Kondo thread 10

[SnozzberryMincePie]

Just noticed the old thread was full, so hope no one minds me starting the new one

Yeah I've finally finished the paper work.
I lots count of how many bags of shredded paper I had. I also managed to find permenant storage that is not in my house for the committees' accounts.

I have just about done paperwork! And a bunch of tasks that needed associated paperwork. A whole recycling sack was filled with paper from old-work-related stuff and I now have papers relating to having been employed filed, two magazine holders of references that are likely to be relevant in my next job (both sorted), and two more 'sentimental' boxes, one for me, one for DP, to be shoved in the loft and worried about in 5-10 years.

A big bag has gone to charity (one of those huge tartan laundrette bags), with some surplus bedding and other stuff including toys containing multiple pieces. Unfortunately last night the kids found the bag of plastic shit to give away and have reclaimed a few things, but hey, if they get joy, right?

Though had funny day the other day - I have ranted before about Compulsive Buying Friend who gets offended if you get rid of stuff she brings. She brought some books recently for dn's birthday (ds told her that his school library would appreciate it) but then dd age 4 had a huge strop and said she hated all the cuddly toys Auntie CBF had ever got her and she was giving away all of them, so there! I couldn't bring myself to tell her off for being rude!

My CDs and DVDs take up such a small proportion of my house and do so on two neat shelving units that I'm ignoring them for now, though there's a whole bunch of DVDs that will be ditched after watching.

keepon I have a really big square folder for my CDs, each leaf holds 4 CDs each side. I put the cd in the front pocket and the artwork booklet in the back.

I've taken another bag to the chazzer today which has been lurking for a few days.

Went in the attic last night (poked my head up) and spotted a few things that I was surprised I still had. If I didn't realise I owned them, they can't have been joyful! So they are in yet another bag for the chazzer in the morning.

There was a musty suitcase that had died in storage so that was wazzed out of the front door last night and landed next to the wheelie bin and the bin men took it this morning.

We also found 2 other suitcases packed with more of DS's outgrown clothes so that's a job for the weekend. I'm embarrassed by the volume of clothes he had.

Weirdly, I've noticed that on the weeks I am in the Kondo-zone, I lose more weight at SW! I lost 3.5lb this week! Current total lost 2st 4lbs. Boom!

Stiff- that's impressive weight loss! Well done!

I've done clothes (mine and the children's), toiletries, kitchen, books.... Haven't broached paperwork or CDs yet as it's far, far too daunting. We have thousands, and I mean thousands, of CDs. Dp doesn't want to part with them. Paperwork is flooding my tiny study. I feel utterly overwhelmed.

I did CDs last year by going through every case to check firstly if it had a CD in it and secondly I it was the right one. Then I lost the will to live and decided to throw away all of the cases and inserts. I ordered 4 CD wallet holder things and put 2 in each car. As I listen to them, I bin any that skip or that I've fallen out with. Several of them from my teens have been binned because they remind me that I was a bit of a dick, or its just rubbish music.

Its been good to rediscover a few of the CDs and even DS(4) is singing some 60s stuff!

I did it! Am very proud of myself after clearing out a lot of old CD's I will never listen to and removing those that I love from the cases and putting into a plastic sleeves. My cd collection now fits beautifully into a slim shoe box.
Now I can move onto the next subcategory

I read this quote on someone's Kondo blog.

The truth is, if you don’t know where it is, can’t get to it because it’s buried somewhere, or have forgotten it altogether, it functionally doesn’t exist anymore. You’ve lost it. You lost it long ago. All you’re holding onto is a spacial and psychic burden.

Very true Alison!
Was commiserating earlier with a friend who is trying to Kondo in between work and family and health issues - if you live in a city where they are desperate to keep council tax down, they are really strict on no waste that won't fit in your bin, and it's £20 per item to take bulky items away which is prohibitive, but friends local tip has limited hours, so borrowing a car to get there is hard, and local charity shops won't take any electricals or large items as they don't have space. So friend finally gets head round chucking things out yet can't get rid! And local Freecyclers can pick and choose so broken MDF furniture is just rubbish.

I'm doing a bit better - have put up a bunch of pictures to get them off surfaces, and a set of hooks for coats so they are the right height and don't drag on the ground, so it's easier to clean the floor. Have also coughed up for garden waste collection so in a few weeks (they only collect two bags a week unless you pay another £50) our garden may look much better.

Now time to re-Kondo duvets as I swear they have been breeding!

Urgh, DH insists on keeping a spare kingsize duvet even though he also refuses to get rid of our huge throw which would do in a laundry emergency. I don't even have any king size duvet covers.

Putting laundry away I was struggling to fit DH's socks in the drawer. He'd bought 4 pairs of black sports socks - he does a sport once a week and the washing machine is on every alternate day so he does NOT need 4 more pairs of socks.

After checking them all and binning any with holes, he has 35 pairs of socks. I'm thinking of not washing any for 5 weeks!

Citrus where I live bin bags are rationed. So each person is calculated to throw out a certain volume of rubbish per year. Doesn't help that some of our rubbish won't fit in the bag and you can't get rid of it at the dump because of bin bag rations. Arghhhhhh. Fortunately we are slowly making headway around these issues

I haven't done much Kondo recently though... I'm not sure what I have been up to actually. I need to get back on that horse! And get busy. Hmmm must find out where DH has stashed my book to see what category I might be able to do next.

And stiff well done on the weight loss! I've gained weight this year, I wanted to be losing weight! And I think it's all tied up with needing a job, being a bit depressed, wanting to sort out the house and generally having a very full brain. IYSWIM.

