KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

GreyQueen

Interestingly, if you knew me IRL, you would probably concur with an old friend who describes me as the most laid-back person she's ever met. I'm not unspecifically anxious about most things.

I have some specific concerns, at the moment I am concerned about the homeless man living in a car about 10 feet away from my groundfloor flat. I'm concerned about his health and wellbeing in this cold weather (have involved both council and police in trying to get him into some better place btw) and am selfishly-concerned about the health implications of the rest of us about where he's going to the lavatory - he has been here 7 days already.

But I digress. My anxieties about Stuff are about fears of want and need, of insufficiency, of hunger, of cold and discomfort. Things which impact (or could, by some great stretch of the imagination, impact) on those areas are the ones which cause me anxiety.

I'm working on it, and it's getting better.

mavvymoo

Morning all
Forgot to say another 2 bin bags of clothes and shoes left the house yesterday via the charity shop.
I am still finding 'stuff' which have escaped about 10 culls now so I am trying to work out why ? I think I am still doing it might come in handy/JIC/ cost a lot/might wear it to a garden party (never been to one in my life) type of route so going back to the tried and tested does it bring joy ? yes/or no.:o
I may seem I have loads of clothes but to me I really dont and its been reduced by about 75% but I know its still too much.

So I am going to try and not buy any more clothes for the rest of the year apart from some plain basic T-shirts if we ever get a Summer and that really is it.

Then take stock in Jan 17 :rotfl:Thats my plan

For my sofa I have spare scatter cushions and seat and back cushion covers so they will go on Wed with my sofas.So have a another drawer spare :T Which I find joyful and makes me think I can let more of this furniture go.
Dh has gone to London for his interview today so I can get on with painting and seeing what I can kondo out of the house on Wednesday


I am feeling better about the house now but as Mr Daniels would have said 'not a lot' :rotfl:Maybe I will when its finished who knows.

Mav x

VJsmum

GreyQueen wrote: »

Morning all.

I'm finding that MK is helping with some anxiety issues. I'm not even sure what I have are my anxieties, can you effectively inherit the urge to hoard or is it just learned behaviour?

Anyway, I'm still getting to the point where I can say to myself; Let it go. You overbought, you may never need it again, if you do it will have probably died in storage and replacing the item will cost £1-£2 which is a better bet than risking wastage and the nuisance factor of having it around the premises in the meantime.

Haven't you also changed your diet recently? I truly believe that that helps too. Since I cut sugar and wheat I find I have much less anxiety and often forget to take the supplement I have for it. My worst enemy is wine which I need to eliminate completely, trouble is I like it . Don't like being drunk, hate hangovers so I don't think it's an "alcohol problem" I just like wine, but it does give me anxiety. I wish it tasted the same without the alcohol....

mavvymoo

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

Interesting - I think hoarding is a symptom of anxiety in many cases - fear of letting go.

I wouldn't class myself as a hoarder, and I'm not usually anxious but I have had a problem for some years now about leaving the house to go away overnight. I'm always late because I keep running back in to check things and I'd have to do loads of jobs (put the washing away, empty the dishwasher) that aren't really urgent, before I could leave.

Since MK, this has all changed. Packing is so easy - partly because I have fewer clothes to choose from! and I can leave the bedroom and kitchen looking tidy without too much effort. It really is 'life changing'.

Snap Polly this was also me. I could never ever be anywhere on time and everything was so stressful and the thing was I knew I was doing it and just couldnt stop it If I had to be somewhere at 1pm at 9am I knew I would be rushing to get there on time.But just couldnt do a thing about it

Mav x

GreyQueen

I haven't completely cut sugar and wheat, as they are ingredients in things I need to use up, but I would say they're reduced by about 80% and the intention is to get it down further.

Of course, living in Shoebox Towers isn't the most restful domestic situation, with class A drugs being dealt from an address about 15 yards away and the attendant junkies cooking up and also defecating on the stairwells.

