Purging and Organizing: A Personal Journey

I recently decided to embark on a journey to declutter and organize my closet, and I must say it was a truly liberating experience. As I stood amidst the chaos of clothes, shoes, and accessories, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of items that were no longer serving me. The task ahead seemed daunting, but with each passing minute, I felt more determined to create a space that brought me joy and made my daily routine easier.

The first thing I tackled was identifying items that genuinely brought me happiness. As Marie Kondo so eloquently puts it, "Does it spark joy?" I asked myself this question for every single item in my closet, and the results were astounding. Many of my beloved shoes and heels had seen better days, and although they still looked beautiful, they no longer fit or made me feel confident. I must admit that I did find some joy in a few of these items, but ultimately, they were not worth holding onto.

As I began to sort through my clothes, I realized that many of them had become mere accessories rather than statement pieces. They didn't spark joy, and they weren't making me feel like the best version of myself. I decided to let go of these items, and it was a liberating experience. The process was not without its sentimental attachments, however. I found myself holding onto some shoes that held nostalgic value, such as my daughter's cheer shoes from when she was a competitive athlete. These items may no longer be a part of our daily routine, but they remain significant to me and serve as a reminder of happy memories.

The next task at hand was organizing the remaining items in my closet. I decided to use a combination of Marie Kondo's method and my own personal style to create a system that worked for me. For instance, I color-coded my dresses and tops to create a sense of visual harmony. I also invested in some beautiful curtain rods to add an extra layer of elegance to the space.

One of the most significant challenges I faced was finding a solution for the shoes. I had amassed a large collection over the years, but many of them no longer fit or were in poor condition. I decided to use my dollar tree hack to display my favorite purses and shoes on a nearby shelf. This not only added visual interest to the space but also provided a sense of organization.

As I continued to purge and organize, I realized that my closet was more than just a physical space – it was a reflection of my personality and values. By letting go of items that no longer served me, I was making room for new experiences, connections, and memories. The process was not always easy, but the end result was well worth it.

In conclusion, purging and organizing my closet was a journey that taught me so much about myself and the importance of living with intention. By surrounding myself with items that spark joy and serve a purpose, I am now able to approach each day with greater confidence and clarity.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys today I am going to be applying the Marie canto method into my closet but I'm also going to have five Dollar Tree hacks in this video as well all of the organizing things that I'm that I got to organize my closet I also got from Dollar Tree and I did a shop with me so if you haven't seen that video go watch it first and then come back here and watch the rest of this video so you can see all of the organizational things that are out there for very cheap or a dollar a dollar tree that you could definitely use to give yourself to update a space that just needs to be a little bit more functional and yeah so that's what I'm gonna be doing today also I don't ever introduce myself but my name is Marie as well so I'm super excited for the khawarij method so not to confuse anybody but Marie Kondo and kiannmac on Mari are the same thing it's just basically like her name and first name backwards a little bit so let's talk about who Marie Kondo is she is a Japanese consultant she has written I think multiple books and her books are all about tidying up in making spaces more functional and really kind of the art of purging and how to do it if you're having trouble with that as well now I don't know every single thing you guys about her methods I just know the ones that I have really though the ones that I've heard I think that have resonated with me that I've kind of stuck with me that I want to apply to my space so this is in no way me doing the konmari method just A to Z okay I think I'm just gonna kind of pick and choose though the methods that I feel like applies to me I really do love having things I don't have to be so simple and only have like you know five clothing items but I I do love the method of keeping things that do kind of spark joy and I tend to hold on to things a lot longer than I think I should and even though one of her methods is actually not doing things by location but by categories so I'm essentially breaking already one of her methods because I am doing this by location I'm doing this in my closet and I think we're also going to tackle my drawer space as well I just feel like I am finding myself not really wanting to look through my clothes or wanting to put on anything cute and I'm always reverting back to my activewear and I don't want to do that anymore I want to know that I've gotten rid of things that I'm just not gonna wear and that if I open my drawer or if I go into my closet I know that the things that are there are there because I want it to be there I want to use them so that is really kind of what I'm going for today I'm going to organize some things and we're gonna do the con Mari like method of folding clothes as well and just trying to make my my closet