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Ethan asked this question about The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing:
Is she saying to get all of your clothes out onto the floor, and then sort them by category, and then purge by category? I feel like it would be difficult to sort by category if you've just dumped every category of clothing into one big pile.
Jennifer This is somewhat how I've always done my organizing. I dump everything on a big pile on the floor and start sorting: keep piles, toss piles, and most …moreThis is somewhat how I've always done my organizing. I dump everything on a big pile on the floor and start sorting: keep piles, toss piles, and most of the time also piles for where stuff is going to go. I find it very effective for me, but it can also feel a bit overwhelming. If you only have 20-30 minutes to work every day over the course of a week, you will likely just make a huge mess and then feel very unmotivated to clean it up. However, if you set aside half a day or a full day to work on your pile, with copious rest breaks in-between, you will find that everything is picked up and put away and very clean by the time you finish.

I just did this to my sewing/quilting area. I found the boxes in the garage with my stuff in them, and then pulled all the stuff I'd been accumulating in a corner and dumped it all on the floor. By the time I was done, I had my fabric sorted by which project it was going to and organized onto a shelf, all of my yarn was sorted and organized onto another bookshelf, I had cleaned out my drawers and replaced them with projects that I work on more frequently for easy access, and my table was neat and free to use! In short, I am very happy and have been spending a ton of time sitting in that general area of the house since I cleaned it.

One note, I did my organization of my quilt/knitting area *before* reading this book, and reflecting back on it, I was following a lot of her advice without knowing it. I think she has a lot of good points in this book, and a lot of good advice about tidying. I would give it a shot before you decide it doesn't work for you!(less)
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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
by Marie Kondō (Goodreads Author)
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