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.

Ah Pointless I see what your mean now. I thought you meant just to hold it while you kondoed other stuff.
A box covered in lovely wrapping paper?
I'm saving small boxes for the kitchen drawer of doom to cover and then hold stuff in place like the blog linked to a while back. My birthday choc boxes are v useful

Have listed old gym ball and 2 big bundles of kids clothes on freecycle (boys & girls). Mil's refuge may be closing down so they won't take my donations anymore.

But have one reply for the boys clothes already so am hopeful they'll go quickly.

By the way we have made about £250.00 since November selling items. Still a few more things to sell though before we hit the bottom of the pile

That could work! I also have a lovely notice board that was a birthday gift but I've been waiting to put it up until we have decorated the area where I want to put it l. Since I can't see that happening any time soon I might just put it up and start using it.

Pointless - have you looked at the Martha Stewart home office stuff that Staples sell? She does a very wide desk tidy/letter tray type thing that would fit on a radiator shelf. She also does some quite nice pocket/folder things that you can hang on the wall with little command hooks and look quite neat. It might give you ideas of what else is out there!

www.staples.co.uk/martha-stewart-stack-fit-desk-accessories/cbc/309.html

Any letters/invites/etc with dates on I out in date order and clip with a bulldog clip and hang from one of the key hooks on a thingie I have up in the kitchen. The hooks are great - the box part on top not so much but I think that's because it's too high for me and I can't see into it easily.

Hi all. Thought I would entertain you with my kondo fail.

We like specific butchers, quite a distance, so tend to bulk buy and freeze periodically. We did this recently. I separated the meat into suitable portioned bags for meals, and then had to put it in a freezer drawer. We bought slightly more than usual, so I thought - how to make best use of space? Aha! Vertical storage. So I packed the meat in its bags, vertically. Today I tried to get one out. But the meat bags have moulded round each other and then frozen. I couldn't get them to move! A vertical, interlocking, kondo jigsaw of frozen meat . It took me a full 3 mins to wriggle and prize one free, and break the deadlock!!! yikes, back to horizontal freezing for me!!!

Have bought some little shelves today and put them in bottom of ds's wardrobe. So have order to the trousers/socks etc that used to live in tubs. Hopefully.

Starface, I'm sorry for your stress but you have made me laugh! I made a similar mistake when freezing soup in a drawer with wire baskets. I think I had to hammer it out from the underside...

The trick for both is to initially freeze horizontally on a baking tray/ice cream tub lid and then vertically store

Thanks married.

Its my fault! My kondo idealising remains intact!

Thanks sunniest I actually looked at those last summer before I discovered Kondo. They were quite attractive colours too. Think I'll go in for another look.

Laughing at frozen food stuck in the freezer

Am tackling spare room - not part of order but ds1 has a friend over for a sleepover later and they'll share that room instead of disturbing ds2.

Phew. Dusty and far too much bedding and towels. I've put a pile downstairs for Dh to approve getting rid of. But still random piles of stuff. Extra pillows I bought when pg - a v one and a long one. The kids like playing with them but I'm tempted to get rid.

Need a loft trip later for papers for Dh to go through and some too small clothes ready to go up there.

milly I feel your pain with the vouchers. When I first started Kondoing I found lots of vouchers. I stored them all together and then tried to buy the first Kondo book with one of them. Two days later, I received an email to say the voucher hadn't worked so I ended up buying the book from somewhere else.

Then once I'd Kondoed clothes, I thought I'd use some of the other vouchers for items that I'd realised I needed eg a belt; a winter coat. I spent ages looking online and still haven't managed to spend the blooming vouchers!

The DBs have decided to Kondo!

Any tips on how I can best communicate the fundamental Kondoing principles to them before we start? (T-11 minutes!!) We'll begin with tops, in true Kondo fashion. It's difficult because they're twins, and a lot of their clothes are shared, so I think a starting point is to divide everything up into DTB1 and DTB2 and joint, and then go from there...

