KONDO Thread 9

[Iqueen]

Kondo your Home and your Life. Live the JOY!

Just dropping in here to say thanks for the new thread iqueen and also I am soooo looking forward to this weekend when I have been promised a child free day by DH and I shall be kondoing my wardrobe woohoo!

Hello, marking place on new thread

I am going to re-start on Thursday. I re-read some of the book today but won't be home for the next couple of days. Will try to keep at it this time. Should be easier with no school to deal with. Hope to have a lot less crap around come September!

I too fell off the Kondo waggon. I'd like to get back on it, but I'm not sure it really solves my problems! I decluttered quite happily and don't have a problem chucking things out at all. I don't really think I have too much stuff, I'm just lazy and ill-disciplined bad at sticking to routines and tidying up after myself.

Interestingly there is a small kondo backlash! I found a couple articles yesterday from Kondo cynics....

They keep saying a couple in a small apartment, fine.

But if you have kids with toys, a big family etc. You can't follow her method, there's just too much stuff.

i agree about toys too. So many of de's toys I've kept against decluttering instincts - have been great for my dd. Also some of his clothes, she has loved.

I have four kids and an extremely messy DH and I still Kondo. I Kondo'd DS2's books by asking whether he loved them or not and it worked really well. I also Kondo'd the matchbox cars and now they have a box of toys they can actually play with rather than an overflowing box where they can only play with the cars on top and removing any car dislodges an avalanche of cars.

sayerville and nigelslaterfan

Have no fear!

Old, manky socks, pants and underwear, look just as joyful when folded and filed! Some of us can't afford to replace everything at once!

Clearing out our parents' home is probably the most daunting, emotional duty we will ever face, and I can see that kondoing our own sentimental stuff is not something we would want to tackle immediately afterwards.

Oddly, dealing with our parents' personal belongings, respectfully, can help us to be gentle with our own sentimental stuff, later.

Following MK's method, gradually builds our confidence to deal with our more difficult possessions. Decisions about what to keep, become easier, as we learn to recognise what exactly makes us feel joyful.

I have a (possibly) stupid question. I was planning to Kondo my clothes this week, but my wardrobe has shelves, not drawers. I considered folding and then stacking everything upright, but then this wouldn't utilise the full depth of the wardrobe. Has anyone else encountered a similar issue?

Does anyone have any tips for storing hair dryer/straighteners/big hair? They are all in a drawer together, but the wires get tangled and DH gets cross if wires are wrapped around items as he says it twists the cable and damages it. Any ideas??

Can you find any shelf size boxes? So you can do the same thing but slide the box out like a drawer? Will the house provide? I have done similar with dd1's closet as otherwise it was like Monica's cupboard of doom (Friends) when you opened the door...

Thanks mad, that's a good idea! I don't think I have any boxes of the right size, but I'll have a search.

Neverhadhavehas, some ideas for your hair straighteners etc... 1. Keep them in shoe boxes or bespoke boxes/compartments so their wires are separated. 2. Keep them in amongst other clothes or items so that there is only one per drawer. 3. Tell your DH you believe it is worth the risk of damaging the wires for the daily benefit of lower stress of not having tangled wires and just wrap the wires around the handle anyway! (I've stored mine with the wires wrapped around them for about ten years and they're still going strong if that helps)

I'd go for wrapped around wires too. If you do it gently it should be fine.

Boxes for shelves definitely. Shoe boxes are a good size I've found.

Passed on a colour matching toy today and planted some plants I bought yesterday. Not strictly kondoing but lots of weeding - im not a natural gardener but I'm trying.

Have got rid of SO much stuff so far. Loads of bags to a charity shop and loads chucked in the bin and taken to the dump. Yet my house is still overflowing with stuff. And we're not even hoarder types - we're pretty good at having a little declutter 2 or 3 times a year.

Great to catch up with the latest incarnation of the thread. Glad to hear all the inspiring kondoing.

Haven't done much kondoing myself over the last few months - too busy with a new job, but my clothes have stayed kondoed as has the bathroom and both give me a large amount of satisfaction every day.