Righty, have spoken to the homelessness emergency number before 6 am AGAIN about the poor feller in the car and have to hope someone can get him under a roof by tonight. Off to work now, happy kondoing.

mavvymoo

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301890550002?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

These are my sofas

GQ Not nice for you at all I really hope someone can help the young man so you can stop worrying. and after reading your post I am going to stop moaning about my house, and give myself a kick up the backside and think myself very lucky

Mav x

Slinky

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

Slinky thanks for that link, I wish I'd known about them. Like you I work from home and most shredders just aren't up to the job, I've yet to find one that actually manages more than one sheet at a time. I'm going to look at that site when the current one gives up.

Can't recommend the Swordfish highly enough. It can do up to 15 pages at a time, also CDs and credit cards. I oil mine regularly with shredder oil which I think helps.

And the bin is huge!

hebwood

Hi everyone


Been a poorly girl for a while but (almost) fine now.


Mav - good result on sofas - major woo.
GQ - well done on trying to get the poor man sorted.


This KM thing really alters your thinking, still not done some categories and need to revisit several others, but when I look at some homes now (tv and RL) they seem so cluttered and I didn't even bother to watch shop well for less as I knew it would annoy me.


Items still 'pop' into my head to get rid/sort.


Well done everyone, so enjoy reading your 'ventures.


H.

kboss2010

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

Interesting - I think hoarding is a symptom of anxiety in many cases - fear of letting go.

I wouldn't class myself as a hoarder, and I'm not usually anxious but I have had a problem for some years now about leaving the house to go away overnight. I'm always late because I keep running back in to check things and I'd have to do loads of jobs (put the washing away, empty the dishwasher) that aren't really urgent, before I could leave.

Since MK, this has all changed. Packing is so easy - partly because I have fewer clothes to choose from! and I can leave the bedroom and kitchen looking tidy without too much effort. It really is 'life changing'.

I couldn't agree more! :beer:

We moved 6 months ago and I've already taken about 10 boxes of stuff to charity shops and still was living in clutter. I decided this week that it's ridiculous and the mess is unmanageable and making me miserable in my lovely new flat so this week while I've been off I've kondoed my kitchen, wardrobe, living room and cupboards completely, as I was chucking all of the old, worn, ill-fitting clothes into the hall I ended up with an actual clothes mountain - how on earth did I fit all of this carp into such a small space and why was I hanging onto stuff that I'll never wear because it was once lovely and a bargain?? Madness :mad:

I have an irrational fear of being without and not being able to afford the things I might need so I stockpile and hoard and I've decided it needs to stop. I've been lucky that I've never not been able to buy the essentials so why am I acting like I'm prepping for the apocalypse? I wonder if it's because my parents divorced when I was young and we went from having a lovely suburban house with a huge garden and lived a comfortably-off Middle-class stereotype life to my parents living in much smaller houses in not very nice places and scrimping to get by?

I have recently realised that one of the huge differences between my life and that of my well-off school friends was that financial security and choice that comes with earning enough to be comfortable. My dad visited recently and commented on how bizarre my bf's mum was discussing paying a lot of money for good quality artwork that has had a lot of skill gone into it and I realised that that's the difference between minimum wage living from pay check to pay check and earning enough to be able to afford luxuries.

Interior design isn't ever a consideration for the half of my family that live hand-to-mouth, they're too busy making sure their kids are fed and clothed and the bills are paid to care what shade of white their walls are. And I now understand why my dad's sister was so supportive of my decision to go to university and make a career for myself, she didn't want that life for me.

It makes me feel really blessed to see how lucky I am to be able to even be in a position to be arguing with my OH about whether we paint our hallway 'cooking Apple green' or 'desert gold yellow'. We're far from rich, but making the most of what I have to make my life as comfortable as possible is a priority for me. And having a single home to come home to that is my own instead of living between houses like a pack rat is such a relief, honestly, I feel like I can finally stop and breathe for the first time in almost 30 years.

And my kondoing is my next step on that journey.

lessonlearned

Well week 1 of Kondo part 2 has been brilliant......two car loads including an unwanted bed headboard, Large mirror and assortment of clothes, books, photo frames and pictures frames from me and just general stuff from my dad.

feeling better already.......:rotfl: