heart you will feel like this

Touch your item *ting* *ting*

All of yourself in your body feel uplifted

*ting*

On the other hand the item in your hand does not speak to you

You will feel like this *Gzzz* *Gzzz*

You will feel all yourself in your body are

sinking

unhappy

down

*ting* and *gzzz*

You might find it strange, I know

but when you actually actually do this

The difference is more obvious than you can imagine

I want you to really try it

After you have chosen the items that spark joy for you

You need to find the best way

Just to store them

I would like to speak to you how to fold the clothes

This is the most important part of the Konmari method, how to fold the clothes

but before this

There is one thing I would like to emphasize

When you fold your clothes make sure you send a lots of love through your palms

Folding is not just about making your clothes small

It is

actually an opportunity to talk to your clothes and communicate with your clothes and thank them

For example you could say, thank you for protecting me, and thank you for keeping me well

I'd like to demonstrate how to fold

Here is a T-shirt

First, fold one side towards the center

fold other side the same way and create a rectangle

fold in half

This time with a little gap, it is so important

and

fold it in thirds

If you get a smooth rectangle, like this, you are doing it correctly

it should

be able to stand up right on its own

It is important that it will able to stand up right on its own

Because you will store them vertically

Next, let's try a hoodie

You can fold hoodie the same way, for you fold t-shirts

Fold one side towards the center

towards another side

the same way and create a rectangle

and fold the hood in

and fold in thirds

It should be able to stand up right on its own

Let's try jeans

first fold in half

fold in half again

and roll it up in thirds

stand up too

when I fold socks

it is so easy, put together and fold in half, and

fold in half

Oh try again, fold in half

you can adjust

It should be stand up right on its own

folding half and folding half

Aren't they adorable?

Once you're done. You can store them, vertically

Like this

It is very easy to see how much and what kind of clothes you have

When you get home, please try folding your clothes this way and enjoy

Today, I talked about the basic points of the Konmari method

Finally I'll show you a video

The video is a project I did with NHK World Japan

Where I conducted the tidying session with two clients

In this video I introduced other topics I didn't share today

It's so the video should help you understand how to fold, how to tidy even better

Here we go

Please watch the video as you imagine you're actually tidying

Gina Kruger is a homemaker living in Brooklyn

She found Kondo's book refreshing and quite unlike any other on the subject

I love Konmari's book. I feel like her method is so gentle and so personal

I love that she's not saying if you haven't used it for a year you get rid of it. She said does it speak to your heart