"The Life Changing Magic of Tidying" continues to magically change lives (PT 2)

[BeCool]

Come fold your loved clothes, and feel the spark of joy in every object you own (or thereabouts).

Continuing our journey on from the Original thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/good_housekeeping/2178442-The-Life-Changing-Magic-of-Tidying-Marie-Kondo?msgid=50091328#50091328

I understand, honestly it really does affect you. The thing is I have kept all this stuff but still never felt quite comfortable/satisfied/confident/content, I don't even know what the word I am looking for is.

Urgh, I am still drowning in paperwork here. I have been through everything and thrown heaps but there's so much more. I only threw the obvious crap and I think I need to go through everything again and be really ruthless this time.

I bought the book (on Kindle, no added clutter ) on Monday evening. So far this week I have

• cleared the kitchen of clutter (dumped, charity shopped or PUT AWAY)
• cleared the bathroom of "stuff" (mostly dumped) and have discovered that I do actually have plenty of storage in the drawer unit and wall cabinet, who knew??
• sorted all of the towels/duvet covers/curtains ... 4 huge bags to the charity shop this afternoon! (I challenged dh to see where I had got rid of so much - he only saw the lovely neat bed drawers and the beautifully folded towels on the shelf)
• I now have a bedside cabinet that has a lamp, the clock and my kindle on it and NOTHING ELSE!!

I am scared to tackle clothes just yet cos I am at the heaviest I have been ever and fear that I might be left with 2 pairs of pants and a pair of joggers as NO clothes spark joy at the moment

I've slowed down from being I'll, but have given two more bags to charity (and found ds a wonderful dressing gown which I was going to have to buy new otherwise!), listed an item on Gumtree (much better site than EBay - free to sell for starters), tidied the house before the cleaner came, and most importantly chucked a binful of komono, and now have a set place for all ds's dressing up things (i thought he didn't have much, but actually there's a fair bit), and most importantly, a drawer downstairs for batteries and chargers, so I don't have to search round MrNC's room every time a remote dies. We used to have some all over and never knew if they were good or not, and the tester was in the depths of MrNC's room.
Art stuff and stationery is now in a few set places and Ds can do stuff by himself - dd still spreads it all everywhere though.

Still working through shoes as they may look like they give joy but if I can't walk far without pain then they have to go.

Well done everyone!

Nomore I think mk suggests starting with clothes as the easiest category. She says this as a young woman without dc who probably isn't hanging onto clothes from when she was thinner or had a different lifestyle. If you find clothes a difficult category then it definitely makes sense to leave it till later on.

I do wonder how Konmarie will change her views once children come along. I'm sure we'll get an updated version of her practice.

I hope so Cool.

It's not just having no kids, but there is a major cultural difference in how we live that I see in the book. many of her clients live in "a room" and all their possessions are in that room. Or they share a small house with their parents.

re kids Joshua Becker (who writes an inspiring blog on minimalism and has several DC) has written a kindle book called ClutterFree with Kids. There are no great revelations in it - no magic folding for example but he is very sensible, and it may be a useful read for those struggling with children's stuff:
www.amazon.co.uk/Clutterfree-Kids-thinking-Discover-habits/dp/0991438604/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414144316&sr=1-1&keywords=clutterfree+with+kids

MsBug , it certainly makes sense to me

My next challenge is books but this might not be as hard as I think it will be .... I often see loads of books that I have in the charity shops ... my thinking is that if I give all my excess books away, then decide in the future I want to read them again, it'll be easy to get one for £1 then give it back to the charity shop when I have read it.

Bloody wicker baskets! So many people have mentioned dreading emptying them. I am trying to use mine for very specific things, e.g. Keeping the tea towels together, a toy storage box for one rotation of toys under the bed, necessary and labelled cables etc. Those beautiful wicker baskets just attract komono!!

My house is looking really free of stuff now. She's right about my husband's stuff not bothering me any more. He really wasn't the problem in our house in the end. I think once I've done paperwork again and given away my towels, I'm done! What I'm finding is because it's so clutter free now, the bits of clutter that are left really stick out a lot, e.g. The potty DS is no longer using as he has moved to a trainer seat, the high chair now we have a booster seat, the picture that needs reframing. It all looks out of place and obvious that I need to sort it whereas before it was just one more thing in the chaos.

Next challenge for me will be christmas and avoiding another onslaught of stuff!

