"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 might declutter this iPad into the bin. Nut? Cod? FFS

Well done Zing on the organizing today! I'm fine to just do a category or suc category every other day and still feel like I'm making loads of progress!

I've just bought the book on the strength of the previous thread on here! I'm something of a clutterbug and I'm moving house soon so would like to declutter and for my new house to be a more ordered, less cluttered place - not minimalist, just more functional and not swamped in "stuff".

I'd already come round to some of the ideas by myself - e.g. more "storage" and better organisation isn't the answer, getting rid of things is the answer. And when trying to decide if I can get rid of something, I try to envisage my dream home and whether / where the particular object will fit in my dream home. If I can't see it belonging in my dream home then I should get rid of it. And when buying clothes, I've started asking myself if it makes me happy to wear it, and if not, I take it back, don't keep it because "it'll do" but only if I really like it. I've found that harder to apply to clothes I've already got, though. So I think her methodology (from what I've read about it on here) will be a good fit with my own inclinations.

I'm looking forward to joining you all on this journey! Waves

Catching up on the thread. Zing where do you find the energy?? Amazing!

It's interesting to read the categories as I have over the years decluttered section by section. Did make up, books, magazines, shoes, clothes (9 pairs of boot cut, that scared me!), paperwork.
But I am still a mess! Why? I struggled its photos and gave up. Clothes are also an issue, esp kids stuff. Any ideas? Help!

I bought the kindle book!
Loving the instantaneousness of it! & lack of an extra real book

Only on chapter 1 so far, but she does strike me as a bit bonkers!
But bonkers can be good

I'm going to pretend that we are moving & go through everything as if we are, and only 'move' with stuff we really need.
It does strike me when we go on holiday that we manage absolutely fine with only a few suitcases of stuff- so how come I have a houseful of stuff. Hmmmm maybe not for long!

Was watching a recorded 'Double Your Home for Half the Money" and the featured couple kept going on and on about storage. All I could think was declutter and save yourself £50,000! But seriously, they had a bigger house than us with the same number of kids and their stuff was everywhere. What is this book doing to me?

oh I saw that one, the family in Canterbury? Yes they seriously needed to declutter. And I suspect they did as when they got all their fancy boxes on the wall it was only filled with their pretty things, not all the clutter/crap that was lying around. They didn't mention decluttering at all in the programme though!

Konmari needs her own show. "Double Your Home for Free". Who is willing to be featured

Rum is the problem with clothes that are "waiting " to be worn by the next child or clothes that are using now? For the clothes that they wear now, how about starting with a sub category like socks, get rid of anything that is holed and does not have a partner. Move on to another category and so on. If you have some of their clothes in storage, empty them out and ditch anything that is stained or no longer looking new. Think about whether you really like the item. HTH. :)

Oh and I forgot to say you can always take a picture of the item of clothing if it is dear to your heart so you can remember it.

Home away, thank you. I think I could start with socks. I even have baby socks! My youngest is 8!!

I have been doing books today. I am EXHAUSTED! There was so much dust and I now have piles of books in my hall that need to be bagged up and taken to a charity shop. Not sure my shelves look better. But there are no longer double stacked books on it, which I guess is progress. I'm hoping I don't miss any of the books when I look at them as I bag them up... and part of me is sure I could have got rid of more, as there were a few I kept because someone (parents) have written my name in the book. I wish people didn't do that as it makes it so much harder to let it go!

Great work on the books!

But seriously what about the loft/attic? Are we supposed to go through all that stuff too?
Jeepers that will take a while

Impressed with how much decluttering is going on out there!

I have done tops,.bottoms, dresses and swimwear. Was out today but still managed to declutter - my email inbox! Unsubscribing from seemingly thousands of irrelevant marketing communications has made me feel much lighter!

Its addictive, a bit like shopping itself, but far more satisfying

Hi all, I've been lurking for a while (read the whole other thread and everything). You lovely ladies have really helped me realise that it's not just me and you've motivated me to get the book and actually start doing this 'tidying'.

My whole mindset on stuff has changed, I look at my possessions and have realised I've got things because there hasn't been a reason not to have it even though I don't need them. Now I'd prefer to have the empty space which will be easier to keep clean so I can spend more time with my DD and family.

