Many people wisely spent quarantine and lockdown periods redesigning their homes at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. With rising cases of infections globally, the home became the safest place to study, work, and pursue other worthwhile activities, including decluttering and organizing one’s living space. From simple spring cleaning to major bedroom renovations, keeping their home spick and span was on everyone’s agenda.

Indeed, organizing one’s home is both fun and therapeutic. This is true especially for those working from home who also have to tend to their kids as they attend classes online. With a well-organized home, everyone in the family can go about their day smoothly without being distracted by messy surroundings or cramped spaces. 

When it comes to home design and organization hacks, nothing sets the bar higher than Japanese philosophies and methodologies. The Japanese art of decluttering is well-known for following a set of techniques that focuses on tidiness, creativity, minimalism, functionality, and efficient use of space, among other outstanding features.

Feeling excited about bringing the same vibe into your space? Here are tips and ideas on organizing your home the Japanese way.

1. Sort by category, not location

You can’t talk about home organization without mentioning Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizing consultant who rose to fame through her books that included “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.”

One of the rules she laid down in that book is tidying home items based on their category instead of where they’re located around the house.

This technique probably goes against what you’ve been doing, which is decluttering one room after the other. Here, the idea is to tackle a specific type of clutter one at a time, so they don’t end up in several different areas. From mails and books to toiletries and clothes, each of these items should not be stored in more than one place around your home.

2. Fold clothes instead of hanging them

Another part of the so-called KonMari method of decluttering and organizing the home is the folding of clothes. Since Japanese homes typically have small, compact spaces, folding clothes is more efficient in taking up lesser room inside drawers. Besides being space savers, folded clothes are also easier to find since they are neatly arranged in rows.

Kondo’s folding technique applies to various clothing items, including tank tops, shirts, pants, shorts, and sweaters. The trick is to fold each piece into a small rectangular shape to allow the clothing to stand when you stack it with other items in your drawer.

However, if you have hanging items to store in your closet, Kondo suggests doing it in such a way where you hang dresses or skirts with the same length next to each other. That way, they slope upward or downward without being an eyesore.

3. Only keep items that bring you joy

The Japanese are firm believers that a tidy and organized home leads not only to productivity but also happiness. As such, KonMari’s method zeroes in on tidying up by first deciding what items to keep. Specifically, Kondo advises you to ask yourself if an item sparks joy. An affirmative answer means you can keep it, while a negative one means you should discard it.

This advice from Kondo is highly relevant, as it prevents you from surrounding yourself with things that are not important to you. Perhaps you’ve bought something on sale, but its style or color is far from how the rest of your collection looks. Or maybe one or two of your shoe pairs have been with you for the longest time, which means they’re done fulfilling their role in your life.

4. Use vertical spaces

After deciding the things to keep or otherwise, the next step you should take is to decide where you’ll put them. It’s equally important to figure out the best way of organizing them, which is where vertical spaces come in handy. Vertical spaces are great if your home’s floor area is quite limited, which is, again, representative of many Japanese homes.

Using space vertically means you’ll be stacking items with boxes or bags to hold things, whether you’re organizing your kitchen, bathroom, or closet. Stacking things up high is fine; you only need to observe uniformity in the tools you use to give your home a neat appearance.

5. Go easy on storage

It’s interesting to note that Kondo is not a huge fan of storage. Her mindset is that storing things doesn’t eliminate the clutter since you’re only keeping them somewhere away from view. However, storage can be a boon if you use it well—that is, it has to be functional and only carries items you use often.

For instance, a small bathroom could use racks, carts, hooks, or suction cups that you can install to hold your toiletry supply. Then, hide them under the sink or hang them inside the cabinets in your bathroom so they’re not fully visible to create that unwanted cluttered look.

6. Invest in organizers

Organizers let you store items in a neat and orderly fashion, so you can quickly retrieve things when you need them. Whether it’s a dish riser that you put inside your kitchen cabinet to create separate shelves for plates and bowls or a box to hold similar items in one place, organizers do their job of telling you where to find things instead of guessing where you remember putting them the last time around.

7. Make cleaning everyone’s responsibility

Decluttering and organizing a home has to be a team effort. Even if you religiously clear mess or pick up clutter on the floor, it’s not going to turn out significant results if everyone else in your household is not doing their part. After all, tidying up your home involves so much more than the act of cleaning, but it also requires a proper mindset—the Japanese call it seiso—that aims for a clutter-free way of living through and through.

Final Message

As the saying goes, “A messy house equals a messy mind.” It can be hard to achieve focus when all you can think about is dirty dishes or chaos in your closet. Eventually, clutter can also make you feel uninterested in life. Thankfully, we can learn a thing or two from the Japanese on how to keep our homes—and overall well-being—tidy, organized, and free of clutter.