The Filing Method of Folding Clothes – aka The KonMari Method

The Filing Method of Folding Clothes – aka The KonMari Method

The filing method of folding clothes — also known as the KonMari Method — has helped us to keep our drawers organized and uncluttered so that we can always find the clothing items we need without searching through stacks of messy shirts and pants!

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Just over two years ago now, I read a little book called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Along with changing the way I think about decluttering our home, it also had a significant impact on the way I fold and store our clothes. I originally talked about KonMari clothes organization here, but now that we’ve been implementing the filing method of folding clothes for a while, I thought it was about time for an update… and a video!

The Filing Method of Folding Clothes – aka The KonMari Method

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A Tour of Our Drawers

It’s harder to explain my folding strategy with pictures, so I’ll let the video do that, but I thought I would give a little tour of our drawers to show what the end result of the filing method of folding looks like. We don’t follow the KonMari method to a T, but it has certainly shaped the way we think about clothes drawer organization!

The filing method looks a little different in my drawers, Donnie’s drawers, and the boys’ drawers. There are also a few questions I get frequently when I talk about the KonMari method of folding, so I wanted to be sure to address those as well.

Abby’s Dresser

I’m still using a hand-me-down dresser that belonged to my mom in the ’70s! You can see how I gave it a little facelift in this post.

The most important part of keeping our clothes organized and uncluttered is purging anything we don’t love, aren’t wearing often, or that is worn out. The t-shirts in this drawer are ones I typically wear for working out, doing projects around the house, or on laid back days where I don’t feel like getting dolled up! I hang my nicer blouses in our closet.

One of the most common questions I get about folding t-shirts using the KonMari Method is, “Does it make the shirts more wrinkled?” I have actually found the opposite to be true. My shirts seem less wrinkled with this method than when I was stacking them all up in a big pile.

I keep my workout pants, pajama pants, and shorts in one of the smaller drawers, and they stay filed pretty easily…

Since socks are smaller and tend to fall over more easily, I use SKUBB boxes inside my sock drawer to keep them neat and tidy.

I gave up on folding my workout socks because they were too small and were always getting messed up, so I just stack them all up in a pile. I have all the same type, so I don’t have to worry about matching them up. When I need a pair, I can just grab two off of the top of the pile.

Donnie’s Dresser

The dresser we use for Donnie’s clothes was a $40 Craigslist find that I originally made over to be a TV stand here.

I love its character and charming details, but since the drawers are big and wide and Donnie’s clothes are bigger than mine and the boys’, I was getting frustrated that they were getting easily messed up in his drawer. To solve this problem, I added some SKUBB boxes to hold his t-shirts, and they have stayed folded nicely ever since!

His shirts are separated by type– long sleeved shirts, under shirts, athletic shirts, and work shirts in the narrower box. Since they are more confined in the boxes, they can still stand up easily without falling over, even if he has removed several shirts from the row.

I used a similar method in his pants and shorts drawer, using these bins from Target to keep them neat and organized.

He has one bin for sweatpants, one for his khaki-type shorts, and one for athletic shorts.

Connor and Caleb’s Dresser

The boys’ dresser is where I’m especially thankful for the filing method of folding clothes! Their room only had space for one small dresser, and I had to find a way to fit all of their clothes in a not-so-big space.

Each boy has two drawers– one for shirts and one for pants and shorts.

One question I’m often asked about this method is if we have trouble finding the shirt we want since it can be harder to see the design on the front. This hasn’t been a huge issue for us since I’m pretty familiar with the color and material of our clothes, but sometimes I will peek into the side of the shirt if I can’t tell exactly which one it is. If you happen to have a lot of shirts that are the same color and material, you could always tweak the KonMari method and fold the shirts with the collar/front side out so that the design is more prominently displayed.

Since Caleb’s shirts are so tiny, he even has extra space in his t-shirt drawer!

Caleb’s shorts and pants are smaller, I am still able to fit them all in a drawer– even jeans!

Connor’s pants are bigger, so I hang his jeans like I hang Donnie’s and mine, but his athletic pants and shorts are all filed neatly in his drawer.

Since I had used the drawers for the boys’ shirts and shorts, I was only left with the space behind the little door on their dresser to store all of their socks and undies. I ended up stacking a few pantry bins that I already had in the space, and they work perfectly to keep the boys’ items separated. Connor has two bins, and Caleb has one.

Because they are so small and were getting messy easily, I gave up on trying to file the boys’ socks. Instead, I just roll them inside one another so that they stay paired up, and the boys can easily grab them when they need a pair. I also don’t fold their undies. I just stack them flat, and the boys take a pair off the top of the pile when they get dressed.

So that’s our drawer tour! If you want to see how we store our hanging clothes, you can take a tour of our closet in this post and the boys’ smaller closet here.

Sources

Pantry Bins (similar)

You can learn more about the KonMari Method and see how we’ve used it in our home in these posts:

The KonMari Method, Organization, and Tidying Up

Have you tried the KonMari Method in your home? I’d love to hear your thoughts about it in the comments!

Thank you so much for following along! Have a wonderful day!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

Original article and pictures take justagirlandherblog.com site