space pretty much just better than what it is in no way shape or form is this me trying to brag about everything that I have in my closet please keep in mind that a lot of these things I've had for a very very long time and I'm talking some of them 10 plus years so again not bragging this is just what I have accumulated in my in my adult lifetime but without further ado let's go ahead and take a quick before of the drawer space of the closet space and then we're gonna start bringing everything out so part of her method is bringing everything out into basically another room and dumping it all and then categorizing those things like shoes in one pile clothes in one pile etc so that is what we're gonna do we're gonna basically use my bedroom to start our piles and I hope that you guys feel inspired that's why I'm sharing this with you and let's get to it all right so the first thing I'm gonna do is just empty out all the drawers I am gonna apply that method of her suggestion of just getting everything out and throwing it into a pile and then I'm going to go through the piles alright guys so I have this whole side of the closet cleaned out right now and even though I was supposed to move everything out and into my bedroom I just wanted to abort that method and kind of just do it my way and I was sorting while I was in here so but this whole side is clear clean there's nothing there but my hots and I'm gonna go ahead and grab the items that I purchased while I was at my during my shop with me video and get some of those bins set up they may end up moving around as I figure out where I kind of want things to go but I'm going to go ahead and get them moved in here alright guys so I have some dresses here but they do have sentimental value one of them is actually my one of my homecoming dresses in high school this was a dress my daughter wore to my brother's wedding this was a one prom dress and then this was my original prom dress and I just don't want to get rid of those so to better preserve these I am going to put them in this dress storage bag from Dollar Tree and it's gonna keep them all together just because again they're sentimental items that sentimental items that me nor my daughter are going to use and that way I keep them better protected in this gorge so we're gonna take this white shirt and try to smooth out all the wrinkles as possible and I believe she just folds it into one two and three so that's still pretty long in my opinion you could even maybe half it if you wanted to and then it could stand up like this and you guys this bottom drawer has a nothing in it I've condensed so much that have nothing in this drawer and nothing in this drawer either this is so exciting I did relocate a lot of my things as you can see I moved my bras to this top drawer I added two of those organizers from Dollar Tree and they just look so nice and you know compact and put together not flying around these I didn't fold Marie Kondo style because these are little undershirts and I grabbed them every single day so I just didn't want to fold them like that just some extra things back there here is another empty drawer that is crazy that's three empty drawers when they used to just be filled to the brim one thing I didn't do I did not do any folding for my bathing suits I just don't care to do any folding to be honest so with that I just put them all back in here but it was filled to the top because I did get rid of a bunch of suits as well here is the sock drawer I just didn't know if there was really any great organization besides those little things I was mentioning earlier where you put them into the little compartments but I don't have that so I'm fine with just throwing all of my socks and they look great and here is my sports bra section I really love this I put in another one of these organizers from Dollar Tree and then did the Marie Kondo method which really worked great with those and then some extra like hair things if I'm jogging outside in the winter time so as you can see I applied to some Marie Kondo methods kind of hard because these two are black I did roll this little center section here but then these I just folded like I normally do and then I relocated all of my activewear to this side because I have so much of it it did not make sense to have it in those little small drawers so I moved to them all over here and I have my shorts and then these stacked up pretty well this way because they're thicker and they're pants so those did great and these are my active wear tops as you can see they didn't work out as great as that folding method so I just resorted to folding them like I normally do I have some prints I have some white and gray and then black there alright guys so here is our Dollar Tree hack number one this is how I store my hats I've actually done a video on this a really really long time ago but it's been so long that I wanted to refresh you guys I love this system I've been using the system for years now and I get these little circle hooks from the office supplies planner supply section at Dollar Tree they come in multiple sizes so as you can see I have some larger ones right here and you just open it up and slot your hats through and then you can see all your hats pretty well Dollar Tree hack number two is going to be using shower curtain rings to hold either your scarves or your purses really depends on your preference on how if you even want to display those items but if you have some really cute purses this would be a really great way to kind of showcase them in your closet Dollar Tree hack number three is going to be how to handle pants that get too much of that crease from sitting on these thin hangers I am going to switch out my hangers because