Kondo, flylady, unfuck or something else?

[Violetta999]

Should finish decluttering/kondo-ing by the end of January. Should I move onto unfuck your habit, fly lady or does anyone have any other suggestions? I'd be interested in knowing your routines. Both DH and I were awful hoarders and keeping the house tidy was a nightmare. Now things are so much better and easier but what's the next step to being a tidy and organised person now all our crap is gone?

No useful answer, sorry, but a great question.

So glad kondoing has worked for you. I was reading up on it last night and it seems we did this intuitively last year too when moving house.

I've just joined the fly lady thread, though i will spend as little time on the official website as i can. The MN version will suit me well i think. Following it religiously will mean the house is always clean.

What's unfuck your habit?

Ive tried Flylady and read a third of the Kondo book. Doing my own thing with a bit of influences from various sources.

Unfuck Your Habitat is great, I haven't done it yet though and my house is still too full of shit for me to move. Actually I hadn't thought to make NY resolutions or anything but I've just decided I will spend today seeing just how much difference it's possible to make in a day.

Just the thread I was looking for today! For a complete beginner, which would you recommend? Not sure about Flylady - shining my sink every day is not something I can see myself doing?! What is kondo-ing?? Cluttered house (toys, artwork etc) and really want to make our living space better in 2015. (One DC at school and one DC due to start school in September). Any advice or pointers to helpful threads appreciated!

I made a list of the things that made my house impossible to tidy.

top of the list was unopened post mixing with opened post.

sounds silly but the result was that piles of magazines and fliers and bills and books accumilated with each pile containing lots of easily tidied bits plus one "thing to do" which prevented the pile ever being cleared.

I'm reading Kondo at the moment but so far it is not really grabbing me. It is all a bit off the wall.

Fly lady is too sink obsessive, I don't care that much about my sink! I might end up doing unfuck my habitat although does that really get to the root of the problem....

My house is not really bad, I'm not a hoarder but I am still chronically untidy.

I finished kondoing this week with a mass three day push up to New Year's. We were halfway there having moved mid-Summer but much more streamlined now. Chores up next. Am customising a ten minute tidy app on IPad but if there are better apps, would be very interested.

Oh and Monica didn't do the woo here with Kondo, just stuck to principles of focusing on what to keep vs what to get rid of, sorting by category, leaving sentimental shit til last and following the general order. Also the folding. Folding socks and towels into sushi rolls has been a revelation.

Monica that's exactly how I feel so I am picking up a couple of techniques from here and there and doing my own thing. Today my task has been getting my control journal sorted because that's one aspect I did kind of like. Its probably not what Flylady has in mind, but its more like lists of what needs doing.

My house will be fab in 2016 because I will make it so in 2015.

The principle of kondo is that you only keep things that you like or have a purpose. You fold things so that you can fit more in drawers and everything has a place. If everything has a place the house is much easier to clean and it is much quicker to run the hoover round and dust a tidy house. You don't need to clean the sink everyday but you probably will find that you will do things as you see them.

I actually love Flylady and have been following her system off and on since 2002. It works if you actually do what she tells you to each day.

Two and a half hours ago I started a timer app on my computer and tried to just keep going for as long as I could. I paused the timer once for food and once to reply to a text from a friend. I've clocked up 2 hours of putting washing away, sorting through the horrific bathroom cupboard, hand washing things and generally moving things from where they're messy to where they're supposed to be.

I'm now going to set myself a target of another half hour to finish the jobs I've started just to make sure I don't leave things in their worse-before-they-get-better state, e.g. put everything I sorted back inside the bathroom cupboard and clean all the shoes I put in the Shoes That Need Cleaning pile.

I need to start thinking of a reward for myself for this evening!

Thank you for explaining homeaway Sounds straightforward. Although curious whether Kondo lady has whirlwind DCs and a DH who finds it hard to chuck things out living with her!

Just looked up Alejandra Costello and will play the videos once my DC's asleep. Looks interesting though.

I must look up tidy app too. What's it called?

We struggled hugely against the tide of mess. Always felt overwhelmed with it and unable to get on top of it. Kondoing has been a revelation though and tidying is so much easier after such a mass declutter of crap. I have 4 DC's and there was a lot of stuff!

Homeaway I recon the kids and I just need to learn to put things away after using them tidying wise.

My friend has a cleaning day but that fills me with dread. Much prefer the idea of doing it as you see it.

As far as I could make out. Kondo is a single woman so just her and she developed her tidying habits from being a child.

Goth The best bit about Flylady for me was the threads on here. I particularly enjoyed the roundup that the OP of that thread would do (assuming they still do that), you just dont get that on other similar types of threads (of course other threads are just as lovely, but I just felt that the Flylady ones had that extra bit which I found to be extra friendly) I just dont want to concentrate on my sink which never looks shiny even when I do wash up after DCs are in bed at night and wipe it down. If I had a dishwasher I might be tempted, but I do like a lot of the things and advice that Flylady recommends.

The best advice I had from a friend was if you have something in your hand put it where it belongs when you have finished with it rather than just down on the side. There have been six of us in the house this week and although it has got messy it was quick to put things away and have some semblance of order. If can manage a toy rotation then there are less toys to put away at the end if the day. Store similar things together so it is easy to know where to find things and put things away. Kondo teaches you to value the time and effort that went into choosing the vase you hate that your friend or relative bought you, as the important thing is that they thought if you, but if it does not bring you joy then you pass the object on to somebody who will enjoy it. How many of us keep things that we don't really like out of guilt? Now you can pass the item on without the guilt. I don't know if I explained it very well.

The Kondo book took a little getting into, and yeah, it's a bit off the wall, but about 1/3 in, it actually gets down to the point. It's about decluttering first and then finding a place for everything afterwards. And like homeaway says, it's about decluttering without guilt as well for stuff like presents. The threads are really helpful as well. I found it really helpful but I want to keep my flat like this, I just have to fight the urge to be lazy and leave it as it at night.

Violetta - I feel your pain. I too have 4 children. I once spent about 4 days following the rule of "never leave a room empty handed". So everytime I went to leave a room I took something from that room that didn't belong in the room and put it away where it did belong.

I was utterly exhausted. Going to the loo could take 15 minutes , 13 of which were spent putting things away!!

My house is always full of clutter and also lacks space so doesn't take much to make it messy!

I'd do an UFYH thread if someone were kind enough to start it, yeah. Clocked up 4 hours of proper cleaning yesterday in the end! For various reasons I have a couple of months at most to completely sort out a massive, horrific mess of a one bed flat, so could do with some encouragement.