When I did the KonMari Method, I decided to follow Kondo’s advice and started with clothes that are out of season, my t-shirts. I do not have an abundance of t-shirts because in recent years, I have tried to be conscientious of my purchases and have aimed to only buy items I really love; I do not to let myself make excuses. In addition, if I can tell that I am not going to get much use out of an item, I do not make the purchase, even if I really like it. Consequently, I started the exercise with just fifteen t-shirts, total.

My starting point

Initially, I was convinced I would not remove many shirts because of how picky I try to be when shopping, but as I started performing the exercise, I realized that I had been mistaken.

Halfway through the exercise: the pile on the left has shirts that have yet to be held, the pile on the right has ones that give me joy, and the rejects are back in my closet.

By the end of the KonMari Method exercise, I was left with nine t-shirts that I decided give me true joy—about two-thirds the number I started with.

The final nine

When I held most of my shirts, I smiled involuntarily—sometimes triggered by a memory, sometimes by a particular shirt’s color or texture. These undoubtedly give me joy. For six of them, however, my reaction was positive, but not as strongly positive as for the other nine. Without overthinking or making excuses in their defense, I hung them back up, out of sight in my closet. Of these rejects, there were a few for which I realized my feelings are more mixed. One t-shirt, for example, the pattern and color of which I liked so much that I went to several locations searching for one in my size (size XS, which can be hard to find), has started to fade, rendering it increasingly apparent how cheaply it was made. Another has a very unique design that caught my eye in the store, but has never fit me quite as well as I would like.

Overall, I admit that it was difficult to be strict, vetting my t-shirts as if my intention really was to purge them, particularly because I did not start with that many. Throughout the entire exercise, I remained conscious of the fact that I could not afford to whittle them down much without having to constantly do laundry in the summer months. This means that despite the fact that I have practice using the unapologetically decisive mindset necessary to successfully perform the KonMari Method, it was difficult to keep myself from overthinking. Nonetheless, I believe I was quite successful in forcing myself to differentiate between the desire to keep a shirt out of authentic joy and the compulsion to keep it out of necessity.

I think that my attitude about some of my t-shirts comes partly from their look or feel; I love touching a soft fabric, and I love beautiful, vibrant colors. It is really exciting for me to find an article of clothing that has both of these, particularly because men’s clothing is usually limited to dark, somber shades. However, aside from the material of the shirts, what makes some of my shirts special to me are, of course, the memories I associate with them. When I hold certain articles of clothing, I have flashbacks to when and how I got them—running around with friends to find a certain shirt in my size, finding a shirt while bonding with my brother (we used to fight a lot but have more recently started getting closer), and so on. These sorts of associations cause the shirts to give me joy, and so I cherish them that much more.