Decluttering and Kondo-ing - Toys and paperwork..help!

[PolkadotRosa]

That's it!! Enough!! After a wasted morning of trying to find something I needed that should have been in a 'safe place' i'm going at it all guns blazing. Sick of half assed attempts to get on top of it. Did clothes, books ok, but paperwork...aarghh and kids toys and plastic shite...double aaarghhh going back to work from mat leave soon and I want to get as much done as possible before, and spend the precious time left with my boys with a weight off my shoulders and mind.

What does MK say about toys? I haven't got the spark joy book.

[MadauntofA]

MK lives in a perfect child free, toy free world, or at least she did when she wrote the book. My two helped out clearing some of their toys, but it depends on how old yours is?

[storybrooke]

Split it into categories! It's the only way. Then cull to fit your storage, we are much more organised this way, kallax was a godsend! Good luck and make sure you have wine in for bedtime

[PolkadotRosa]

Thanks madaunt and story for replying.
Mine are 3 and 6 (plus baby but don't think he'd be much use!) Categories - great idea, and the MK way. I'll have a go at decluttering the toys in groups, and my 6yr old says she'll help me sort the ones she no longer plays with. Wish me luck!

[allegretto]

I was mortified that I managed to fill a whole plastic sack with plastic crap - not even proper toys but gadgets, Happy Meals tat etc. I am definitely going to start trying to stop that kind of stuff from creeping in in the first place.

[Natad00dle]

Allegretto - I'm in the same boat, so hardly qualified to give advice :-). We've been keeping my 7 year old toys just in case the little one's want to play with them, but they hardly ever do. So my plan is to never buy bulky toys again and to get everything boot fair ready to get rid of everything that's not been used in more than a month.

Paperwork - we were drowning :-(((. What helped, was getting some expanding organiser files, so now I have one for all the school/nursery letters, one for bills, one for insurances, car documents & other and a box file for mortgage documents. I also have a box file for unsorted letters and paperwork that arrive through the post. I tend to sort through this box every 2-3-4 weeks and file it in the organiser files. It sounds complicated, but it's not really and saves me hours looking for a bit of paper that I've lost again.

[WittgensteinsBunny]

I see this is an old thread but today i have just had enough of the DDs toy room. We live in a small 3 bed terrace and have turned over a whole bedroom to their tat toys and clothes. I tidy and then they turn out all toys and this is only made worse by play time up there with GPs. Dd2 is 15 mo. She has spent the entire time I've spent time tidying in one corner this afternoon, un-doing in another and as her finale finding a potty of her big sister's wee and throwing it all over my bedroom , turning out all of their clothes from the chest of drawers and trapping her arm in a drawer.

I've just read an interview with Kondo and she believes in getting children to purge their old toys and clothes after birthdays and Xmas and giving these items to charity. Children should do this again as soon as they can. Her friend's son did so from 2. I think this is all very well but mine have the "ooh, haven't played with that ever but now you have it in a pile of stuff to go, IT'S MY FAVOURITE AND BEST TOY IN THE WHOLE WORLD, please don't throw it out, Mummy. " mentality. I don't know where to start. I am actually quite cross this afternoon after the past 2 hours' wasted efforts to make upstairs nice.

I think I've posted about this before but I'm drowning in toddler stuff...

Maybe just closing the door and cracking open the later is the only option. And repeat until they leave home?

[GrubbyWindows]

I am not good at this yet, but the times it has worked with DS (3) have been times when I have been doing my things, and have put zero pressure on him to ditch stuff. When I push him to get rid he resists massively.
Kondo says they need to be about 3 to get it...

[ChampagneCommunist]

I'm using the Clutterless App & love it. Small, manageable categories, but great "tick it off" satisfaction