Hi Readers! Here’s a little day in the life: I drive to the gym in a blizzard (thanks Seattle Snowmageddon!), and trudge through the snow in my Flyknit Nikes (read: improperly shod).

I finally make it to my favorite elliptical perch with a view of Lake Washington and take a deep cleansing breath. I open Marie Kondo’s new show on my phone, only to discover my ear buds are tangled. It takes a full three minutes to untangle them! Grrr.

Mama said there’d be days like this.

And, although I don’t struggle with motivation to workout, I sometimes get bogged down by all that I need to bring along. I inevitably forget a snack, my water, or my lock. If I bring my kids, it’s even worse. Last week, I went to unzip my toddler’s jacket in the Kids’ Club and found that he was shirtless! Oops!

I know packing my things in advance is crucial to a sane workout, but some days it’s all the things I need to pack that make me feel like skipping it all together.

While I was watching Marie Kondo, and fuming over my tangled ear buds, it dawned on me that I need to use her method to organize my workout gear once and for all. So here it goes:

The Guiding Principles:

1. Gather all items of that type and see what you have.
2. Pick up each item and asks if it sparks joy.
3. Fold items using the KonMari Method, and stack them on end in the drawer. See the quick tutorial here.

Ready? Let’s go!

The Workout Drawer:

Gathering all the items led me to see just how many pairs of black Lulu Lemon pants I have, some of which are horrifyingly threadbare. It’s hard to say goodbye because they were expensive! And I’ve spent some of my best times in those pants. Sad, but true. To the afterlife they must go! The upside, is that I discovered I have workout pants that do spark joy, but they’d gotten buried in a sea of black.

I then noticed just how many tank tops I have from Target that I bought because they were cheap and colorful. Apparently I do that a lot. One or two did spark joy, but the rest had to go. I also tossed quite a few free shirts from random events that were not actually my size. Note to self: no longer accept free shirts!

Next went ankle socks with holes. I don’t want to share how many of these there were, but suffice it to say I decided to buy a new pack of ankle socks when I was finished.

After that, I wanted to figure out where to locate or zone the workout gear within my bedroom. My current set up had me going from a bathroom cabinet, to the closet, to a drawer unit across the room every time I wanted to pack for the gym. It was kind of a like a Zumba class. I decided to create a workout drawer, right next to my underwear and sock drawers, and put my toiletries in a drawer nearby, too. I’m much less dizzy.

Here’s my new set up:

If you look closely, you’ll see my gym clothes aren’t perfectly folded in thirds. True confession: folding things as perfectly as Marie Kondo does, makes me a little nuts. So, I do it as best I can, and then I roll them. I give you permission to do the same. You can call it the KonMari after-two-kids Method.

Earbud Fix:

On to my earbuds! When I workout I’m often on a tight schedule. I lose my mind when I have to spend that time untangling headphones. So I finally decided to do something about it. I actually googled “how to keep your headphones from getting tangled” and voila! The Oracle responded with this amazing tutorial that has added hours to my life. I think there must be a statistic about how many hours the average person spends untangling headphones. For me, it probably amounted to several years. Not anymore! Check out the tutorial here.

Here’s what they look like now:

An Organized Gym Bag:

The final thing I did, was sort out how I wanted to contain my various workout supplies in my gym bag. Here’s what I bring to the gym with me:

• Change of clothes, and shoes
• Makeup
• Curling iron, toiletries
• Snack for me and kids
• Headphones
• Water
• Lock
• Flip Flops
• Toiletries

Because I’m a huge fan of using what you have, I took these reusable produce bags we’d been gifted, and used them to separate these items into groups.

• Bag 1: toiletries, curling iron, and make-up
• Bag 2: change of clothes went into another
• Bag 3: shoes and flip flops.

The rest of the items are tucked neatly into a side pocket.

Packing this way takes a little more time, but it helps me to see what I’m missing, and keep items from getting lost in the mix.

Here’s what my bag looks like:

Now I’m ready to hit the gym! If the roads ever clear up ;).

If you are trapped inside and want a fun snow-day circuit workout, check out last week’s guest post by Personal Trainer Heather Sorenson. I’ve been doing it this week and loving it!

If you enjoyed reading this post, please share it and subscribe to my blog.

Oh, and if you could reply to this post and let me know your favorite workout and why you love it, I’m looking for some to try this month!

Happy Workout,
Lauren