KonMari Decluttering Checklist

Free 30-Day Plan, 5 Categories

KonMari isn’t a tidying method as much as it’s a philosophy with strict rules. Marie Kondo developed it over decades of working as an organizing consultant in Japan, and refined it through her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (originally published 2011 in Japanese, 2014 in English) and a follow-up Netflix series in 2019. The method is genuinely different from every other approach to decluttering — it sorts by category instead of by room, it uses a single decision question (does this spark joy?), and it requires a specific order that can’t be skipped.

The tool above runs Marie Kondo’s complete method as a 30-day plan. You don’t have to take six months off life to do KonMari properly — the plan compresses the full method (clothes, books, papers, komono, sentimental) into one month of focused 10-minute daily sessions. Your progress is saved automatically in your browser, so you can return each day to do one task and mark it complete. Take more than 30 days if you need to — there are no streaks to break.

If you’d rather just understand the method first and decide whether to commit, the body below covers each of the 5 categories in depth, the spark-joy test, the famous folding technique, and the common misunderstandings that derail people halfway through.

How to use the KonMari tool

The 30-day KonMari plan loads automatically when you arrive on this page. The structure follows Marie Kondo’s strict category order — you cannot tidy books before finishing clothes, you cannot tidy sentimental items before finishing komono. The plan enforces this naturally.

The arc across 30 days:

Each day’s task:

• The category you’re working in (color-coded in the tool)
• A specific 10-minute action
• Marie Kondo’s framing for why this step matters
• A notes field if you want to capture what you let go of

Method discipline: The tool enforces the order but is forgiving on pacing. Miss a day? Pick up tomorrow. The plan doesn’t break.

Download options:

• Full 30-day KonMari plan as a printable PDF
• Today’s task as a single-page PDF
• Completion certificate when you finish

Marie Kondo and the KonMari method

Marie Kondo founded the consulting practice that became KonMari while she was still a university student in Tokyo. She was obsessed with tidying as a child and refined the method through years of client work before publishing The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in 2011. The book became a global phenomenon — translated into more than 40 languages, selling over 12 million copies, and turning “KonMari” from a personal practice into a global decluttering movement.

The Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo (2019) extended the method’s reach, and Spark Joy (2016) and Joy at Work (2020, co-authored with Scott Sonenshein) extended the method into illustrated practice guides and workplace application.

A note on the recent cultural moment around KonMari: in 2023, Marie Kondo gave an interview after the birth of her third child in which she said she had “kind of given up” on tidying her own home perfectly. This was widely misreported as her renouncing the method. She didn’t — she acknowledged that life with three small children had changed her priorities, and that her current focus was on tidying as a path to joy rather than tidying as a perfectionist standard. The method itself didn’t change; her relationship to it evolved. The tool above honors the original method as published, while acknowledging that perfection isn’t the goal.

The KonMari philosophy

Three principles run through everything in the method:

Tidy by category, not by location. This is the biggest single break from every other approach to decluttering. The Four-Box Method, the 30-Day Minimalist Game, the 90/90 Rule — they all work room by room. KonMari requires you to gather every single item from one category, from every room in the house, into one pile. Every shirt from every closet, every drawer, every chair, every basket, every bag. The pile is intentionally overwhelming. Marie Kondo’s reasoning: until you see the actual quantity of what you own, you can’t make accurate decisions.

Use the “spark joy” test. Pick up each item one at a time. Hold it. Notice your immediate physical and emotional response. Items that spark joy create a small lift — you feel slightly more yes when holding them. Items that don’t spark joy feel neutral or slightly no. The test isn’t intellectual analysis — it’s body-level recognition. Trusting the gut response is the whole skill.

Follow the category order — strictly. Clothes, then books, then papers, then komono (miscellany), then sentimental. The order matters because the spark-joy detection skill develops with practice. Clothes are easiest (low emotional weight); sentimental is hardest (very high emotional weight). Working clothes first trains your gut. By the time you reach sentimental items, you’ve made hundreds of spark-joy decisions and you trust your response.

Skipping ahead — trying to start with sentimental items because they’re the most cluttered, for instance — typically produces wrong answers and stalls the whole process.

The 5 categories in order

Category 1: Clothes (days 1–6 in the 30-day plan)

The first and easiest category. Marie Kondo’s instruction is absolute: gather every single piece of clothing in your home into one pile on your bed. From every closet, drawer, basket, chair, suitcase, dry-cleaning bag. The dirty laundry too. The seasonal storage. The clothes “borrowed” from family members. Everything.

The pile will shock you. That’s the point.