Ooh, exciting NewGirl! Hope it's going well. I'm just about to start with DD1(5). I've done her clothes already, but we'll do toys, books and craft stuff together. I've found some before and after photos by googling, of children's bedrooms that have been tidied and now have loads of space to play. Hoping it'll help with us visualising.

Thanks, Mango . We've just done tops (gone from three overflowing drawers between them to a neatly folded drawer each, with plenty of space for things which are still in the wash) and pyjamas (which I fear won't stay tidy for long because they still have too many (at least 6 pairs each!) and their pyjama drawer has no back at the moment, so when you pull the drawer out things fall out of the back.

MK may say clothes aren't sentimental, but they were to these usually-fairly-unsentimental-just-teenagers! One of them spent two full minutes hugging and thanking a favourite too-small top of his before getting rid of it. They're very proud to have ownership of their neatly folded drawers - I showed them how to do the first few things, but they've done most of the folding themselves.

DM is not on board yet : "All you've done is organise the tops - it's not tidy". I need to find some way of explaining to her that you can't organise clutter...

"No DM, all I've done is the tops SO FAR, it's not all tidy YET. All journey's start with a single step." Then smile gently, and float away, all zen-like.

Well DD1s room is the tidiest it's been all year. We've only properly kondo'd part of it so far, dressing up stuff and non-special soft toys, but all the things on the floor have put away. We've filled about half a bin bag with rubbish, and a big box with things to be donated. She's currently screaming in excitement at DH, who's home early, that he HAS to see her ROOM! RIGHT NOW!!

Haha Mango I think it's the zen-like-ness (is that a word? It is now) that is freaking her out. She was sceptical when I told the DBs to each find their favourite top so they could feel what something bringing them joy was like, but she finally walked off in disgust when I encouraged them to thank their loved-but-too-small tops

We have made a very good start on the craft stuff.

Ha. I have been working hard. House in such a kondo whirlwind I am preparing from today for family coming Saturday. One day this will only take 10 mins...

I think it was FrancesHB who started the first thread. And started a revolution

Big bag of girls clothes gone on freecycle today.
Boys clothes person didn't turn up :(

Also have lots of pillowcases, blankets, towels Dh has agreed to move on.
Plus odd bits of komono.

Itching to do more all the time. But did spend some time just tidying toys the 'old fashioned' way just to get t done rather than get distracted by kondoing.

Ds2 laid down on his newly bigger floor this evening and sighed in pleasure and said "this room is different."
I asked if that was ok/a good thing.

He said yes and stretched out on the rug

Ha! Love it DS wants me to show him how to do it but I'm a bit nervous. I think I'll try and finish mine before I let DH and DS in on the secrets.

My underwear drawer looks beeeeeeyotiful and I now know exactly how many socks and pants I own. After throwing away over half (holey, uncomfortable, shrunken) I have 20 pairs of socks (and feel a bit anxious that this isn't enough which is mad but we'll see.) and 17 everyday pants, all of which need replacing because they are all too small As soon as I hit my 20s my hips ballooned, but I kept on buying the old size of pants stupidly and they always give me invisible pants when I take them off I am sad though because the pants which give me the most joy they don't make any more :( M&S used to do briefs/bikinis with the same kind of edging as their tanga style pants, and they were my favourite. But no now they all have the lacy edge which is standard everywhere. Not the same.

Bertie I only have 12 pairs of socks (apart from fluffy ones for when my toes are freezing off) and that's more than enough - there are always at least 5/6 pairs in the drawer at any one time. Are you really not going to wash for nearly three weeks (or wear multiple pairs of socks every day)?

JKS that is great, lucky DS2!

Had a 'getting rid' day today - three bags of baby clothes and three envelopes of jewellry out.

Funny how the touching things rule really helps - there were a few necklaces which I had rationalised keeping in my head when I saw them, but as I picked them up I just realised I don't love them and have others which work better for the same occasions. So out they went. Still too much there, I think, but I am hoping that when I get all of it back out into some new storage that I plan to make I will be able to tell if any of it isn't joyful because it won't fit in.

newgirl clothes are definitely sentimental. Or at least, tied up with emotions - they are such a fundamental part both of how we want to be seen and how we really are. Not sure that makes sense.