I've been working on the kitchen and have sold a dinner sevice and a full set of pyrex dishes (we got 2 sets as wedding presents 14 years ago)
And really wittled down my cooking utensils i can open and close the drawer without things catching

Since it's mid-June I thought that I would Kondo the Christmas decorations!

Actually it's a job that really should be done every summer, as come the first week in January (if I last that long...) everything gets taken down and stuffed back in the enormous box that is too heavy to lift. Then when I want to put the decos upp in December, they're all in a mess.

Clearing the garage has left me with 2 IKEA Sortera boxes that I no longer need, since our council now takes tins, bottles and plastic all in the one bin.
They each got 20 minutes in hot dishwasher to clean them , and now I have lights in one, and decos in another. And joyless decos in the bin!

I took the advice given here to Kondo first, and think about storage later.

I'm now at the stage where I feel I really know where things are going to live.
The clothes that I did a couple of months back are still looking great, I've done some tweaking with how and where I store items.
I treated the hanging clothes to nice proper hangers, banished all wire coat hangers (which the local dry cleaner accepted happily).
I also splashed out £5 on a couple of battery powered sensor lights that turn on when I open doors as my wardrobe is unhelpfully postioned in the darkest corner of bedroom . I can now see inside rather than guessing Navy? Black? Where's the other shoe?

The tidy wardrobe seems to have had a knock-on effect on my attitude to laundry, and the usual utility room pile of clean clothes waiting to be put away has not reappeared.

Have many of you visualised what you want your home to look like when you are finished? Have you achieved it and if you are tidying with or potentially around a partner have you discussed and agreed something with them?

Ideally I would like our home to be simple and not to have stuff piling up in places. Also, I want DH to stop putting stuff on top of cupboards because it is out of reach of DC. That's only ok if it is done temporarily.

Can I join? I thought I was pretty good at the decluttering/ reducing, however I still spend hours everyday tidying up.
It has to stop, it's draining, depressing and too much effort.

I read the book. I enjoyed it, I think for me the biggest message was keep things that give pleasure and ditch everything else, it just weighs you down.
Lots of things without a home, they do just need a home or to go in the bin!

So far I have
Cleared clothes and shoes (mine)
gone through every kitchen cupboard.
Cleared bedding/towels
Charity shopped a lot of Books

Today I will tackle
games
Utility room
Children rooms

I have even to the recycling centre everyday. I think in the past I have been guilty of shifting things around and not going deep enough on the decluttering.
I have found it really helpful to put the bags straight into the car boot. ( I've cleared about 20 bags so far.)

DH and I went through a drawer unit we have on our bedroom today.... It is now empty. We had already sort of done our big wardrobe and most of the stuff we want to keep has found a new home in there. Folded all my things up super neat and it's fantastic. I'm actually starting to enjoy opening my wardrobe.

I'm hoping tonight we might be able to keep the momentum (once the kids are in bed) and do some sorting downstairs too.

just started , 3 bags of clothes , from doing tops! Mine and DP to be fair and more of his than mine .
folding shirts ? Do up buttons then like a t shirt? Or hang up

following the printout , many thanks - skipping extreme kondo on books as they are my main joy and a thing of beauty when on the shelves - the book towers need addressing and some chucking out but not to the massive extent of Marie
not looking forward to paperwork like everyone else - listening on you tube to audio book - any tips to prepare myself for paper hell?

I didn't think I really needed to Kondo my kitchen... But the more I get through other rooms the more things I see in the kitchen that I want / need to let go.

A weird story for you- last week after DH and I had another go at our bedroom, and emptied the drawer unit, DS walked into our room and asked if we had tidied up. the difference in what our room looked like when you walked into it was minimal. But it feels different in there now.

Hello, can I join you?

I was very sceptical of Marie Kondo's methods when I first heard of her around Christmas time, but I bought her book in January and have been working my way through it. I've actually enjoyed it although I've always liked de-cluttering (I grew up in a fairly cluttered house, and found it very annoying) and my flat wasn't too messy to start with.

I've started on sentimental things now, although I still have some paperwork to get rid of (taking in to work a little bit at a time to use the big shredder) and I also have a pile of stuff to take to a charity shop.

Today's job was sorting greetings cards as I had a huge bag of cards going back 10 years. I decided I would only keep the ones with nice pictures on, but that's most of them! So I still have a big bag of them! I guess I have room for them but I'm conscious that I tend to hang on to a lot of sentimental stuff and not sure if it's a good thing.

winterholiday Why don't you take photos or scan all those cards and create a slideshow, maybe use as a screensaver for your pc? Then you get to see them and get joy from them

Another thing I've seen people do is cut out a nice picture from a card and use it as a gift tag. Which seems a nice way of recycling a card. Would that be a possible solution?

Or if it's a picture you really like, would you put it in a frame so that you can see it every day?
I would apply the logic that you're not enjoying the pretty picture if it is in a bag and you aren't looking at it. And ask yourself again if it is really bringing you joy.

Those are both good suggestions. I might frame some and I can see the logic in scanning them. You are right that I'm not getting much joy if they are hidden in a bag inside a cupboard. I think I am going to have to revisit some of my things in the sentimental category. I've found the other categories much easier, even books, which I thought would be much harder than it was. I got rid of loads and don't miss them at all.

I have got almost all of MrNC's sentimental stuff in a labeled box in the crawl space, which is out of the way. I've also gone round and put about 12 pictures up on walls so we can see them and enjoy and they aren't in the way, even though they will move at some point.

Paper from voluntary work keeps piling up - every time I change bills to be online or get updates by email, some new paper things come along.

I have managed to give away a bunch of toys and dd now has presented me with a big bag of toys to get rid of - most of which are parts of sets so need to be sorted out...