Then, sub-categories in order:

• Tops (shirts, blouses, t-shirts)
• Bottoms (pants, skirts, shorts, jeans)
• Outerwear and dresses (coats, jackets, dresses, suits)
• Socks and underwear and accessories (belts, scarves, hats, bags)

For each sub-category, pick up each item one at a time. Hold it. Spark joy yes/no. The faster you go, the more accurate your gut tends to be. Overthinking individual items is a sign that you need to commit to a faster pace, not slow down.

When the clothes category is complete, fold the keepers vertically (see the folding section below) and put them away. Take the donate bag out of the house today. Don’t store the rejected pile in a closet “to think about later” — that’s how items return.

Category 2: Books (days 7–11)

Every book in the house, gathered into one pile on the floor.

For each book, the question is whether it sparks joy now, not whether it sparked joy when you bought it. Books you’ve read can usually go — the library is your storage. Books you haven’t read but bought intending to read are harder: Marie Kondo’s rule is that “sometime” means “never.” If a book has been on your shelf for more than 2 years unread, the honest assessment is that you probably won’t read it. Donate it to someone who will.

Cookbooks get special attention because most modern cooks use recipes online rather than from books. Keep the cookbooks you actively cook from; the rest can go. Reference books and manuals are usually obsolete (most info is online and updated more frequently than books).

When complete, keepers go back on shelves with breathing room. Books packed tightly are stressed; books with space around them feel joyful.

Category 3: Papers (days 12–16)

Marie Kondo’s stance on papers is unusually strict: papers are not sentimental items. They’re function. Treat them that way.

Gather every loose paper in the house — every drawer, every basket, every “I’ll deal with it later” pile. Sort into 4 buckets:

• Currently in use — papers that require imminent action (bills due, forms to submit). One folder, labeled, accessible.
• Needed for a limited period — papers with an expiration date (warranty within its term, receipts within return period). Sub-folder, dated.
• Permanent reference — birth certificates, marriage certificates, deeds, passports, tax returns within 7 years. One secure place, ideally fireproof.
• Everything else — shred.

KonMari papers should fit in one slim filing folder at most. If your paper category is producing more than that, you’re being too generous with the “keep” bucket.

Category 4: Komono / Miscellany (days 17–26)

The biggest category and the longest stretch of the plan. Komono (小物) translates roughly to “small things” or “miscellany” — it covers everything that isn’t clothes, books, papers, or sentimental. Kitchen items, bathroom items, cosmetics, electronics, hobby supplies, linens, cleaning products, garage stuff, basement stuff, that drawer in the dining room nobody opens.

The 30-day plan spreads komono across 10 sub-categories, one per day:

• Day 17: Kitchen utensils and gadgets
• Day 18: Kitchen containers, plates, glasses
• Day 19: Bathroom products (general)
• Day 20: Cosmetics and skincare
• Day 21: Electronics cables and chargers
• Day 22: Electronics — older devices
• Day 23: Hobby and craft supplies
• Day 24: Linens, towels, bedding
• Day 25: Cleaning supplies and laundry
• Day 26: Everything else (garage, basement, miscellany)

Komono is where most people quit traditional decluttering because the volume is overwhelming. KonMari’s approach is to make each sub-category small enough to finish in a single 10-minute session. By the time komono is done, you’ve made decisions on hundreds of small items and your spark-joy detection is fully calibrated.

A KonMari komono-specific tip: items that exist for other items (chargers for devices, cases for tools, manuals for appliances) only spark joy in relation to their parent item. If the parent item is gone — old phone, sold appliance, ex-hobby — the supporting item is dead weight. Let it go.

Category 5: Sentimental items (days 27–30)

The hardest category, last. By design.

Photos, letters, greeting cards, ticket stubs, mementos, inherited items, hand-me-downs from people who’ve passed, gifts from significant relationships. These items carry emotional weight that physical objects don’t normally carry.

Marie Kondo’s framework for sentimentals:

• Photos: Flip through quickly. Keep the ones that spark joy in their own right, not because of who they’re of. Duplicates, blurry shots, photos of people you can’t identify — these can go. Marie Kondo’s point: no one’s grandchild will treasure these in 50 years.
• Letters and cards: Read each one. Keep the ones with genuine emotional weight. Let the rest go with thanks — Marie Kondo emphasizes the thanking; it’s not theatrical, it’s the act of acknowledging an item served its purpose.
• Inherited items: The hardest. Items inherited and kept out of guilt rather than love are not honoring the person who left them. Marie Kondo’s question: would the giver want me suffering to keep this? The answer is almost always no.
• Memorabilia: Concert ticket stubs, programs, theater playbills, travel mementos. Keep one favorite from each chapter. Let the rest go.

The plan’s final day (30) is a complete reflection plus an optional completion certificate. The house is now KonMari-tidied.

