KONDO Thread 9

[Iqueen]

Kondo your Home and your Life. Live the JOY!

Buffy The YEEEEEES! feeling, "I want to wear this until it drops apart in the middle of the supermarket" - that's JOY! Only the items in your home that bring you that feeling (directly, and indirectly, - think vacuum cleaner ) should be kept. "It's OK", is not good enough - your happiness is worth more.

With things like socks I tried to think which ones do I always pass over in the drawer.
I took to lining them all up in the drawer and only picking the end pair (and knickers too) unless there was a compelling reason not to pick the next pair in line. (Lighter coloured knickers under a lighter pair of trousers for eg).
If I found I was leaving a pair over and over, they went.

I'm probably weird, but some of my socks did give me that YESSS feeling Those are the ones I automatically folded after undoing the sock potatoes that my mother had trained me to do.

What I did was kept those in the "Def keepers " pile, then treated the others like she suggests for the hoover or frying pan and kept enough as per flyladies numbers (about 14). Though there really were only 2-3 pairs of socks and half a dozen pairs of pants (which I'd meant to replace while here and forgot when we were in the store that sells my favourites, oops! ) in that "I love what you do even if you don't spark joy " catagory.

BTW, when travelling : go back to sock potatoes or the will all be a jumbled mess by day 2 bitter experience. Sushi -rolled tights and Konmari style folded clothing work v well with living out of a suitcase though :)

oh dear, fishboneschokus, I hadn't realised! Surely you must have a friend /coworker /aquantence/strange on Freegle that you could bring joy to during her summer 2015 pregnancy? Or are these shirts REALLY happy memories masquerading as clothing, and thus should be considered only when you finally make it to sentimental things?

*stranger! I didn't mean to imply that people on Freegle are strange!

fun I think the doing it quickly all in one go suits my personality. Once I start something I do tend to just keep going till,it's done!

That said I am definitely at the stage of my house looking worse before it gets better. I am having small moments of panic at the enormity of the task but won't give up. I have stopped for today now though.
I have done felt tips, coloured pencills and colouring books
I have semi done dvds which involved going into the garage so I ended up semi kondoing the whole garage so I at least knew what was in there. Got rid of about another 10 bags of stuff, and have a large box of chuggington toys to freecycle as ds has really outgrown them and hasn't asked for them since they were relegated to the garage 8 months ago!
I did also realise I had forgotten wellie boots when I did clothes so have kondoed those and also found the bag of hats,scarves and gloves I thought was in the loft so will do that tomorrow.
so after work tomorrow I need to wittle down the dvds a bit more, sort gloves etc and then crack on with youngest 3 toys which are also semi done.

Form those of you who have reached the end pf the process how long did it take? I am not sure when she says to do it quickly, all at once ,,how long that means. Does she say 6 months or did I imagine that? I am hoping to have it done by September but we shall see.....

Some more successes today: have kondo'd my half of the wardrobe and the ironing pile. I even managed to get DH to do his half of the ironing pile! This is a major success as he is the worst at chucking things out, through sheer laziness rather than hoarding tendencies.

I am faced with a bit of a difficulty though. I can't say there are more than three or four pieces of clothing left after the purge that I truly love. I am going to need to spend some time shopping for really good quality, capsule wardrobe type pieces.

Tricky though as I am currently a size 18 but am starting to lose weight though a sensible approach. I would be thrilled to be a size 14, but I size 12 would make me ridiculously happy. So I don't want to spend a lot of money on clothes that I hopefully won't fit into in six months or so.

bobblypop Kondoing takes 6 months if you're unmarried, childless and a professional tidier! Actually, it takes as long as it takes. We are all different, with different circumstances and varying opportunities to kondo. It's going to take me till at least Christmas, ie 12 months!

Greymalkin Pick up a few temporarily joyful items from the Chazzers... they are full of bargains at present!

Hello everyone. I've been lurking here on this thread for a couple of weeks and have just finished the book. I've already started, and have tackled my bags and my undies drawers. I know, I know... Slightly the wrong order, but plan to rectify and get busy with clothes next. I pull out my drawers from time to time, just to get that joyful feeling of orderliness. Love it!

I'm really doing this to try and get DH enthused about the system. He says the house is full of 'crap' and it is... But he is an only child with both parents dead. There are whole rooms of his parents stuff. Mainly furniture, but a massive cupboard FULL of several dinner services, umpteen tea and coffee sets which have never seen the light of day ( and won't ever if I remain in charge!). There are boxes of books still in the back of wardrobes which arrived 11 years ago, and have never been opened. There are drawers of photos going back years and years.

It stifles me and makes the house feel really uncomfortable. I tell him this from time to time, but he just laughs it off. After nearly 20 years of living with it, I want it SORTED. It's draining.

