"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

Hello I'm so glad I've found this thread! All I do is 'tidy up time' (sahm) but the place is a bloomin mess.
Dd 18mo & DH who's tidying method is gravity

Is her method any good if you have kids?

I want a tidy house, I am so much happier in a tidy house. But it seems so unmanageable at the moment

Should I buy the kindle book so not adding clutter??

Just lots of us have kids and it's working for us! Obviously you need to make some adjustments to the method and it helps if you can have a few child free hours to crack on with it. Do buy the kindle version. I have been reading it obsessively while feeding DS to sleep - and it's handy to be able to type in search phrases.

Here's the tidying order again:

Clothes
Books
Papers
CDs
DVDs
Skincare products
Make-up
Accessories
Valuables (passports, credit cards, etc.)
Electrical equipment and appliances (digital cameras, electric cords, anything that seems vaguely ‘electric’)
Household equipment (stationery and writing materials, sewing kits, etc.)
Household supplies (expendables like medicine, detergents, tissues, etc.)
Kitchen goods/ food supplies
Other (If you have many items related to a particular interest or hobby, such as ski equipment, then treat these as a single subcategory.)

KonMari stresses that sentimental items should be left till the end. So for example, when you are doing papers, don't include photos of your children, love letters, old school reports etc, leave anything with a sentimental connection for later.

lovely shiny new thread, thanks BeCool

Just popping in to say that I am well on with this and it's a brilliant method of decluttering. Usually I declutter every 6 months, never got down to this level before.

I have ditched about ten large bin bags at least. ( I didn't think I was that cluttered)

For those of you with toys, when mine were tiny I had only a few types of toys. It allowed them to play much better.
You are bringing them joy if they can get to and play with their toys. I stored toys upstairs and just put all of the toys into boxes by category. ( duplo, trains, dolls, cars, farm) They would have one or two categories out in the morning or afternoon. They had to be packed up before we changed them.

They still play like this now, they are really excited to bring something down and set it up/ play with it, Rarther than it just becoming part of the furniture.
Bag up all the random crap and pop it in the loft, you can bin in when no one asks for it.

So I have remaining,
Wires ( dh job)
DVDs
Photos, sentimental.
Garage
Loft
Children's games/ children's desk

Every single area I have done has stayed perfect!

Thanks for reposting the order. I have c&p'd that and put it somewhere handy.

I am nearly at the end of step one - clothes! Well actually probably only half way through as need to get a few suitcases buried in our storage cupboard, and I keep getting distracted with other areas.

I thought I was pretty uncluttered too Spider, but I am loving how much more I am getting rid of. I only had a small folder for paperwork but I managed to dump 75% of that last night so now it's tiny :)

Ooh ooh! Recipe books. I just remembered! There is a website called Eat Your Books where you sign up and you can register all the cookery books you have (basic membership is free and gives you a few books but you have to pay for full membership) and you can then look up recipes online in cookery books you have. And then get rid of the books. I signed up ages ago but haven't actually used it. But I thought it might be useful for someone on here.

coughle I use Evernote for recipes and it works very well. For recipes on paper, like mums quick chocolate cake, I scan and put into Evernote too.

Paprika is lived by my cheffy friends but you have to pay.

Ah, thanks for order - I did clothes and books whilst reading the book but hadn't checked back and was just doing other stuff randomly. Had been putting off papers. My 'office' where all the papers are is terrifying. I have just been piling stuff up and shutting the door. Ok, am going to tackle tht tonight when dcs in bed.

Off to fold a heap of clothes now!

Thanks for the encouragement Zing. I do need to think about what to do after this but at the rate I am going it will be next year.

Going round in circles a bit because I had done some clothes and papers but then read the book so started over on clothes again as I hadn't done underwear, etc. Binned about 20 pairs of tights. I don't know where they all came from cos I hardly ever wear tights

Hoping to get to the recycling centre and charity shop on Saturday. I think when I get the stuff out of the house I will be able to carry on better.

Have noticed that I am throwing stuff out that I come across and think what have I been keeping that for.