these just end up being way too flimsy and all of my clothes that are like bottoms jeans slacks those things are on the white hangers so I want them to all be uniform so then I'm just going to take the pool noodle and then I am going to measure I'm taking an old steak knife that we no longer use and then you want to find the side that you're gonna cut a slit into you don't want to cut all the way through you don't want to cut through this side you just want to cut on one side until you have an opening like this and you're gonna feed it through like so and then when you put your slacks back on as you can see that they are going to be nice and rounded there's not going to be that thin cut crease right in the middle of the thigh area and that takes away the wrinkle dollar tree hack number four is going to be creating your own non-slip hangers in the event that you don't have these and you just want to go ahead and use what you already own too in case you're on a budget just you can actually do two different things you could use a hot glue gun and you could just squiggle on some hot glue right here let it dry and then that will act as like a rubber protector and then your clothes shouldn't slip from that or your second option from Dollar Tree is going to be these little cleaning pipes are they called cleaning pipe so just like craft pipes glie all you want to do is twist it around your hanger like so and you want to put this on the ends where the garment will tend to want to slip off and this will be that barrier from you know stopping the the blouse at the top from sliding off and again all you want to do is wind it around so I've done both sides and once you put the top on here it's pretty secure dollar tree hack number five is going to be using these vacuum storage bags especially if you have a smaller space to work with with your closet this is going to be essential to kind of rotate your seasonal clothing especially went now that we're going into spring time these are going to be great you guys they I use these actually as well to go on vacation I put all of our beach towels in here so that they're not just bulky and taking up too much space you and this is my massive purge pile I'm so incredibly incredibly proud of myself they're all the purses there's a hat ton of clothes coats and then all of the shoes over here so all of this you guys is going to get donated and I hope that some of this inspired you to do some work in your house as well all right let's go ahead and take a quick tour through the closet I was able to go ahead and dispose of a couple of scarves but you guys know I really love my scar so I'm gonna go ahead and keep them and I love my Nikes but I still was able to get rid of one pair of Nikes and these other ones I do use every single day as a matter of fact this one has a hole in it it's probably time to go that I really do get a lot of good wear a lot of these are very old and I got rid of so many heels you guys I really did apply that hole does it bring me joy and then the second thing that I think of is you know sometimes when I'm getting dressed for office wear it's not necessarily about bringing me joy but do I have something to match other outfits so sometimes heels have to be functional so I did keep some that are functional for just matching certain outfits but otherwise I got rid of a ton of heels and then as you can see one of my dollar tree hacks so I displayed my favorite purses in there but if I decided not to take up that space I can always move them into one of those bins up there from a Dollar Tree I actually have something in that bin and in that bin but those two are completely empty and then I have things in those two bins sorry that camera is not focusing and then the two on the right are empty as well so this one kind of has just supplies for the closet some air freshener stuff which we'll get to in a minute for a bonus hock and then some more shower curtain rods or just in case I want to add more purses to my display and that has my daughter's cheer shoes from when she was a competitive chair I just want to keep those because you know in case she has a kid one day it'll be really cool to see her old shoes it's kind of like a ballerina keeping her first pointe shoes so it's a big deal to me and then I have to use this curtain or not why do I am I calling a curtain rod but I have to use at this closet rod because it is the longest one for my dresses to fit so this has like my outer where my jackets has some dresses and then I even attempted to color-code them as well so that it looks more uniform and as you can tell all of my hangers are identical with the exception of these that are just like holds of pants and then this one is white because it was holding up a ton of those um sentimental trusses so this area I had so much stuff packed in here you got you guys you you will see everything that I'm getting rid of is just a mountainous pile so this area is looking so much better and this area is now clear I ended up moving my pants over here so I have all of my jeans and then this is kind of like office wear over here just Blazers and slacks and skirts and then that's just summertime wear and then these are just just some random things that I wasn't did not want to part with and then this little section here is actually my active wear but when I fold them they get really wrinkly so I needed to hang them so they go there and then this entire top are all of my tops and as you can see they look so good all the hangers are matching so it's not a distraction and you're able to see the item rather than seeing the mess of the hangers so it's definitely more appealing and it doesn't look like I got rid of a lot but you'll see how much stuff I