5 Things Marie Kondo Taught Me About Navigating Midlife

Decluttering isn't just for closets. It's for midlife too.

When I first watched Marie Kondo fold a cotton shirt like it was precious cashmere, I thought she was just teaching me about laundry.

She wasn’t. She was teaching me about survival.

During a brutal episode of hot flashes, brain fog, and the sudden inability to remember why I walked into a room, I realized that Marie Kondo wasn’t just talking about tidying up our homes. She was talking about tidying up our lives.

And midlife? Midlife is the ultimate closet cleanout where your body hands you a sledgehammer and says, “We’re demolishing the parts that don’t work anymore.”

This is what this organizational guru taught me about this messy, beautiful phase of life.

1. Not everything deserves to stay

Kondo’s most famous question: “Does it spark joy?”

In your 40s and 50s, this question becomes vital. That friendship that feels like emotional labor? The career path you chose at 25 that no longer fits? The belief that you need to please everyone? The skincare routine that costs more than your mortgage?

They don’t spark joy anymore. Good riddance.

2. Keep what serves your future self, not your past self

Kondo teaches us to keep items that support the life we want, not the life we had.

This hits different in midlife. Those size-6 jeans from 2003? The fantasy that you’ll somehow return to your 30-year-old body? Let it go. Not because you’ve given up, but because that version of you doesn’t exist anymore. And frankly, she was exhausted and probably skipping lunch.

Your body is changing. Your hormones are doing whatever they want without asking permission. Your metabolism has apparently retired to Florida and isn’t returning your calls.

What serves you now is different. Maybe it’s energy over appearance. Comfort over conformity. Peace over perfection.

Keep the things, people, and habits that honor who you’re becoming, not who you were trying to be.

3. Gratitude for what’s leaving makes room for what’s arriving

Recognizing that items have fulfilled their purpose

This practice feels almost spiritual when applied to midlife transitions.

Thank your fertility for the years it served you, whether you used it or not. Thank your old energy levels. Thank your tolerance for nonsense. Thank your ability to function on five hours of sleep and still be pleasant.

These things are leaving or have left. And yes, it’s a loss.

Menopause is grief dressed as a hot flash.

But the thing about letting go with gratitude is that it creates space. Space for new priorities, new freedoms, new versions of yourself you haven’t met yet.

The woman emerging on the other side of this transition has earned every gray hair and wrinkle. (Yep, that’s me!) She’s done pretending. She’s done performing.

4. There’s a right way to fold, and it changes everything

It’s about choosing what deserves your energy and space.

Kondo’s folding method seems unnecessary until you try it. Then suddenly your drawer has space. You can see everything. Nothing gets lost at the bottom where socks go to die.

Midlife requires similar restructuring. The way you organized your life at 30 doesn’t work at 50. Your energy is finite now. Your patience ran out three mood swings ago. Your time is more precious.

So you fold differently. You restructure. You create systems that account for brain fog and fatigue.

You batch your tasks. You say no without a paragraph explanation. You schedule rest like it’s a business meeting. You stop trying to do seventeen things at once because your hormones have made multitasking a dangerous sport.

5. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s peace

The goal is a home where you feel peaceful and content.

The same goes for midlife. You’re not trying to achieve some ridiculous standard of graceful aging. You’re trying to find peace in a body and life that feel unfamiliar.

Some days you’ll nail it. You’ll feel powerful and clear and authentically yourself.

Other days you’ll cry at a commercial about retirement planning, forget three appointments, and wonder if you’re losing your mind along with your estrogen.

Both days are fine. Both days are part of the process.

The peace comes from accepting that this transition is messy.

That you’re allowed to struggle with it. That you don’t have to Instagram your way through it with a smile.

Marie Kondo probably didn’t mean for her organizing philosophy to become a framework for navigating menopause.

But in midlife it turns out we’re thanking our past, releasing what no longer fits, and creating space for what’s coming next.

If that doesn’t spark joy, I don’t know what does.

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Your turn: What’s one thing you’re ready to thank and release? Drop it in the comments—not because I need to know, but because sometimes saying it out loud is the first step to letting it go.