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We’ve all heard the great benefits of a clutter-free home. But when even the best organisers in the world, like Marie Kondo, say they gave up on tidying after having kids, is there any hope for the rest of us?

As a mom of two myself, who’s been on a minimalism journey for a while now, I set out to find out if her methods still apply to families with children.

I’ve recently read Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”. And in this article I’m sharing the 10 lessons that I learned that might be helpful to you too if you want a clutter-free home.

Keep reading below or watch the video:

1. Special tidying vs. Daily tidying

In her book, Marie Kondo actually uses tidying and decluttering—these two words—kind of interchangeably. She calls this special event of tidying or decluttering a once-in-a-lifetime big declutter that won’t be needed again.

And this one was a bit of a yes and no for me as a mom.

She does mention that tidying is a lifelong habit. It’s something we will have to do over and over again—just getting into the habit of putting things where they belong in the house.

Because even after that big purge, we need to do the daily tidying to keep our environment clutter-free.

But she does mention, “I never tidy my room; it’s already tidy.” This made me wonder what her perspective might be now that she has kids.

Because, yes, it is much easier to keep your room tidy when you don’t have kids who go rummaging through drawers. If you have kids yourself, you probably know what I mean—you tidy, and then five minutes later, it’s already messed up.

This has been quite talked about lately as Marie Kondo came out after having her third child and said that she gave up on tidying.

And this made all the headlines, with people thinking, “Oh, that’s it! Marie Kondo is one of us!”

But I’m willing to bet that her version of “not tidy” is still pretty tidy compared to a really cluttered home.

I think what she did mean to say is that she would rather spend more intentional time with her kids rather than focus on tidying her home. And I think a lot of us parents want this as well.

She says, “Of course, on some days, encouraging my children to tidy can feel like a losing battle. Rather than getting frustrated with them or attempting to tidy up after them throughout the day, I remind myself that I’d rather spend my energy on them. Sometimes I’ll wait until they’re asleep to clean up in one shot. It usually only takes 10 minutes or so because everything we own already has a designated home. This is what the KonMari way is for me these days—a perfectly imperfect life.” (source)

I think this really goes to show that even though she does say tidying and decluttering have become a lot harder with kids, it doesn’t mean her home is a complete mess. She still has systems in place. She still has those habits.

The one thing I took from this is that, yes, we might do that one big declutter—that special event of tidying—but we also need to do the daily habits to maintain it.

2. The mountain pile

You know the advice about decluttering, where we’re supposed to take everything out of our wardrobe, pile it on the bed in a big mountain, and let it shock us into not reverting back to old patterns?

“Tidy a little a day, and you’ll be tidying forever,” is what Marie says.

So her method in this book is more about doing that one big event, right? And then that’s it—we’re never going to have clutter in our home again.

Everybody is different and has different methods that work for them. But for myself, as a busy mom of two, I have found that doing small declutters actually helped me get that declutter done. Had I waited for the right time to do that one big declutter, I’m afraid it might have never come.

I started massively decluttering our home about two years ago. Yes, we had some weekends where I’d dedicate two or three hours to decluttering. But most of my decluttering was done in chunks of 15–20 minutes.

So I would do a drawer here and there, tackle a kitchen cupboard—all of those little tasks. And all of these add up.

To me, taking out the big mountain pile of clothes on my bed was probably one of the most daunting things I could do. I have tried it in the past, but taking it all out feels really overwhelming. And then, when you add two kids into the mix and they come and pull everything off the bed and ruin the keep and donate piles, it’s just a stressful experience that I found didn’t really work best for me.

I get where Marie is coming from and I absolutely love her book. And do I think it is important to see how much we have in each category. Yet this is one of those things that I found worked a little bit differently for me.

3. Say thank you to items before letting them go

This was a practice I never did before, but it was really eye-opening.

She mentions how having gratitude for those things makes decluttering easier. It also makes us feel less guilty about parting with them.

I remember a few years ago, when we were in the depths of infertility, struggling to get pregnant, and going through multiple baby losses. During that time, I actually used shopping quite a bit as a coping mechanism. I would go out to the shops and buy a cute outfit or new makeup. Anything that would make me feel better in the moment. These purchases gave me that dopamine hit, so it really worked at the time.

Was it the best way to cope with my feelings? Probably not. But it was just what I did during that time.

And so, when it came to decluttering, I felt really bad about getting rid of some of those items. 

But doing this practice really helped me realise that I can say thank you to an item because it did serve me in a way during that time in my life. It did bring me a bit of joy. It did make me feel better—putting on that rainbow jumper, thinking, “One day, I’ll have a rainbow baby.”