Hi all, been stalking for a while and want to join!
Finished the book a few days back. It was very inspiring and much of it rang true for me!
Having grown up in a very cluttered environment i am sure that my constant accumulating of new stuff is making me unhappy.
I have started with clothes and done tops and bottoms. Filled 3 large laundry bags but they are still here as i am scared by how little i have left! Tbh i had only a handful of clothes that i really love.
I am on ML with a very needy 10 mo and trying to do a little each day.
Would love to do the whole declutter but back to work in a couple of months and i have 2 storage containers to clear out...

Should i just get rid of those bags? I feel guilty seeing them there as there are clothes in there i wear regularly, but wear resentfully iyswim, they are not quite what i want.

Concerned i may be treating this exercise as an excuse to go out and buy more... ! Cant believe that 5-6 tops 3-4 bottoms and 3-4 cardis is enough!

Marking place. Going to tackle some books today

josephine - I put all of my discarded clothes in a pile for a few weeks to begin with as I was uncertain too. I ended up rescuing a couple of things I realised were really useful but the rest has now gone. I now live with v few clothes. Do need a few more I think but is surprising how few you really need and makes getting dressed v easy.

(I am sahm atm though, so don't need work clothes which might change things a bit)

Yes, i do need smart things for work. Thing is i would.have shopped for that regardless so at least now i know exactly what i have, what i.actually need and what type of thing i have discarded.
I feel its like a learning experience, understanding what brings us joy and why, so that hopefully new stuff coming in is limited as we are that much more discerning.
Hopefully!

They say we only wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time don't they? Not sure who "they" are but I can really relate to that so I'm sure we can survive on much less stuff.

And yes having a proper sort out will hopefully encourage us to buy what we need and love rather than just more tat to fill up our lives. I noticed during my clear out so far I would pick up so much clothing doing the supermarket shop that I didn't even need or even want, just picked it up cause it was there, that was a really annoying habit! Sticking to online food shopping now which is much quicker and will remove to temptation to browse the clothes. Although it does lend quite well to bulk buying but that's another vice I need to curb!

Marking place to say I'm stuck on paperwork! I was soooooo looking forward to getting my hands on all the boxes of documents in the loft but now I have I'm just reeling with it all. One massive box done but still a few very tricky files to tackle. DH and I are both self employed and we've lived overseas with overseas bank accounts / tax documentation etc. Gah!

I've filled one huge bin bag with shredded paper but now I've knackered to shredder and there's still a big file of shite important documents to look through. Feeling a bit glum about it at the moment - my living room is a total mess. Bits of paper everywhere...

Place marking! Still reading The Leader's book and trying to un-stall progress.

I wasnt able to get much done yesterday, but Im not working today so decided to start on the komono/random rubbish. Started with skin care. Ended up with a whole free shelf in the bathroom! Now tastefully arranged with some of DS3s bathtoys. Think I may already be deciding which ones of these give me joy!

Then went onto makeup and jewellry. I dont own much of either of these so that was a quick job! Thay are all now in one of the drawers I freed up when doing clothes.

I know Im finding that I keep all sorts of things that i dont need or like. I threw out a necklace this morning. Id been keeping it because it was quite expensive (not really valiuable but more than a few pounds!) But it was slightly broken and although Im sure no one ever noticed I was always aware of the broken bit when wearing it. Felt liberating to bin it today!

Marking place on new thread! Hoping to have a productive KonMari afternoon this afternoon :)

shocking you say you have cleared one massive box so you have done great so far on the paperwork! Sounds like a bit of a nightmare with the overseas/tax stuff etc but you will get there. It's ok to have a maybe pile too in the meantime isn't it?

My clothes have been sorted/reduced/folded, but being completely honest if I only kept what I 'loved' I would be left with too little to get me through a few days let alone a week/month/year.

I can't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe, and being a size 18 with large boobs, finding nice clothes let alone clothes that I love is far from an easy task.

More positively, moving forward I will focus on the love for new clothing purchases.

Thanks for the list Coughle - I've just printed it off to put on fridge (temporarily) :)

marking my place. I feel like I am sitting at the back of the bus whilst the good kids are at the front!