The “spark joy” test in practice

The most common confusion about KonMari: people interpret “spark joy” as “do I love this?” That’s not quite right. The test is more subtle.

The actual question: when I hold this item, does my body respond positively? The response is usually small — a slight lift, a slight nodding-in, a slight feeling of yes. It’s physical, not intellectual.

Items can fail the spark-joy test for many reasons:

• It serves a function but doesn’t bring joy in itself (Marie Kondo says these still qualify if the function is one you joyfully use — your toothbrush sparks joy by enabling oral hygiene)
• It’s purely utilitarian (a screwdriver, a paper clip) — these still “spark joy” in their utility
• It once sparked joy but no longer does (the relationship ended, the body changed, the chapter is complete)
• It never sparked joy but you keep it out of guilt, obligation, or because someone else gave it to you

For functional items that don’t spark joy on their own (cleaning supplies, basic tools, medication), the test becomes: does this serve a purpose I joyfully need? The toilet bowl cleaner doesn’t spark joy in itself, but a clean toilet does — so the cleaner stays.

When nothing sparks joy: Some people, especially during depression or grief, find that very few items spark joy. In these cases, KonMari isn’t the right method for now. Try the gentler One-a-Day method from the main hub — one item removed per day, no spark-joy requirement, just basic forward motion. Return to KonMari when emotional capacity is restored.

The KonMari folding method

Marie Kondo’s vertical folding technique is the most-shared image from her work — and it’s not aesthetic flair. The method serves three purposes:

1. You can see every item at once. Folded vertically and standing in a drawer like books on a shelf, every shirt is visible. No digging, no archaeology, no forgetting what you own. This is the practical functional benefit.
2. It honors the garment. Folding mindfully is a small ritual of respect for what you own. Marie Kondo’s framing isn’t sentimental flourish — it’s part of the philosophy that gratitude for objects keeps you intentional about acquisition.
3. It dramatically reduces drawer space needed. Vertical folding fits roughly twice as many shirts in the same drawer compared to flat-stacking.

The basic vertical fold for a t-shirt:

1. Lay shirt flat, smooth wrinkles
2. Fold the sleeves in toward the body, creating a rectangle
3. Fold the rectangle in thirds lengthwise (or halves for very small drawers)
4. The result should stand up on its own when placed on its side

Variations exist for pants, socks, dresses, and other garments. Marie Kondo’s books and Netflix series demonstrate dozens of specific fold techniques. The 30-day plan’s day 6 (where you fold the kept clothes) doesn’t require mastering every variation — basic vertical folding is enough to get the benefit.

Common KonMari misunderstandings

“KonMari means owning nothing.” No. KonMari has no minimum or maximum item count. Some KonMari completers own fewer than 100 items; some own thousands. The number doesn’t matter — what matters is that everything you own sparks joy.

“KonMari means everything must be white and minimalist.” No. The aesthetic associated with KonMari (white walls, neutral palettes, sparse rooms) is a stylistic choice some practitioners make, not part of the method. Marie Kondo herself has explicitly disclaimed any aesthetic requirement.

“KonMari is religious or spiritual.” Marie Kondo draws on Shinto traditions (thanking objects, treating the home as a living space with energy) but the method is practiced by people of all religions and none. The thanking is an act of mindful release, not religious worship.

“KonMari means you can’t buy anything ever again.” No — the method just makes you more intentional about new acquisitions. Things that genuinely spark joy can come in; what changes is the test you apply before buying.

“KonMari is for clean people / KonMari is impossible for messy people.” Actually the opposite. People who keep tidy homes naturally need less help; KonMari is built for people who feel overwhelmed by accumulated stuff.

After KonMari: how to stay tidy

Marie Kondo’s claim: people who complete the full KonMari method don’t relapse. It’s a strong claim but the logic holds — once you’ve held every item in your home and made an intentional decision about it, your relationship to acquisition fundamentally changes. New items that don’t spark joy don’t make it through the front door.

Maintenance after KonMari:

• Before buying anything new: Apply the spark-joy test in advance. Hold the item in the store. If it doesn’t spark joy, put it down.
• Designated homes: Every item should have a specific place where it lives. Putting things back becomes automatic when the place is clear.
• Vertical folding stays. It takes 30 seconds per shirt and makes the closet usable forever after.
• Annual touch-up. Once a year, walk through and re-test items that have crept past the threshold. Maintenance is dramatically lighter than the initial pass.

