KONDO Thread 9

[Iqueen]

Kondo your Home and your Life. Live the JOY!

Thanks so much for the ziffit recommendation - I've just made £95 for a single box of books and DVDs. There was only one that they wouldn't accept when they checked and that was only valued at a couple of quid anyway. Onwards and upwards with the Marie Kondo sorting....thanks for the inspiration ladies

not interesting article thanks

small victory today, again while the kettle was boiling: tea & coffee tray done. I expect MK would want me to keep tea, coffee, cafetiere etc in the cupboard but they are used so many times in a day I keep them on a tray on the counter but it had become very over-crowded with too many types of tea etc and had overflowed off the tray, all nicely contained now

I Kondo'd loads of books/paperwork off the top of my chest of drawers yesterday. My bedroom is looking so much clearer, it's lovely!

Also, I'm weirdly brimming with energy. Is this a crazy side effect of de cluttering?

Read the book last week but have waited whilst DH read it. We started today and are already 2/3 through clothes!
This feels amazing. I hope we can keep up the momentum as we would really like to move house. It would be a lot easier if we didn't have to take all our crap with us....

Hello everyone can I join you please?

I've been gradually MKing my home. Yesterday I did DP pants drawer, he opened the drawer and loved it. :)

The server was down at work, so we took the opportunity to sort out and shred / bin / recycle loads of stuff in the office. I am gradually MKing my whole world :)

Welcome to Chottie! I need to Kondo paperwork, both personal and work and I'm self-employed so both lots are lying around at home.

Any suggestions of how to make baby steps into paperwork? It feels overwhelming and I dontboften have a goodvlong period of time so would like to breakbit up into little bits. There's also no waybi am going to be as ruthless as KM suggests as I've had too many instances recently where old paperwork has been either necessary or really useful.

educat regarding your paperwork - would a good place to start be to find out how long you need to keep financial papers?

I would then sort out papers into old boxes year by year. Then shred all things you don't need and then sort out a year at a time.

I'm not sure how much room you have? but I would buy folders and dividers and label each folder with different tax years, then have dividers inside for different sections.

If a bookshelf would not be an option, maybe a small filing cabinet (the type that would fit under a computer desk?

I don't have a problem with space! I have a large office/workroom with (currently), 5 A4 filing cabinet drawers plus a large plastic file storage box. I also have wall to ceiling cupboards down one Wall (holds household stuff like ironing board as well as work stuff and craft stuff etc). Plus 3 sets of bookshelves and another over-desk shelf.

I am a tutor so on paperwork category I have 2 types - normal business paperwork that you would need to have for any business (need to keep 7 full tax years worth) plus teaching paperwork, eg worksheets, workbooks etc. I also store teaching equipment and games ( though have KMed these!)

I also have a magazine file for each student with current work and notes in and umpteen shelves full of educational books!

Then I have "crossover" paperwork that is part personal and part work (eg bills for broadband and car paperwork) Then I have purely personal stuff (eg counsil tax and pension)!

I am chucking paper out the whole time!

I don't know where to START! I am overwhelmed.

I feel like I need to be able to identify some discrete small categories to work on as otherwise it is too overwhelming.

I don't have a lot of time to scan loads of worksheets etc (many are already online or saved on computer!)

I will post some pics so you can see!

General view
Paper awaiting recycling bin
Another general view

Filing cabinet drawer full of maths worksheets.

Cupboard with my individual student files.

Cupboard with maths and literacy games in top 2 shelves and documents of varying types on bottom!

educating I started with the most annoying daily paperwork files. Stuff that we have to get and refer to for dull reasons. So the household stuff, bills, pensions, doctors, that kind of thing. Having that done is a bit like doing your underwear drawer - you notice the difference more frequently and it brings joy to be able to lay your hands on it straight away.

I treat professional or semi-professional / hobby paperwork differently and haven't actually got onto it yet. I would divide it into categories to avoid overwhelm, definitely.

I actually preferred the Getting Things Done system for paperwork. I don't think Marie quite gets it.

Oh and like other categories, if there are things that you think are actually sentimental I would pop them in a separate area to deal with another time.

Do you have anything you have published yourself? Definitely keep that as a separate category. Also, consider a category of ego boosters like cards from students, thank you notes, exam results, whatever.

