6 Ways to KonMari Your Dating Life, Straight From the Experts

Marie Kondo begins her book by reminding us all that tidying up isn't something to start, stop, and never pick up again. You need to fully commit to the process, and she doesn't recommend beginning until after reading the entire book. Simple enough, right? Well, when it comes to our dating lives, this commitment takes on a new challenge: being open. It's about making yourself available for someone to come into your life and spark joy, while simultaneously making yourself unavailable for those who don't.

"Whether it's your closet or your love life, examining what you have with intention and making sense of it is a very intense process," Ashley Campana, matchmaker at Lisa Clampitt Matchmaking, told POPSUGAR. "As you attempt to pare down your romantic relationships, think about the value of scarcity. If you have this abundance of potential prospects, there's a tendency to get stuck in the paradox of choice and keep people around who serve one or two of your needs, but aren't necessarily the whole package you're looking for. Instead, when you have a bit of scarcity, you have room to truly look at people for who they are and explore what you could love about them."

When you're tackling your belongings, Kondo recommends doing this in the morning when you have a clear head. This isn't an activity for a Saturday night in your bathrobe with a bottle of wine, but instead with a fresh cup of coffee with your intentions at the forefront.

Lisa Clampitt, president and founder of her matchmaking service, echoes this same idea when it comes to dating, telling POPSUGAR, "Don't drop a guy because he watches football. These arbitrary attributes aren't going to get in the way of you having a great life with someone. They're merely excuses for you to break up with him before he breaks up with you. When we feel fear, we act irrationally, and being afraid of how much you like someone is a common feeling. Breathe, give it a second, and ask yourself not what someone's pros and cons are, but how they make you feel."

In her book, Kondo says, "The fact that you possess a surplus of things that you can't bring yourself to discard doesn't mean you're taking good care of them. In fact, it's quite the opposite." When it comes to dating, this means you should clear the roster of folks you're only keeping around for a rainy day. When you're benching a great catch, you're potentially robbing them (and you) of finding something real. Set them free.

If you're thinking you don't have much of a roster, I challenge you to reconsider. Most of us singles aren't entirely without potentials out there. Write down everyone in your radius, including the person from Bumble, the bartender where nothing happened, and your office crush who clearly likes you back. Put them all in one place (like on individual Post-its), hold them in your hand one by one, and decide how their name and thoughts of them make you feel. And the ones who don't spark joy? Let them go.

Clampitt urges to be aware of the narcissist, saying, "Narcissists are tricky because what they spark at the beginning can feel like joy." They can make you feel incredible — just as long as you're making them feel incredible. But the second they feel at all threatened, things take a drastic turn.

What you need to do is dig deeper and question the feelings, where they come from, and if they're sustainable. If you're with a narcissist, on some level you know; it just might be hard to confront. At the end of the day, Clampitt has a helpful differentiator: "You don't want James Bond, you want the guy who spills his martini because he's so nervous to be talking to you."