really did purge and this this whole section used to be just jam-packed so I did I was successful in getting rid of a bunch of thing and my shoes I think I made a huge dent I also got rid of some purses and I'll go ahead and show you guys those in the next clip and here is one of my huge piles you guys of donations things to get rid of that I was able to purge just so many things that I just was simply not wearing like there's even some plaid it was hard to gear that plaid you guys but I wasn't just not wearing it and yeah I'm feeling so great already here is the huge second pile and this pile came from all of the drawer system yeah so these were just things that I just didn't end up loving or wasn't just grabbing to wear and there was just no need for me to continue to hold on to them video you guys I just organized everything Marie Kondo style and then this Murray style very functional to my needs I just love how much I purge I feel so much better that's not to say I'm not gonna go buy more things but at least now I know everything hanging in here are things that I do want to grab for that I do want to wear there's no noise and I can bring in other things that I'm going to find joy in wearing as well and I'm also have so many clothes just donate and give to someone else that needs it whether there's there's stuff for interviews so I'm definitely going to give to a women's shelter thank you guys so much for watching this video please give it a thumbs up and I'll see you guys in the next one bye youhi guys today I am going to be applying the Marie canto method into my closet but I'm also going to have five Dollar Tree hacks in this video as well all of the organizing things that I'm that I got to organize my closet I also got from Dollar Tree and I did a shop with me so if you haven't seen that video go watch it first and then come back here and watch the rest of this video so you can see all of the organizational things that are out there for very cheap or a dollar a dollar tree that you could definitely use to give yourself to update a space that just needs to be a little bit more functional and yeah so that's what I'm gonna be doing today also I don't ever introduce myself but my name is Marie as well so I'm super excited for the khawarij method so not to confuse anybody but Marie Kondo and kiannmac on Mari are the same thing it's just basically like her name and first name backwards a little bit so let's talk about who Marie Kondo is she is a Japanese consultant she has written I think multiple books and her books are all about tidying up in making spaces more functional and really kind of the art of purging and how to do it if you're having trouble with that as well now I don't know every single thing you guys about her methods I just know the ones that I have really though the ones that I've heard I think that have resonated with me that I've kind of stuck with me that I want to apply to my space so this is in no way me doing the konmari method just A to Z okay I think I'm just gonna kind of pick and choose though the methods that I feel like applies to me I really do love having things I don't have to be so simple and only have like you know five clothing items but I I do love the method of keeping things that do kind of spark joy and I tend to hold on to things a lot longer than I think I should and even though one of her methods is actually not doing things by location but by categories so I'm essentially breaking already one of her methods because I am doing this by location I'm doing this in my closet and I think we're also going to tackle my drawer space as well I just feel like I am finding myself not really wanting to look through my clothes or wanting to put on anything cute and I'm always reverting back to my activewear and I don't want to do that anymore I want to know that I've gotten rid of things that I'm just not gonna wear and that if I open my drawer or if I go into my closet I know that the things that are there are there because I want it to be there I want to use them so that is really kind of what I'm going for today I'm going to organize some things and we're gonna do the con Mari like method of folding clothes as well and just trying to make my my closet space pretty much just better than what it is in no way shape or form is this me trying to brag about everything that I have in my closet please keep in mind that a lot of these things I've had for a very very long time and I'm talking some of them 10 plus years so again not bragging this is just what I have accumulated in my in my adult lifetime but without further ado let's go ahead and take a quick before of the drawer space of the closet space and then we're gonna start bringing everything out so part of her method is bringing everything out into basically another room and dumping it all and then categorizing those things like shoes in one pile clothes in one pile etc so that is what we're gonna do we're gonna basically use my bedroom to start our piles and I hope that you guys feel inspired that's why I'm sharing this with you and let's get to it all right so the first thing I'm gonna do is just empty out all the drawers I am gonna apply that method of her suggestion of just getting everything out and throwing it into a pile and then I'm going to go through the piles alright guys so I have this whole side of the closet cleaned out right now and even though I was supposed to move everything out and into my bedroom I just wanted to abort that method and kind of just do it my way and I was sorting while I was in here so but this whole side is clear clean there's nothing there but my hots and I'm gonna go ahead and grab the items that I purchased while I was at my during my shop with me video and