'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying' - Marie Kondo

[FrancesHB]

Has anyone else read this? I did a search but couldn't find any previous threads.

Marie Kondo is a Japanese expert in tidying and decluttering and her book has been translated into English and is best selling. It's wonderfully eccentric and inspiring and in some ways rather a breath of fresh air compared to other books on the subject (have read 'em all and my house is still messy...).

She asks us to ask if an item brings us joy and if it doesn't we thank it and out it goes. A bit like fly lady 'you can't organise clutter', but in a less annoying and at times quite endearing way.

I wondered if any MNers had used her technique and if it helped them 'get their house in order'.

Good for you, JiltedJohnsJulie! I'm sure your house and handbags are very grateful . Must start doing that myself...

Well my 4 bottles have taken me at least 9 months to get to

Ive promised myself something from Clarins or similar once I have totally decluttered, as my products are usually less than £5 hence buying so much,

I suppose I used to just throw it in the trolley with the shopping, every week.

I'm totally impressed with the 4 bottles. Having said that, as I now have several empty drawers in my chest of drawers, I might take out most of my bathroom stuff, and have a drawer for make up and toiletries in the bedroom instead. This would be a good thing, as I have a minuscule bathroom (the sink overhangs the bath and the mirror is on the back of the door) with no real storage space.

Good idea, about taking the products into the bedroom, my bathroom is tiny also.

If you dry your hair in there etc, it will be easier.

My make-up, skincare, nailcare and haircare and jewellery are in my top drawer in the bedroom. I might try to upload a picture of it, if I can.

Well apart from shampoo and conditioner, obviously. .

Has anyone else noticed this - I'm finding that when I tidy by category as Marie suggests, the categories stay tidied.

It's been several days since I did my clothes & I've done several loads of laundry since then, and my drawers haven't turned into a jumbled mess! Suppose the real test is to see if it lasts till the end of the year...

I completely forgot about greeting the house - but when I come in I always have an assortment of babies/toddlers/children to organise and chivvy along, so there's a flurry of activity and not much time for greetings!

I'm another one with a tiny bathroom, so we have a shallow, shelved wardrobe in the bedroom thats packed with all our toiletries - its really helpful and great for stocking up when things we use often are on offer, but needs keeping on top of so it doesn't get cluttered & stuff doesn't get forgotten about. I can see a few things going from it when I get onto that stage of decluttering!

Having a cup of tea then I might go and see if I can sort out the drawers under the bed... wish me luck! :)

Here is my top drawer with, from right, my straighteners in its heatproof bag, box of stuff to blow dry my hair with and on it's left is skincare, make-up is in the flowery bag, next to it (which you can't see) is my nailcare in a ziplock bag. My jewellery, which I never wear but they give me joy just looking at them and tucked behind the hair dryer box is the Babyliss Big Hair.

To be honest, this is how I've stored this stuff for years, give or take box arrangements. The hair dryer box, I just lift out, use and put away. I know I don't have a lot of skincare (moisturiser, Vaseline jelly & lotion and deo) but that's because I am on board the frugal train. The box I've got my skincare in, I've had for 5 years when a friend gave me some smellies for Christmas. I gave away the smellies but kept the box for this use.

My tops drawers have been in marvelous condition for 10 whole days now - this beats my previous record by about 8 days, so I am optimistic about the future.

Woo hoo! Have now done:

my clothes, shoes, jewellery, toiletries and make-up

both dc's clothes and toys

most of the kitchen (a few cupboards still to do)

Not yet done:

coats, scarves and hats in coat cupboard

living room drawers (loads of electric leads, phone chargers, camera and computer stuff etc)

Cupboard under the stairs . This is full of all manner of bulky stuff - camp beds, board games, photo albums etc.