Pairing KonMari with other practices

KonMari handles decluttering and basic storage. It doesn’t directly address ongoing cleaning, time management, digital clutter, or financial clutter. For those:

• Cleaning: See our cleaning checklist hub for a customized cleaning routine, and cleaning schedule for daily/weekly/monthly cadence.
• Time and commitments, digital, finances: Our Declutter Your Life page covers a 30-day plan that rotates through 8 life areas including these.
• Other decluttering methods: The main decluttering checklist hub covers all 12 methods including the Four-Box Method, the 30-Day Minimalist Game, Feng Shui, Swedish Death Cleaning, and others. KonMari is one approach among twelve; if it doesn’t fit how you make decisions, another method might.
• For sentimental-heavy decluttering specifically, Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson is a gentler framework focused specifically on letting go of items that would burden others.

Frequently asked questions

Is this KonMari tool really free?

Yes. The tool runs in your browser, all PDFs generate locally, and no email is required. 101planners is supported by ads. There’s no premium tier, paywall, or upsell.

What is the KonMari method, exactly?

KonMari is Marie Kondo’s decluttering method, developed in Japan and published in her 2011 book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The method has three core principles: tidy by category (not by room), use “does this spark joy?” as the decision rule, and follow a strict order — clothes, then books, then papers, then komono (miscellany), then sentimental items.

What does “spark joy” really mean?

It’s a physical-response test, not an intellectual analysis. Hold an item. Notice your body’s immediate response. A subtle lift, a feeling of yes, a slight smile — those are sparks of joy. Neutral or no responses mean the item has served its purpose and can go. The skill is trusting the gut response without overthinking.

What’s the KonMari order and can I skip a category?

The order is fixed: clothes → books → papers → komono → sentimental. Marie Kondo is explicit that you cannot skip. The reason: the spark-joy detection skill develops with practice. Clothes are emotionally easiest, sentimental items are hardest. Working clothes first calibrates your sense of joy; by sentimentals you trust your gut. Starting with sentimentals (because they’re often the most cluttered) typically produces wrong decisions and stalls the whole process.

What is komono?

Komono (小物) is a Japanese term roughly meaning “small things” or “miscellany.” In the KonMari method, it’s the fourth category — everything that isn’t clothes, books, papers, or sentimental. Kitchen items, bathroom items, electronics, cosmetics, hobby supplies, cleaning products, garage and basement contents. It’s the biggest category and the longest stretch of the 30-day plan (days 17–26).

How long does the KonMari method usually take?

Marie Kondo recommends 6 months for a complete pass when done at the original pace, with whole-day sessions per sub-category. The 30-day plan in the tool above compresses that into one focused month using 10-minute daily sessions. Either pacing works — the order and the spark-joy test are non-negotiable, the timeline is flexible.

Did Marie Kondo really give up on tidying?

She didn’t give up on the method. In a 2023 interview after the birth of her third child, she said she had “kind of given up” on keeping her own home perfectly tidy, acknowledging that life with three small children meant her priorities had shifted toward family time over perfection. The method itself didn’t change; her relationship to the standards she set for herself did. The tool above honors the original method as published — perfection isn’t the goal, joy is.

Does the KonMari method actually work?

Most published practitioner accounts say yes, with two caveats. First, you have to do the full method — partial KonMari (clothes only, or skipping categories) doesn’t produce the deeper effects. Second, the effects are mostly emotional and behavioral rather than measurable in stuff-removed metrics. People who complete KonMari typically describe lasting changes in their relationship to consumption, not just in the volume of items they own.

Is KonMari good for ADHD?

Mixed. The strict category order can be helpful for ADHD brains (external structure replaces missing executive function). The all-at-once category sessions can be exhausting (high decision load over short timeframes). The 30-day plan structure in the tool above is more ADHD-friendly than the original 6-month pacing because each daily task is small and finishable in 10 minutes. If the daily task still feels overwhelming, switch to the 15-Minute Pickup method — time-boxed sessions that respect ADHD energy patterns.

What if nothing sparks joy?

This is common during depression, grief, or burnout. KonMari isn’t the right method during these periods because the joy detector is offline. Try the One-a-Day method instead — remove one item per day, no spark-joy requirement, just basic forward motion. 365 items per year, almost effortlessly. Return to KonMari when emotional capacity is restored.

Can I download the KonMari checklist as a PDF?

Yes. Click “Full plan PDF” at the top of the tool to download the entire 30-day KonMari plan as a printable. “Today’s task PDF” generates a single page for the current day. Both are formatted black-and-white for clean printing — useful for sticking on a fridge, in a planner, or carrying around during decluttering sessions.

Where can I learn more about the KonMari method directly from Marie Kondo?

Her two main books are The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (the foundational text) and Spark Joy (an illustrated practice guide). For workplace decluttering, Joy at Work (co-authored with Scott Sonenshein) extends the method into professional environments. The Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo shows the method applied to real homes. Marie Kondo’s official site at konmari.com has additional resources.