Clutter, emotions, and folding our socks - Kondo thread 6. All welcome!

[SteptoeAndDaughter]

The Book: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo, Cathy Hirano

Summary of the process link from mipmop

Article of top tips by Marie Kondo

Thread 5
Thread 4
Thread 3
Thread 2
Thread 1

And BeCool's copy of Coughles list of ORDER from Thread 2 for everyone:

"ORDER TO DECLUTTER/LOCATE THE JOY*

Clothes folding by rummy
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."

*As discussed in previous threads, your order for decluttering and finding the joy/spark/recognizing may be different to recommendations.

[Violettatrump]

I used to spend hours tidying up in the evening and would sit down about 9.30 10 despite the place not being straight still

[Violettatrump]

Another question. What's the difference between having a marie kondo life style and a minimalist life style? If there is a difference, would you consider taking the plunge?

[weaselwithin]

@snapechat I also want to tackle teaching resources eventually. they are beautifully organised vertically already in huge labeled plastic boxes in zip bags per topic / subject, but they take up SO much room - not joyful! especially not joyful as they are stuffed in the back under the stairs so impossible to get to, so I end up making something new anyway!

[weaselwithin]

I "organised" them like that last year, but now they must be kondoed as it's not working!

[TipseyTorvey]

Hello, I'd like to join please! Read the book and most of the other threads and have kondo'd my wardrobe which is, for the first time in my life, a joy to open and find things in. I'm being much hindered on the next categories by an 8 week old baby who keeps demanding boob and a hoarder DH who keeps wailing 'but what if we need that at some point' so I'm now only kondoing when he's not looking.

Some great tips on here - am becoming obsessed!

[SteptoeAndDaughter]

Welcome Tipsey! Yes 8 week olds have no respect for housework . As for your DH, ignore him and work on Kondoing your own stuff. In my experience he will eventually start sorting his own stuff without either of you mentioning it!

[MILLYmo0se]

violetta I think the main difference is the thought process invoved, Kondo doesn't mean just having less things for the sake of it, there is a process as to how you decide what to keep/buy . Also the Kondo method involves the folding of items which makes them 'work' much better and makes your life so much easier. As you read through the threads you will see people comment about how they wear more of the less clothes they have, they feel better in the clothes they have, its easier to get yourself ready and out of the house. There is a clear method of catogarising and organising of items in the house too and all of these things help to change peoples approach to shopping/aquiring items . - I don't think just reducing the number of items in your home if you are not naturally a minimilist would work long-term .

[LinzerTorte]

Violetta I declutter my inbox very haphazardly whenever the mood takes me, but really need to put some time aside to deal with it properly.
I would say that the main difference between kondoing and minimalism is that Marie Kondo allows you to keep more than the absolute minimum if it makes you happy, whereas minimimalists try to get by with as little as possible.

anzu Yes, it's the same here - you need to keep invoices for any work you have done on the house etc. for much longer than normal invoices (can't remember exactly how long now, even though I was googling it yesterday ).

anzu I don't translate anything overly technical, although have proofread lots of texts similar to the ones you translate, but completely agree about technical/similar translation being easier than literary - you "just" need to understand the subject matter and write in a clear, concise (etc.) style. Also agree that kondoing probably appeals to a certain type of person and certainly seems to attract translators! (This is the first thread I've been on outside the Freelancing board with more than one other translator.)

Re paperwork, we have to keep anything tax-related for seven years but anything related to pensions, i.e. years when you've paid social security contributions or have had them paid for you, indefinitely. This basically means keeping stuff related to your time at university, time on maternity leave, employment, etc etc etc. DH was recently asked to provide proof that he spent 14 semesters at university; fortunately he'd kept his enrolment slips every semester so was able to do so fairly easily. You just don't accumulate that kind of paperwork at university in the UK!

One of my biggest decluttering headaches is that charity shops aren't anything like as popular here as in Britain. There are clothes banks everywhere but up until a few years ago, our (medium-sized) town didn't have a single charity shop. A Red Cross shop opened a few years ago, but it seems to focus mainly on clothes and to be targeted at people who can't afford much in the way of clothing. There are two or three charity shops in the capital, but it's a 1.5 hour round trip for us so we don't go more than about once a year, and otherwise take stuff to the local church's annual bazaar. Which means we have bags of decluttered stuff cluttering up our cellar for months on end.

TEFL folders finally kondoed - I'm now down to one, but am wondering whether I even need to keep that. Just need to get DH to go through the house folders with me (you can tell Marie Kondo has never bought property in a German-speaking country, anzu!) and that's paperwork finished.

[HermioneGrangerHair]

Iggi - consider me to be, gently but firmly, pulling your fingers out of your ears, regarding the photo albums. If they bring you joy, you keep them - that's the rule - but it's definitely not a reason not to go through them. Avoiding the question makes me think there's something not 100% joyful about them...

Maybe they're not well ordered, or there are too many photos, so they obscure the pictures you really want to see. Maybe there are photos in there that bring you pain for some reason. Maybe you have a nagging feeling that, with photos in this album or that album, or somewhere in a box, or on an old memory card, you might have lost some that truly matter. Maybe it's the albums themselves that are the problem, and you'd be happier with the photo book approach. Those are problems you can only solve when you start to go through them. It doesn't have to be the next thing you do, but if photos are important to you, it's an important part of your sort out.

Let's be clear - if you go through them, nobody's going to swoop in and take them away from you, whether you love them or not. I just think there might be something unresolved there, and you'll be happier about them when you've dealt with it.