Oh yes, we have a huge wicker basket in the living room, which has become a magnet for all the crap which I don't know where else to put!

I've just spent a happy hour konmaring playdough and kids crafts

We have a big box of playdough things, it gets used every day but it just seemed so cluttered that I didn't think they could possibly be using it all. So I culled about half of the cookie cutters, plastic trees, animals etc.

The craft situation was not too dire, as most of the stuff was already in labeled drawers, but I went through the house gathering up bits that belonged in the drawers and labeled the ones that weren't.

Still haven't done paperwork. I keep doing bits and pieces of komono, which is great fun, but all the while that huge dragon is waiting.

I want to get started on this system but how do you manage to find the time? I have three DCs and another on the way so I need to get organised before the baby arrives but I currently spend all my time firefighting in a heap of discarded clothes and scattered toys. While I like the idea of piling up all my books to decide which ones to keep, I know I would get half way through then get interrupted resulting in a huge mess of 500 books left in the middle of the floor for weeks. And three boxes for paperwork? I currently have a filing cabinet! I'm wondering if things have already got so bad that the system wouldn't work for me.

Also what do you do about things in storage? I have boxes of books in the garage but it would be a real challenge to find them all before starting to cull the ones that are in the house on nice bookshelves and in alphabetical order.

StuntNun I'm not sure about how you find the time with little kids, but I also think that 3 files is a bit like wishful thinking. BUT I have gone through all my files this week (nearly all actually) and have now got 8 empty box files and 3 plastic thinner ones. I think I have files now in about 9 box files, which means I've almost halved what we did have. I have thrown away so much! It's amazing what I'd kept that I completely didn't need to. But I don't think 3 files is realistic for our family. Maybe 3 if you're living on your own with no kids, but not if you're a family or are self employed or have people with special needs in your family, where you need to keep paper work. Bet you can still get rid of a lot though!

Also, I didn't get all my books onto the floor like she said. I did a shelf at a time. I have other people in my family who want to use the living room!

stuntnun if I was you I would break down each category further, so one day do all your tops, next day trousers etc and just plod at it. I've only 2 DCs but a full time job and evening commitments so I understand how overwhelming it can be making a pile of stuff then being invaded and to be honest it does make more of a mess, however the space I've created plodding away at it is well worth it. Good luck

just

I'm sorry you have no childhood memorabilia to pass on to your DD

but I'd like to offer this:
If you can't change the circumstances, change your point of view

try and see it this way: your DD never have to grieve over loosing them or braking them. You take that pain and guilt away from her and while it's not nice for you now, you save her tears in the future.
we all wish we could do that, no matter how small or big the problem is.

I don't know if twisting this until it fits helps or not, but try. I hope you find a way to feel peaceful about it.

my dad died 4 years ago and all I have after him is his/my guitar I learned to play on.
I'm glad I have at least that, because loads of other stuff will never be accessible to me. things like family photos (especially when he was a baby or a little boy) my grandma's Bible, books, little cuckoo clock I'd love to have etc

it hurts like hell, but I just try to be grateful for being able to have this one thing he loved a lot.
I know you can't even give one thing you had as a child but giving her things,shared activities, lovely memories will make up for it, I promise!

(big hug)

Aww thanks everyone for your kind words, that's really nice. And helpful too. It kind of rationalises that it was a pretty horrible thing to do.

But thinking more on it, I have some clothes that she can have- some Versace h&m dresses I bought a few years ago. I don't think I will fit them again, but I can pass them on to her, so that's nice.

And I've nearly finished the living room re-org with all her toys. 3 week rotation on books & toys has begun. I put all the fisher price bits into an ikea drawer tidy earlier- then she got in it too! Very cute I think she's happier seeing her toys rather than a big mess.

And I've done the same in the bathroom- no more swamp creatures populating the bath half are in a plastic tub by the bath & the other half in the corner (tiny bathroom so every cm counts).

And if anyone asks what to get her for Xmas I'm going to say hobby craft vouchers as then we can make stuff. Which I've discovered I like doing! We made our first Xmas tree dec earlier! Brilliant! Messy but I don't care. I have zero memories of my mum playing with me or making anything fun. So that's something I can give my daughter

Wow this seems to be pretty deep stuff, I feel happier and a better mother already

Konmari-ing my knicker drawer tonight

letting go of the past
For a crappy past

But for a lovely decluttered happy future.

just

exactly. to happy future!