Onwards and upwards. ..

becool

For those of you that sort out and send away dc's toys, don't your DC mind or do they not notice? My DS may not notice straight away but he will suddenly look for the toy and get upset when he can't find it So except for party bag tat, I have learnt not to throw anything out without his permission. But it only happens before his birthday and Christmas as he knows he needs to make space for new toys. Tbf, Marie doesn't really talk about children does she?

Well done holmes.

I have now finished the book and really want to get started but baby wants constant feeding at the moment so I'm not getting very much time during the day when DS is at school. Yesterday I managed to finish taking photos of the baby clothes to sell - now I need to do something with the photos! But I was a bit more disciplined and added some things to the charity rags bag.

Thanks CoolCadbury! I declutter the dc's rooms while they are not there. Much of the stuff I throw out is either too young for them now/ a bit broken/ plastic tat that they won't miss. I ask their permission about bigger items which they may or may not decide they've grown out of.

In the past I have hidden DS's toys all over the house (better than looking at it I thought) for him to suddenly say I want to play with X and I have to search through all the cupboards, high and low, to find it.

Hi well done everyone, I have been lurking and have just finished the book.

Afraid to say I have cheated and filled a charity bag to the brim with clothes from my wardrobe but without getting all my clothes from everywhere laid out on the floor. I did thank my clothes though I wouldn't say I love all the clothes remaining but I don't have enough that I do love for that to work! Will prob redo my clothes soon.

Best thing about the book is that I can happily return it to the library as the concept is so simple I won't need to reread it!

I am so impressed by this thread!

Re kids toys etc. DD (9) has trouble parting with toys, esp cuddly toys so we recently put 2 bags up in loft. She knows they are there but is feeling the benefit of more space. Hopefully in a year or two she will be happier to part with them.

The absolute rule is that she is not to acquire any more!!

I tend to ask over stuff like the Happyland we parted with but things like McDonalds toys go in the bin.

Today I have taken all of my old jewellery and sold it. It's been in a box since we moved in and it's all of the stuff I don't like. Didn't get much but what I did get will be useful and am liking having an empty space where the box was. {preens]

Told my bf about the book and all of the things I've done. She said "who are you and what have you done with my friend Jilted?"

Well I've kinda taken the plunge and started... afetr watching an episode of "hoarders" and deciding that I would probably be crazy cat lady living on a pile of rubble in 20 years if I didn;t get to grips with it.

I've bought some plastic drawers on offer in Homebase so I can fold my clothes rather than have it stuffed on the shelf or hanging.

It's taken most of the evening to move all the random bits of my clothes in one room (never mind sort them by category!).

However I have started throwing stuff out even as I was collecting - noticed my mindset had changed from "Well I quite like it and there's nothing wrong with it" to "But does it bring me joy? Nope - charity pile"

That has to be a first for me. I think I'm scared of not having enough stuff. And yet the attraction of having a small amount of stuff that I really love is quite liberating.

Well done Kew, keep going.

My reasons are;

I want to spend less time cleaning.
I want to save money on buying 'stuff' that I don't need.

I want to spend that saved time & money on days out with my DD.

( I really really don't want her to ever say " All you did was clean, while I played" )

I have the children problem, one DC who will happily let stuff go and one who wants to hang onto every tatty cardboard box. I just keep at it with her, ask again a few weeks later, or make choices, keep this one or that one, I also put stuff in the loft as a holding point in case we really do want it back. I also just get rid of stuff when she's not around, but mainly only stuff she really has never played with or has so many similar of (pencil cases etc).

I also have parents and ILs who are decluttering and trying to fob stuff off onto me. Oh well.

I got this yesterday and have totally done the lobby, floor cleaned, shoe rack decluttered, shelf by entrance window dusted decluttered and now has a nice photo in a frame there and a plant!

Wow, I really thought books would be easy as we don't have that many since the last move, but apparently we've acquired dozens in the past few years without me noticing!

I cheated. I started choosing books to discard one by one instead of taking them ALL off the shelf like she says

But I couldn't do it, I realised right away it wasn't going to work, so I'll have to wait till kids are in bed to do it properly.