So, I really love this idea from her book—saying thank you to the items. In one way or another, they probably served a purpose at some point in our lives. They may have brought us joy at one time. But it doesn’t mean we need to keep them forever.

4. More storage is not the answer

The goal of decluttering is to own less, not just to hide things in storage containers.

In her book, Marie Kondo says that using lots of storage items can be just shoving things out of sight. 

This made me realise that this is one area where I think I was very good at—I was very good at shoving my clutter in cupboards, drawers, and storage containers. But it was still there. It was still stressing me out. It was still overwhelming when I opened wardrobes. And I always felt like what I was missing was just the perfect storage system.

Once I decluttered, I realised, actually, no—I didn’t need all of those storage items. And I actually ended up with a lot of empty containers that I didn’t have a use for anymore.

Most of the time, it’s not the storage items or the organisers that we need. We simply need less stuff.

5. Decluttering isn’t about throwing things away; it’s about choosing what to keep

I really loved this perspective shift because it’s a bit of reverse decluttering, isn’t it? Focusing on the things we keep, value, and that bring something to our lives, rather than on the negative and what we might be losing.

Oftentimes, the things we declutter are items we don’t need anyway. They’re not going to have a negative impact on our lives if they’re out of our homes. 

When it came to my wardrobe, I really enjoyed focusing on the items I loved, wore often, and that made me feel good, rather than dwelling on the ones I was letting go of.

It can be tough, especially when something has sentimental value. But if it’s something I don’t wear, need, or use—or maybe don’t even like on myself anymore—then it’s simply time to let it go.

6. Discard books you’ve read halfway

This was a really interesting mindset shift for me. I used to keep a lot of books I had started—maybe read a few chapters, or maybe never even opened. But I found it hard to let go of them, thinking that maybe one day I would want to pick them up and finish reading.

You know how sometimes we feel this need for closure on something, like a book? But Marie says we’ve already taken what we needed from it. She suggests holding the book, seeing how it makes us feel, and deciding whether it still moves us or not. 

We need to keep the books that make us happy to see on our shelves. And she also gives us permission to not finish the books we’ve abandoned. Sometimes a book’s purpose can simply be to be read halfway.

I know it can be hard to let go of that feeling, but she says maybe the book’s purpose was to teach us that we didn’t need it. 

That really stood out to me and helped me declutter more of the books I wasn’t enjoying but kept out of guilt. In reality, if I hadn’t read it by now and wasn’t excited to pick it up, what was the point of keeping it?

7. Tidy by category, not by location

I actually like to go room by room and just tackle little areas at a time. Yet Marie has her famous organising system where, instead of decluttering room by room, she goes by category. 

She has five major categories you might have heard of before:

• clothes
• books
• papers
• komono (which are miscellaneous items—I’m assuming toys fall into this as well)
• sentimental items

I like keeping sentimental items for last too because those are usually the hardest to part with. 

What I like to do in each category is break it down into smaller sections, because taking all of my clothes out at once can feel like a massive task that I’m likely to abandon—just to end up popping everything back into my wardrobe without really decluttering much.

8. Paper clutter is unnecessary

This helped me declutter a lot of my papers. I realised most of them weren’t things I needed to keep. 

Yes, there are some important ones—maybe warranties, mortgage documents, or things for the house—but a lot of them just aren’t essential and can simply be discarded.

9. Your home should spark joy, not stress

This is something many of us feel—so stressed and overwhelmed by our homes, feeling like we’re failing and falling behind, like we can’t keep up with it all. I know I used to feel like this.

A lot of the time, it’s not because we’re lazy or not tidying, organising, or cleaning. It’s just that there’s so much stuff in our homes that it becomes stressful, and it’s hard to keep up. It simply isn’t realistic to manage that much stuff.

This also relates to the fact that a cluttered space can lead to a cluttered mindset. Often, our home is a reflection of our mind. 

10. The joy we seek in stuff is usually found elsewhere

Making purchases and buying lots of things for our home, clothes, or toys can actually give us that dopamine rush and make us feel good in the moment. But usually, in the long run, those are not the things that actually serve us.

The things that bring the most joy, according to many experiments that have been done, are experiences, relationships, and personal growth. These are things that bring a lot more joy than any object could.

Thank you to Marie for the valuable insights from her book—I’ve gained so much from it. 

If you’re interested, I also wrote another article on the book “Atomic Habits” that I think you’ll really enjoy.