Kondoing away the chaos: Kondo thread 7 for yet more life-changing magic

[LinzerTorte]

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 6
Thread 5
Thread 4
Thread 3
Thread 2
Thread 1

Tips and links thread

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.

I love the pictures! Those drawers look awesome

I was getting demotivated due to being too knackered to kondo so just did a really little category that had been annoying me for ages. We have two magazine holder things that her stuffed with note books, paper, and other random stationary bits. They are really obvious in the livingroom. It just took me 5 mins to make them lovely. Why didn't I do it earlier!

I also realised today that have 2.5 days holiday to use up by the end of march so I am looking forward to having some proper kondo time for the kitchen stuff. Yay!

I have also been really amazed by how things have stayed tidy after i kondo them. The fridge is somewhere I tidied all the time and then it was a state again by the end of the week. It has now stayed immaculate and ordered for 3 weeks! It's some sort of magic I swear.

You can Kondo food?? Oh my. DH will be impressed if I manage that. He constantly gets stressed about our food storage. My idea of putting away the shopping is to shove stuff wherever I find a space. I used to have four or five cupboards with no order at all, drove him potty Now we have some order because we only have four storage spaces: Fridge, freezer, wicker crate thing with spices, sauces, packet mixes etc and a little black three-shelf for everything else (tins, boxes, jars, bread and room temperature veg.)

Just checking in, sounds like you have all been busy.
I started on my classroom today, it going to take a long time to do the big stock cupboard. It's hard because I can't pile everything anywhere so I have to keep shifting it around. Putting similar things in boxes to sort properly when I finish discarding. There is GCSE coursework in there going back a decade!

I wondered around in the loft aimlessly for a while but eventually managed to get rid of a big pile of old paperwork. Would like to do more books but can't actually get at them as too much crap in the way. Soon. Soooonnnn......

Well done JKS - all the getting rid of things feels like you're standing still (or to me at least) because you aren't getting the initial satisfaction of deciding and seeing space free up.

And yay hear love when you can see an immediate improvement. Its those moments that make the book-listing, box shuffling slog worth it.

Tonight I have been cleaning the leather bags I chose to keep but which had got a bit mouldy. I imagined that MK would be pleased with me for caring for these old items carefully. Tomorrow I hope to start making some new little lavender bags from scraps in the stash so I can put summer clothes in the bigger bag. It's not exactly kondoing but it will bring me joy and make me feel like I've properly finished bags and tops/bottoms.

Then I can move onto dresses; jewellery and outerwear.

Lavender bags! Thank you, I have scraps to use up, and lots of dried lavender heads that need lopping off. (Very lazy with the garden, don't usually have time for it) Might have to be next weekend though as I want to kondo DD1s room with her this week.

I have a question - what have people done with spare bedding, if you've got to that point? I have definitely been guilty of the 'bedding for the guest who never comes' and now have a double duvet and three pillows to get rid of, as well as some spare duvet covers, sheets etc. I'm not sure anyone will go for them on freecycle, are there any other options?

In other news, managed to get rid of pretty much all my jewellery yesterday and now just have a small box with things I actually like and will wear, and I gave away my old bike and spare bike helmet to someone on freecycle this morning - he was incredibly grateful which gave me a nice warm feeling, a good way to start the day! I'm glad the bike is going to a good home rather than slowly mouldering away in the garden as it has been for the last couple of years.

Thanks Hazy.
A person who runs a charity shop has been in touch saying they have a man with a van who'll collect them all yey

Wilding - we've got a homeless shelter near here that would take them or animal places will too.

JKS thanks for that, I will check out the homeless shelter option! I live in London so I would be surprised if there wasn't one somewhere nearby.

Wilding another option might be local foodbanks; one near us has a "storehouse" system where you can pass furniture, clothes, bedding to families in need. We London a futon through it when expecting ds2. Though of course it wasn't London then, just plain space making

Sorry both those "London"s should have been conjugations of kondo

Thanks Hazy, will investigate that too!

I read the book a month ago and had a huge clear out- did my clothes, baby clothes, paperwork, books. DH was inspired to generally clear out the kitchen, although not by KM methods, so it wasn't thorough enough. However I then hit a wall of lethargy and haven't done anything since. Although we have substantial less stuff so the house is visibly less cluttered, it is still cluttered. I need to clear out more stuff to make more storage space to put the cluttering items away.

Part of the reason I stalled is that I don't want to chuck everything in landfill, so I had bags around waiting to be taken to the recycling centre/ charity shop/ given to various people. For a couple of weeks we were constantly stepping over bin bags. I think I need to he strict with myself and take them immediately, even if inconvenient, as there is never a good time to haul a bin bag of clothes onto the bus!

I had got to electrical items on the list and this would actually take a long time as we have items to sell/ give/ throw away, but need to check the memory first to remove private info, but need to find the charger first and figure out how to do it.... so not as satisfying as just chucking things in a bin bag.