Have had a couple of days off this weekend so we got on with our books and the miscellaneous crap in the study/guestroom. Books are now done and we've made a good start on the komono so there might be a chance of being able to fit our guests in there when they arrive in a few weeks.

Also sorted my jewellery into shallow drawers in my new wardrobe (IKEA pax if anyone's interested). Looks great to see it all in one place (never happened before ) and I'm looking forward to wearing a bit more than the two different bracelets I've had in rotation for the last 6 months

DH is still a problem. He sees the benefit but he's so reluctant to let anything go. He spent hours doing his magazines as he went through every single one to check the contents in case he wanted to keep any. Never mind that he's not looked at any of them in almost a decade Oh well, he's getting on with it I suppose. Still don't dare re-raise the issue of the stamp albums

Big stack of baby stuff in the corner for selling too.

Oh I should add that we have 2 DC and I definitely see that the Kondo method works. The joy question and only keeping stuff you want, rather than throwing what you don't want, is absolutely the way too go and totally compatible with children. I actually think it's an easy concept for them to grasp, and having only what they truly love in their rooms will help them keep their belongings in better shape and tidy.

But then I'm an eternal optimist!

Right, wrapped wires it is then! When everything else is so neatly laid out after 7 months of hard chucking, folding and rolling, the wires were like big hairy arsed flies in my Kondo ointment.

Plan for today: get all kids' stuff out of my room. All clothes not in bedrooms into bedrooms, laundry, or charity bag.

Re-Kondo dd's clothes as she's grown again, putting outgrown ones and some toys into a bag for baby J (friend's baby now 1 year old). Re-Kondo toys in the living room with a higher standard of joy - and balancing that against my annoyance!

Soon I will need to re-do the filing cabinet as the new smaller one is full so papers getting everywhere again. Thing is, with my and two kids' medical history and DLA assessments and school support etc, that's a lot of paper. And being a landlord. And doing loads of building work. My charity stuff is in a separate drawer (needs sorting) but would be nice to get rid of the box files for car stuff. So there's always going to be a lot for two lots of tax returns, pensions etc.

And need to sort out day camp for ds, take dd swimming, go to doctor and supermarket - and then collect ds at 3.15...

So! After weeks of achieving very little Kondo-wise and a really not very productive day, I have gained a very small success!

Last night I kondoed everything to do with washing clothes! So washing powder tabs and conditioner of course, but also stain removers, eco-ball things that don't work I only keep for washing my gore-tex coat where ordinary powder and liquid stop it being waterproof. Also those colour catcher things for mixed washes, handwashing liquids and special wool liquid for washer etc etc.

I have not got rid of anything much, but, (drum roll) they are all stored in one place now, right next to the washing machine!

I have quarter of a box or Lux (soap) flakes that I don't need as I never hardly ever hand-wash anything any more and I also have a bottle of stergene hand wash anyway! It seems wasteful though to throw it away. Any ideas?

I use soap flakes in my machine to wash a number of waterproof things e.g Ron Hill Tracksters with waterproof finish and various jackets.

Really? - it specifically says don't use them in a machine on the packet. I'm guessing that it is because it could lather too much? So maybe I could try with a very small amount and see what happens? I love experiments! [eyessparkle] but do come and rescue me when I fill the whole block of flats with bubbles!!

The ones I have at the moment are "Granny's soap flakes". I will have a look at the packet tonight. I do use them for handwashing proofed items I don't want to put in the machine as it appears to be impossible to tell my machine not to do a spin cycle, but I have definitely used them in the machine with no dire consequences.

Just looked at them on Amazon
www.amazon.co.uk/Grannys-Original-Soap-Flakes/dp/B00BUF3DUS

Look at the questions at the bottom of the page regarding machines.

I did my laundry stuff the other day and also rejected my Eco balls.

Have put them with some other bits in a mesh bag and intend to freecycle them but haven't done it yet.

Have found the charger cable for an electric trike thing we were given (and I never liked as its big and noisy) which means I can pass that on too. One big item less in the toy pile!

Brilliant PurpleFrog. Thank you! Just off to try!

I'm keeping my ecoballs LJS but only really use them for waterproof items that don't like standard detergent. ( My hobby is archaeology so I have lots of muddy waterproofs!)