I also have family history, old coursework, career development, and hobbies still to go through. Not to mention old letters. I can't possibly imagine doing any of those quickly.

All paperwork is for dull reasons, surely building?
My problem is not being able to keep up with filing paperwork as fast as I need to, despite avoiding getting it in as much as possible. So in the last week I've had 2 letters for each of me and ds and one about dd, all needing reference to other reports to figure out what to do about them, scanning the reports, and emails sending, four letters home from school which needed going back to school to know what to do with them (another bunch of school papers were read and instantly recycled), I have receipts from half a dozen items which need to be kept for a couple months in case the items need to be returned (they fit in a drawer but the drawer needs going through every few months...), and about 4 letters about insurance/banking despite trying to do that online.

Add pensions and builder quotes and invitations to things that I might want to go to if I arrange with MrNC, and the 'pending' folder is enormous (even before I added 10 years of folders to my room to process!) And that's before everything from the charity I'm a trustee of, stuff to do with being a landlord, and the day job!

Utility bills are at least online, though luckily I got a red reminder a while back so I could use it for applying for dd's school place...

On the plus side, a sofa and another bulky item have sold and should be collected tomorrow, and I've made £300 on Ebay this month. Obviously that's the easy stuff but I'm hoping for similar next month.

Clothes and shoes and outerwear done! 2 car loads to charity shop / tip / recycling. It felt like a huge weight was lifted when I dropped them off.
House looks worse if anything but I managed jewellery this afternoon and binned all the crap in the bathroom cupboards (out of category rebellion!) in spite of the baby refusing to nap properly.

Books and paper going to be hard here...

Just started reading Kondo and before I even finished the intro decided to jump up and do my books.

I think I've peaked too soon though as I'm sure I'll need to go through them again as there are some there where I have kept them because I feel I should read them....but I probably won't given that they've been on my bookshelf unread for years (think Crime & Punishment and War & Peace)....

Thanks to the person further up the thread who posted about MK YouTube videos. I've now redone my underwear drawer and it looks lovely, all scarves have been MK'd too. I need to do my T shirts next.

Au contraire, I have paperwork I love. I am a total nerd though. I write poetry, love my data analysis work, love my bits of family history (newspaper clippings etc) and more! I like everything filed neatly and organised beautifully. We are presently... some way from this state .

stumbly I got rid of War and Peace after realising I'd had it for 15 years and it had only been used to prop up ds's cot. And having seen the 15-minute condensed version on a tricycle, I had little desire to read the whole thing.

It's available free or cheaply to download now, like most classics.

Has anyone found good drawer dividers for clothes drawers?

I have a few small open top boxes (from IKEA) I think in various xolours/patterns, which work well for smaller stuff, and has made keeping my underwear drawer & bedside table drawers organised much easier. But my main clothing drawers keep getting messed up and I really want some straightforward drawer dividers to keep the sections of clothes seperate and keep them neat. However I haven't seen anything suitable online in the UK, on YouTube vids the Americans seem to have loads of options but I can't find any over here!

I know you mentioned ikea in your post, but that's where I got my drawer dividers from! They do a pack of various sizes.

I'm thinking something like this might work better for me.

Which type Bonjour? I have the open-top box types, but they're not useful for creating 'big' compartments, only small ones, same as the type building posted (I believe ikea do a version of that as well)

I'm looking for something like this m.target.com/p/cedar-dresser-drawer-dividers/-/A-13989863
(Not necessarily in cedar that's just the first one I found of that style to demonstrate) I've seen organising videos on YouTube either use these spring-loaded types, or ones where you buy strips and cut to size which come with little grooves you fix in the drawer to slot the divider into. Always seem to come from target or 'the container store' (sounds like organising heaven lol)

I am using the ikea pop up boxes too. But could do with the dividers!
Wish me luck, I am about to Kondo my wardrobe. I have done the culling, now I just need to do the arranging.

Nearly all my clothes in drawers are divided with cereal boxes. I found the ikea boxes a bit wide for folding

I went a bit mad buying the velvet non slip hangers that I keep seeing on YouTube. I have to say I was impressed! They save space (maybe 25%) and nothing falls off!
Re dividers IKEA do one that splits in to 3 rather than about 6. It's part of the Skubb range. I've also been using large shoe boxes too.