And it is difficult doing it with a baby as I keep getting interrupted, so generally I pull everything out then get interrupted and the house is messier than when I started!

Anyway just a little rant.

I think we will do the kitchen next and return to electrical s later. I smashed a bowl yesterday because we have too much crockery and it fell out the crowded cupboard, I think having a streamlined kitchen will make us feel inspired to crack on.

Puffins I'm very similar and right now the house feels worse than when I started. But not my clothes which are still perfect
Also I haven't been doing the usual shortterm tidying so that has an effect too.

Someone is coming this evening to collect all the fiction books!
So I just need to ring the man with a van to collect the non fiction/old ones.
Dh has tidied his office enough to have his books in there.
I need to saw a bit off a shelf and put it back up then I can have my books in the living room where I can see them.

Then I'll have done my clothes (Dh still changing sizes but has half done his), sort of done the dc clothes. And books.

Need to finish the music magpie process then I'll have done CDs and DVDs.

What's next? Lotions and potions I think. I don't own any makeup but have too much stuff like shower gel and shampoo etc so the bathroom will take a while I'm sure.

Morning all! Well, I've got a whole day to myself today, having booked a last minute day of leave - whoop! I've had a lie in, now having a leisurely breakfast before making a start on fitting loose covers for our little sofa. Not only will this (hopefully) make the sofa look beautiful, but it'll clear a whole shit load of fabric out of the box room.

puffins, do you get clothes collection bags through the letterbox? I haven't had any myself lately, but if you do, most are happy to take more than the one bag. Also it might be worth phoning charity shops to hear of they can collect. Or perhaps your local supermarket has a charity bin? Might be closer. Lastly, in my area there a few mums who regularily collect for car boot sales and give the profits to their chosen charity, maybe as on a local FB page?

I also hate the idea of my discarded items going to landfill, I work very hard at not outting anythiing useful in the bin. Although I must say I am a bit fed up ebaying things that only sell for 99p, it's alot of effort for so little. I try to tell myself that someone will have made a bargain, but I can't help thinking how much I paid for the item myself ;)

puffins / JKS I'm reading book 2 atm and have just got to a section that says it's completely normal to feel like the chaos is worse than before you started. She recommended focusingon picking out your favourite things to help restore order quickly - but beware of putting everything away until the whole category is done.

The one area where MK falls down a bit IMO is that in her view, you either keep something or throw it away immediately (no putting it away in a box for three months to see whether it gets used) - she doesn't seem to be overly concerned with recycling and the fact that it's not always possible to get things out of the house immediately.

Work is still getting in the way of kondoing but even though I don't think I'm even half-way through, it's amazing what a difference it's made already - not just to the state of the house but to my attitude.

Hermione, that is just beautiful, for me your sofa covers is a symbol of the beauty of Kondoing - that things find their purpose!

Linzer, that is a very good point re MK - when I red the book, I felt a bit uneasy every time she mentions binning something and generally getting rid of things in a sustainable way is the hardest work, I think. But I guess she has to be ruthless in her book to get the point across.

I'm also trying to Kondo with a baby who can make mess faster than I can fold and put back... Feel like I took one step forward and two back all day yesterday. I might just headup with 1 bag for the charity shop and 1 for rubbish and have a quick blitz before I go and get some food.

Good luck to all the kondoers today!

I have decided to do my wardrobe. Again, sort of, as I had a huge clear our a year or so ago. But I am setting myself a challenge to try wearing some things I'm not sure about, rather than just passing them on. If I can't make them work, they will go.

I think I would like drawers instead of a wardrobe now, so will have to consider that.

Hopefully this will inspire me for the harder tasks that await me.

Err... I haven't started on the sofa covers, but I have done some kondoing. It started with me not being able to find the notebook with the sketches of the sofa, so I decided it was time to tackle my bête noire... Stationery.

I knew this wasn't going to be pretty, but I could actually cry at the mountain of shame I've been sitting on. I've now kept more than most people would think reasonable, but here are the notebooks, paper and files I'm getting rid of. Even the box file you can see at the bottom is packed full of notebooks

I know I've done the right thing, but I think it's going to take a while to recover my equilibrium after this.

Oh, Hermione, well done! I am sure you will feel a major relief after this stationery kondo, but perhaps the dust needs to settle first ;)

Thanks for the moral support, missc, and thanks everybody for your good wishes today!

I know a few people have been feeling a bit down, lately, about their lack of progress. I have been like that, in between bursts of activity. I think it's part of my slightly obsessive personality... Probably closely-related to the traits that led me to collect all those fucking notebooks The rational part of me knows that I'm still better off than I was, even if I never get any further than this, but it's a constant battle with the voice that says that standing still is just as bad as drifting backwards. Even MK, for all her nuttiness, recognises that this a long process... 6 months allows for quite a few latent periods, when life gets in the way. Just keep telling yourself you're on the right path.