Any advice from you wise Kondo-ers as to how to go about it?

Sorry for epic post!

Cycle,
They are gone. If I get pregnant again I will hunt you down for an eighteen year old (vintage?) shirt with at least two buttons.
:)

They are gone!

Well done fish, do you feel joyful?!

ishould - I completely get that sense you describe of feeling choked and drowned in stuff and all the emotional crap that comes with it. Our house isn't exactly as yours is described, but lots of similarities. My feeling is, you really need your OH on board to make decisions about chucking a load of that stuff.

Iqueen does 'Chazzers' mean charity shops? (They are my downfall! I have to be very controlled whenever I visit one. Very. Very. Controlled.)

deal! Well done, Fish

ishould Get your husband in a receptive mood and gently come round to the subject of the carp. Try to get him to see that all this stuff is an unnecessary burden to him, which he is trying to avoid, as it's mainly out of sight!

He needs freeing from the sad memories, and perhaps the anticipated guilt of getting rid of these things. He will feel much happier when he has finally laid his parents' (stuff) to rest.

Perhaps, he expects to be just carelessly tossing all these sentimental things into trash bags? Explain that it would be a calm, thoughtful, and respectful process. And he can thank everything for the part they played in his and his parents lives.

If you can get him started, he may find that it is not so scary as he thought.

Greymalkin Yes, Chazzers are CS - Charity Shops. The first Law of Decluttering is: Don't let any non-essentials into your home, by any method! This prevents the situation from getting any worse.

So, if you really need some clothes to fill essential kondo gaps - look in chazzers, mindfully - know what you actually need, and ignore anything else!

Great training for the future!

Thank you Grey and Iq for your kind words. It means a lot.

I think he finds it all a bit 'woo' - he's a typical man - not into touchy feely emotions at all. What I'm hoping is that he will come to appreciate what a difference I'm making to the rest of the house...

BUT - all his stuff is hidden away, so he's not bothered by it being there - whereas I definitely AM! I can feel it as I walk into a room. Almost like the proverbial 'Elephant in the Corner'.

My feelings about it have built up over the years, and he cannot understand why I feel this way. As I said, he thinks its a kind of joke... but deep down, there is more to it I suspect.

Cycle :)

I am now kondoing jodhpurs in the tack room.

I love reading the philosophical insight; it does give joy.

I mentioned the anti kondo thread in the guardian. Did anyone else read it? (Comments being most interesting part)

I read it, but can't remember the gist of it. Do you have a link?

For me, one of the biggest challenges is how to persuade my dh to let go of some of his stuff, so I can empathise with you all on that.

He was happy to get rid of clothes as he has no attachment to them, but books, CDs and DVds are very different.

He has discarded some books but I am trying hard not to feel resentful that I have given away more than half of my novels, while his books on self- help and exercise are now dominating the bookshelves.
I hate looking at them as they say so much to me about his state of mind (he suffers from depression) but I don't think it will be easy to get him to part with more than he has already.

I didn't do any kondoing over the weekend, as we had a lot of family stuff on (although I did clean the glass on my oven door, inspired by another thread) but I have a few days off next week and hope to tackle the toys.

I am bribing ds1 with the promise of some new things for his room, and will just have to hope that ds2 doesn't notice anything I discard, as he is impervious to bribery or persuasion of any kind.

YY The Very - I've been getting rid of heaps of my stuff, too! My actual personal belongings are getting fewer and fewer as the weeks go on.

I know my DH doesn't have depression - but there are 'ishoooos' for sure...

cocoa i really sympathise. That amount of other people's stuff would really bother me too. You say that your DH is an only child and that the stuff that is bothering you comes from his parents who are both dead. I suspect that that stuff would fall into the sentimental category described by Marie Kondo. I wonder whether your DH feels that this stuff is his last link with his parents and he feels that getting rid of it would be disrespectful to their memory and like destroying his last link with them.

I wonder whether Marie Kondo would suggest working through the other five categories with him first and leaving anything that used to belong to his parents to the last category. I know that it's his parents stuff that is bothering you more than anything else and leaving it to last means that you're going to have it there for another 6 months or so, but I think that the Konmari way is to tackle categories in increasing difficulty so that you train up on clothes and books etc and by the time you get to sentimental then you are ready to cope with it.

Also, and in preparation for dealing with your in-laws stuff, I wonder if you could think of ways in which your DH could feel that he still has a link with and a reminder of his parents without having to have so much of their stuff stashed away? Eg, one of those photo frames in which you can display several photos at once showing photos of his parents and him.

Lovewearingjeans

I'll have a look. The downside is getting rid of stuff and regretting it. Which is a danger and the reason why sentimental is the final category.

I found it interesting that many people approached kondo with death in mind; saving relatives the hassle of sorting stuff. It is slightly morbid but I do get the mindset.