A couple of years ago Marie Kondo made a name for herself with a method for tidying up your home and your life. Thanks to her books and a reality show on Netflix, the philosophy of this Japanese guru became known all over the world. Now that it’s time to put away our winter clothes and get our summer clothes out, it’s also a good time to follow her advice.

Kondo proposes arranging all our clothes, shoes and accessories in the same space, so that we are aware of everything we have. In this space, it is necessary to categorise, group, and arrange the pieces according to type, and give them a specific place, to prevent chaos and promote harmony. All this is very important in order to value the usefulness of everything we have.

The next step is to throw away, recycle, or give away the things we no longer want, either because they don’t contribute anything to us, because we don’t like them, or because they don’t make us happy. This is not easy, because there are always items or accessories that perhaps mean much more than the object itself, because of sentimental value, but the whole process that Kondo outlines is achieved through a dialogue with ourselves that should allow us to lighten the load and the space.

It seems that once we have finished tidying up our physical spaces according to the advice of this expert, we find that we have also tidied up certain things in our minds. The formula for the magic of tidiness, according to Kondo, is: physical tidiness + mental tidiness = balance.

For more information on this method, on how to fold and store items and how to gain space without losing visibility, look for titles by Marie Kondo at the bookshop Llibre Idees, on the 2nd floor at illa Carlemany.