Tidying Up With Marie Kondo: 10 Essential Tips From Her Book The Show Leaves Out

The second it was released, Netflix's Tidying Up With Marie Kondo became a smash hit with the internet. Whether people were debating her thoughts on books or trying her folding techniques at home, American households were abuzz her style. As a professional organizer, Marie Kondo classifies her tactics as the KonMari method, the way she keeps her own home tidy. She first shared its entirety in her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

While the show displays a lot of her best ideas, there are more hot tips from the KonMari method left in the books.

GET RID OF BRAND NAMES

According to Marie Kondo, seeing a bunch of brand named products around the house only cloud the mind. Therefore, she highly recommends decanting soaps and similar products into aesthetically pleasing containers. This way, the soaps match the room's style and don't break up the flow by being covered in brand names. While it can seem like it'd be expensive of a lot of work, it definitely isn't either. Soaps take a lot of time to run out and buying a huge container of soap from a store can be cheaper than individual bottles. Overall, the method improves a room and household holistically.

DON'T DUMP EXCESS ON FAMILY MEMBERS

Though Marie Kondo alludes to this when she helps out older parents on the show, she doesn't explicitly talk about this topic. In her book, she says that shuffling overflow to a parent or sibling or even child isn't solving the problem. At best, it hides it and burdens someone else with the distracting clutter.

Moreover, this also just continues a cycle of stressed minds and homes.

The mess in one's house should be dealt with on site and by yourself. Shoving items on family only increases the chances that they'll come back to you and your house will be a mess all over again.

KEEP TIDYING TO YOURSELF

When going through a big clean-up, it's tempting to enlist friends or family to help. However, Marie Kondo recommends keeping it to the people in the household. After all, the residents are the ones who know where things normally goes and how the home flows. Close ones who don't understand the space may only get in the way, cause friction on item decisions, or put important things where the home-owners never would look.

While support is useful, causing rifts in close relationships with little benefit isn't worth it. Just keep tidying in the home. Friends and outside family can see it once it's all spruced up.

TAKE TAGS/PACKAGING OFF RIGHT AWAY

While this is one of Marie Kondo's most risky tips, it's useful for people who tend to impulse buy. In the show, families are normally already a mess before she gets there. However, in a preventative tip, Kondo recommends taking tags and packaging off things the second they get home. The reasoning is not to trap you with hordes of clothes, but to make frequent shoppers think twice before grabbing items because they can return them.

Return items are common cluttering objects in closets, never worn, never used, and cared so little about that they weren't even returned. Always taking tags off makes people think seriously about if they want an item and make more deliberate decisions while shopping.

MORE STORAGE ISN'T ALWAYS THE SOLUTION

For any fan of the show, one of the key aspects to tidying up is boxes and storage. Whether it's old shoe boxes or drawer organizers, Marie Kondo uses these tools to keep their space organized. However, despite the large amount of boxes used, there is such a thing as too much storage. Just because everything neatly has a place in a divider or box doesn't mean they aren't still cluttering up the space.

In theory, someone could have their whole house filled with storage that only makes their house flow worse. There's a reason that purging items is also a vital part of her cleaning methods.

EMPTY YOUR PURSE AT THE END OF THE DAY

Considering this is so much of a solo activity, it's not featured on Marie Kondo's show. However, in her book, she recommends emptying your purse daily. While that can seem like a chore, it helps ensure that your purse doesn't become cluttered with useless receipts, tissues, or too many "just in case" items. Too often, people stand at counters lost in their own purses.

If a purse is your own small, personal space ti deserves to flow as freely as your mind. By cleaning it out often, you'll avoid turning it into a confusing mess. Daily life deserves to be as tidy as a cleanly home.

ITS OK TO GET RID OF GIFTS OR FREE THINGS

In her book, Marie Kondo discusses how people sometimes keep things just because they're gifts. Out of obligation and care for others, people can keep things that they themselves never really wanted. For example, just because your mother got you an Easter stuffed animal doesn't mean you need to keep it.

Encouraging people to only keep things that spark joy, not guilt, even unnecessary gifts get purged. After all, only the most beloved or functional items should stay, whether they are gifts or not. Otherwise, a person is just bloating their house with feelings of obligation and dissatisfaction.

YOU DONT HAVE TO KEEP EVERY BOOK

While this was mentioned on the show with some book hoarders, the extent of Marie Kondo's book feelings weren't expressed. Overall, she sees their value but only keeps a rare few in her own home. This made a lot of online book lovers unhappy, thinking books to sacred to be discarded.

Whether you adore books or just keep them around, Kondo just wants people to keep books because they love them, not as a status symbol. Homes can become cluttered enough with items the residents don't need, and even books can fall in that category.

However, if getting rid of books sounds awful, just ignore this tip. Marie Kondo never has to know.

MAKE USE OF THE STORAGE YOU ALREADY HAVE

Sometimes, when it's time for people to re-organize, they start buying a bunch of organizational tools. However, oftentimes, people have a bunch right under their nose. While new, pretty boxes are more aesthetically pleasing, Marie Kondo encourages in her book to use storage you already have. For example, people who save shoe boxes now have lovely storage containers for drawers or under sinks. Or those boxes of donations you've now gotten rid of can be used to organize and store things you do need.

Though tidying can seem rigid, she encourages people to be creative in minimizing everything, even storage units.

FOCUS ON THE TASK, NOT THE NOSTALGIA

As one of her staple ideas, Marie Kondo does touch on the idea of this concept in her show. She does make families sort through their stuff very thoroughly and decide if they "spark joy" or not.

However, this is a very specific part about keeping focus on the task. Though "sparking joy" is wildly important, it's also vital to tidying to not waste time reminiscing over an item. For example, try not to moon over old picture books instead of continue on. Otherwise, the tidying task will only take way too long, become way too daunting, and even may get abandoned because of the assumed vastness of the project. In actuality, a lot is doable in a day, it's just a person has to put aside nostalgia and keep working until sorting is through.

NEXT: 10 Shows To Watch If You Love Netflix's Tidying Up With Marie Kondo