get some of those bins set up they may end up moving around as I figure out where I kind of want things to go but I'm going to go ahead and get them moved in here alright guys so I have some dresses here but they do have sentimental value one of them is actually my one of my homecoming dresses in high school this was a dress my daughter wore to my brother's wedding this was a one prom dress and then this was my original prom dress and I just don't want to get rid of those so to better preserve these I am going to put them in this dress storage bag from Dollar Tree and it's gonna keep them all together just because again they're sentimental items that sentimental items that me nor my daughter are going to use and that way I keep them better protected in this gorge so we're gonna take this white shirt and try to smooth out all the wrinkles as possible and I believe she just folds it into one two and three so that's still pretty long in my opinion you could even maybe half it if you wanted to and then it could stand up like this and you guys this bottom drawer has a nothing in it I've condensed so much that have nothing in this drawer and nothing in this drawer either this is so exciting I did relocate a lot of my things as you can see I moved my bras to this top drawer I added two of those organizers from Dollar Tree and they just look so nice and you know compact and put together not flying around these I didn't fold Marie Kondo style because these are little undershirts and I grabbed them every single day so I just didn't want to fold them like that just some extra things back there here is another empty drawer that is crazy that's three empty drawers when they used to just be filled to the brim one thing I didn't do I did not do any folding for my bathing suits I just don't care to do any folding to be honest so with that I just put them all back in here but it was filled to the top because I did get rid of a bunch of suits as well here is the sock drawer I just didn't know if there was really any great organization besides those little things I was mentioning earlier where you put them into the little compartments but I don't have that so I'm fine with just throwing all of my socks and they look great and here is my sports bra section I really love this I put in another one of these organizers from Dollar Tree and then did the Marie Kondo method which really worked great with those and then some extra like hair things if I'm jogging outside in the winter time so as you can see I applied to some Marie Kondo methods kind of hard because these two are black I did roll this little center section here but then these I just folded like I normally do and then I relocated all of my activewear to this side because I have so much of it it did not make sense to have it in those little small drawers so I moved to them all over here and I have my shorts and then these stacked up pretty well this way because they're thicker and they're pants so those did great and these are my active wear tops as you can see they didn't work out as great as that folding method so I just resorted to folding them like I normally do I have some prints I have some white and gray and then black there alright guys so here is our Dollar Tree hack number one this is how I store my hats I've actually done a video on this a really really long time ago but it's been so long that I wanted to refresh you guys I love this system I've been using the system for years now and I get these little circle hooks from the office supplies planner supply section at Dollar Tree they come in multiple sizes so as you can see I have some larger ones right here and you just open it up and slot your hats through and then you can see all your hats pretty well Dollar Tree hack number two is going to be using shower curtain rings to hold either your scarves or your purses really depends on your preference on how if you even want to display those items but if you have some really cute purses this would be a really great way to kind of showcase them in your closet Dollar Tree hack number three is going to be how to handle pants that get too much of that crease from sitting on these thin hangers I am going to switch out my hangers because these just end up being way too flimsy and all of my clothes that are like bottoms jeans slacks those things are on the white hangers so I want them to all be uniform so then I'm just going to take the pool noodle and then I am going to measure I'm taking an old steak knife that we no longer use and then you want to find the side that you're gonna cut a slit into you don't want to cut all the way through you don't want to cut through this side you just want to cut on one side until you have an opening like this and you're gonna feed it through like so and then when you put your slacks back on as you can see that they are going to be nice and rounded there's not going to be that thin cut crease right in the middle of the thigh area and that takes away the wrinkle dollar tree hack number four is going to be creating your own non-slip hangers in the event that you don't have these and you just want to go ahead and use what you already own too in case you're on a budget just you can actually do two different things you could use a hot glue gun and you could just squiggle on some hot glue right here let it dry and then that will act as like a rubber protector and then your clothes shouldn't slip from that or your second option from Dollar Tree is going to be these little cleaning pipes are they called cleaning pipe so just like craft pipes glie all you want to do is twist it around your hanger like so and you want to put this on the ends where the garment will tend to want to slip off and this will be that