[Pointlessfan]

I've been thinking about teaching resources too. I always keep spare photocopies to use the following year but in reality I always forget about them and end up copying more. As a result there is a filing cabinet full of resources dating back 12 years in my classroom including for topics we no longer teach.
It would be unwise to chuck them all as things in education always seem to come back around so I think I will keep one of each resource in a folder and recycle the rest.
I think there are charities that send old text books to schools in Africa so I might look into that too - it could be a whole school project!

[HermioneGrangerHair]

they are stuffed in the back under the stairs so impossible to get to, so I end up making something new anyway!

Gaaaaaah, weasel! I feel your pain! doesn't that illustrate how clutter eats into our lives in a very real way?! It's hiding your important stuff. It's stealing your time.

As well as refining the resources you've got stored, is there any chance you could move them to somewhere more convenient and accessible? Once you've cleared the other categories, could you make a home for them in your study-space? If you're anything like me, where you work is shared with some other household function (spare room, kitchen or whatever), and you don't want your materials to be on view all the time... But they could be tucked away in some newly cleared sideboard or wardrobe. And honestly, if it reduces the time you have to spend on work, I'd say it's a price worth paying.

[TipseyTorvey]

Thanks Steptoe, I am indeed doing my own things first (as prescribed by the lovely Marie) but when I was doing the CDs, with some dating back to 1995 FFS, DH stood over me fretting about me 'throwing away history' and suggesting I download all of the CDs to my ipod (why, when I'm not going to listen to them in CD format would i want to in MP3 format???). Anyway I have thrown away all the ones that didn't bring me joy and for the ones that do, I chucked the cases and decanted the disc into one of those big CD wallets. Now all the CD's I own fit on the shelf in a tiny space - fantastic.

Still have 6 boxes worth of DH's CDs but I will win this battle, oh yes!

[LinzerTorte]

bring I've sold a few things on eBay, but never made much money from it so decided in the end that it wasn't worth the hassle. I've noticed that items like Boden's children's clothes usually sell for quite a good price, though, so it may be worth trying if you have something like that.

Ha, I hadn't seen the German translation of the book - I assume that "Magic Cleaning" is in English and not a translation of Zauberhaftes Putzen or something equally silly. Why do German speakers seem to think that anything English sounds good? I'm always telling DH they should translate the English slogans etc. they use here into German, hear how ridiculous they sound, and realise that's how the English sounds to a native English speaker! (It's also surprisingly short for a German title - I've noticed that they like their film and book titles to be a bit more explanatory than the English equivalents.)

[LinzerTorte]

Aha, I've just googled the German translation and found two different editions of "Magic Cleaning" - one has the explanatory subtitle (in German) "How proper tidying changes your life", the other has "How to keep your flat and soul tidy" (am now pondering whether it's only aimed at flat-dwellers).

[yongnian]

I'm back! I have momentous news! I tackled 7 or 8 years worth of paperwork in one fell swoop yesterday and it is done! I now have one box file for stuff kept for tax purposes (self employed) and 3 drawers for current suff ie 'deal with' 'keep indefinitely' (which will become the next years tax purpose stuff eventually) and 'keep'.
I have been putting off this category.
I am now slightly dazed and a bit overwhelmed that it has been sorted so quickly and the new system for incoming is so simple.
I'm truly actually a bit stunned.
I still have a load of training manual/seminar paper type stuff to do, but this will be far easier to sort and ditch.
Woo hoo!
Glad to see everyone else still going well.
Can I also say I finally also even have room to put the Hoover away in my small house as I have empty storage places these days. Oh yes.
So, I have returned to post-Christmas Kondo with a vengeance and raring to go again.

[LinzerTorte]

Actually, having read the reviews it sounds like the "flat and soul" book is actually a sequel. It gets quite a few poor reviews on Amazon; someone wrote that instead of learning how to get rid of things as in the first book, this one is all about learning to use them in different ways so that you don't actually need to get rid of them (the best example, apparently, was reusing an elegant evening gown as a cleaning overall). But some five-star reviews as well - another reviewer wrote that the second book includes more specific tips than the first one, e.g. how to fold your clothes so that they stand up.

Yes, the liberal and jarring use of fuck is quite common here too. There's an annual event near to where we live called "Ibiza F*cking Island", which makes me think WTF every time I see the posters (I keep expecting the DC to ask what it means). It doesn't even make sense!

[SteptoeAndDaughter]

Why do German speakers seem to think that anything English sounds good? I'm always telling DH they should translate the English slogans etc. they use here into German, hear how ridiculous they sound, and realise that's how the English sounds to a native English speaker!

Linzer the Dutch are the same. There is also a tendency towards plays on words in English which make absolutely no sense unless you speak English with a Dutch accent. For example it took me years to work out why a particular phone company had a sheep as its mascot and was always always going on about sheep ("cheap"), and there is a boarding kennel called Pet & Breakfast which almost works in English but to me sounds slightly dodgy or as if you're going to eat your pet in the morning or something? But 'bed' (same word in Dutch) sounds more like 'bet' so if you're Dutch it is quite clever I admit grudgingly guess.

[SteptoeAndDaughter]

We also do "fuck" here, I saw a promotional poster for a book which was billed as a "FUCKING KNALDEBUT" in enormous letters. Something like, very loosely, a FUCKING CRACKER OF A DEBUT. Was a bit taken aback, it's not quite what you expect when sitting at the bus stop