I've nearly done all my clothes and papers which have resulted in 8 bags and 3 boxes of stuff to be recycled plus the 4 boxes of plastic baby tat/toys my DD has a acquired.

Josephine I did the email decluttering a while back. Each day I unsubscribde from the emails coming in that I wasn't interested in. It took about 2 months and now I just get ones I'm actually interested in.

Clearly my autocorrect has gone a bit nuts

josephine think someone on the last thread said how to unsubscribe to everything at once, anyone remember?

DVDs have all found a new home between DS-dad and a friend, happy days for them, they get to bring joy again instead of living in a box!

CDs next, ooh only about 300 to sort! Daft thing is the only working CD player in the house is in ds's room!

I took a bag of books to oxfam today. Haven't achieved anything else though.

Zing - I lived in Budapest for six years. Hence the name! Moved from budapest to the West Country so added the cider to my name!

My last big declutter was as we moved 3 years ago. Then did another one as we were settling in to this house. And I still have loads of crap!

I think that unsubscribe thing is unroll.me but I don't know what it is and how it works. Definitely agree email decluttering and unsubscribing also feels great!

Ohhelp I've just got to wait for DH to do it for me which could take a while but that is a really good idea about posting on Facebook! I'm so anti social on fb I would never have thought of that! That's a whole other thread though, I have joined Jillys Book Club, if you have seen the thread you will know what I'm on about!!

Night all, I'm having an early night, going to get back on this decluttering business first thing!

MK ninja?

I'm more of a rebel as I'm only doing random throwing away atm.

main focus is sorting kids' clothes though.

Today I've been thinking about the "not enough space for our things" problem.
So far what I understand of the KonMari way of thinking is that it's the other way round. we have enough space, but too much stuff! And there's no reason to create extra space to accommodate one's clutter, much better to free up existing space by removing what doesn't belong anymore.
So I guess if stuff can't go anywhere reasonable it's because it has to go in the bin.

which is why I decided that I will not take "bits & bobs" to charity shop. if I did, I'd be causing someone else's clutter to grow. and round and round we'd go...
no. best to nip the it in the bud!

Funny thing happened earlier.
I put the KonMari book down somewhere safe, as you do, but as other things got placed on top of it I couldn't find it!
fancy being unable to locate a book on decluttering because of clutter? How's that for irony?

OneWay Could you collect together all the books with your name on and open them so you can see all the names together. Then you could:

• pick the best writing/nicest book (you may feel when they're all together that you don't need 3/5/10 books with your name in?)
• cut a triangle off each page so you keep the names
• take a photo of the names

Then let them go. If its any consolation I like having books from charity shops with names/inscriptions in as it gives you a sense of their history. :)

leeloo1 I have decided to just get rid of them if they're books I don't like anyway, even if they do have an inscription in. I feel guilty at getting rid of ones with inscriptions in though - as the person (mostly they're from my parents) would probably think I'm ungrateful at getting rid of something they deliberately thought about and picked out for me. But I have 11 carrier bags of books to take to the charity shop!!!! It's shocking. I do feel a bit edgy about getting rid of them, but I went through them again as I bagged them up and they're either ones I've had since I was little and haven't read again and won't; or books that reflected someone I'm not any more; or gifts I've been given that I really didn't want or need. And although my shelves are still full, they're not double stacked, and my books are separate from my husbands, so I can clearly see it's me who has the most! I can't blame him for the double stacked stuff!

One of my motivations for doing this probably sounds a bit morbid. But I don't want there to be tons of stuff for my kids to sort out when I'm old or dead! Hopefully that won't be for ages, but I'd like to live in my house and not feel weighed down by stuff and thinking about it being hard for someone else. I'm an only child and my parents house is STUFFED with stuff. They never throw anything away, there are papers underneath cushions and piles of never read books and never watched dvds (because they can't understand the dvd player) - and cupboards of stuff no one looks at - and I know that one day it's going to be me sorting through it ALL. And to be honest, I find that overwhelming and don't want to inflict the same thing on my kids!

So onwards and upwards for me. I now have to do cookery books... Thankfully there are not so many of those.