barrier from you know stopping the the blouse at the top from sliding off and again all you want to do is wind it around so I've done both sides and once you put the top on here it's pretty secure dollar tree hack number five is going to be using these vacuum storage bags especially if you have a smaller space to work with with your closet this is going to be essential to kind of rotate your seasonal clothing especially went now that we're going into spring time these are going to be great you guys they I use these actually as well to go on vacation I put all of our beach towels in here so that they're not just bulky and taking up too much space you and this is my massive purge pile I'm so incredibly incredibly proud of myself they're all the purses there's a hat ton of clothes coats and then all of the shoes over here so all of this you guys is going to get donated and I hope that some of this inspired you to do some work in your house as well all right let's go ahead and take a quick tour through the closet I was able to go ahead and dispose of a couple of scarves but you guys know I really love my scar so I'm gonna go ahead and keep them and I love my Nikes but I still was able to get rid of one pair of Nikes and these other ones I do use every single day as a matter of fact this one has a hole in it it's probably time to go that I really do get a lot of good wear a lot of these are very old and I got rid of so many heels you guys I really did apply that hole does it bring me joy and then the second thing that I think of is you know sometimes when I'm getting dressed for office wear it's not necessarily about bringing me joy but do I have something to match other outfits so sometimes heels have to be functional so I did keep some that are functional for just matching certain outfits but otherwise I got rid of a ton of heels and then as you can see one of my dollar tree hacks so I displayed my favorite purses in there but if I decided not to take up that space I can always move them into one of those bins up there from a Dollar Tree I actually have something in that bin and in that bin but those two are completely empty and then I have things in those two bins sorry that camera is not focusing and then the two on the right are empty as well so this one kind of has just supplies for the closet some air freshener stuff which we'll get to in a minute for a bonus hock and then some more shower curtain rods or just in case I want to add more purses to my display and that has my daughter's cheer shoes from when she was a competitive chair I just want to keep those because you know in case she has a kid one day it'll be really cool to see her old shoes it's kind of like a ballerina keeping her first pointe shoes so it's a big deal to me and then I have to use this curtain or not why do I am I calling a curtain rod but I have to use at this closet rod because it is the longest one for my dresses to fit so this has like my outer where my jackets has some dresses and then I even attempted to color-code them as well so that it looks more uniform and as you can tell all of my hangers are identical with the exception of these that are just like holds of pants and then this one is white because it was holding up a ton of those um sentimental trusses so this area I had so much stuff packed in here you got you guys you you will see everything that I'm getting rid of is just a mountainous pile so this area is looking so much better and this area is now clear I ended up moving my pants over here so I have all of my jeans and then this is kind of like office wear over here just Blazers and slacks and skirts and then that's just summertime wear and then these are just just some random things that I wasn't did not want to part with and then this little section here is actually my active wear but when I fold them they get really wrinkly so I needed to hang them so they go there and then this entire top are all of my tops and as you can see they look so good all the hangers are matching so it's not a distraction and you're able to see the item rather than seeing the mess of the hangers so it's definitely more appealing and it doesn't look like I got rid of a lot but you'll see how much stuff I really did purge and this this whole section used to be just jam-packed so I did I was successful in getting rid of a bunch of thing and my shoes I think I made a huge dent I also got rid of some purses and I'll go ahead and show you guys those in the next clip and here is one of my huge piles you guys of donations things to get rid of that I was able to purge just so many things that I just was simply not wearing like there's even some plaid it was hard to gear that plaid you guys but I wasn't just not wearing it and yeah I'm feeling so great already here is the huge second pile and this pile came from all of the drawer system yeah so these were just things that I just didn't end up loving or wasn't just grabbing to wear and there was just no need for me to continue to hold on to them video you guys I just organized everything Marie Kondo style and then this Murray style very functional to my needs I just love how much I purge I feel so much better that's not to say I'm not gonna go buy more things but at least now I know everything hanging in here are things that I do want to grab for that I do want to wear there's no noise and I can bring in other things that I'm going to find joy in wearing as well and I'm also have so many clothes just donate and give to someone else that needs it whether there's there's stuff for interviews so I'm definitely going to give to a women's shelter thank you guys so much for watching this video please give it a thumbs up and I'll see you guys in the next one bye you\n"