KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

FLA27

Hi All, and firstly thanks to everyone for all your amazing posts on the 2016 KonMari thread. I didn't follow last years thread at all but I have been following this one all year and I have been meaning to stop lurking and post for ages. I started my Kondo journey in January and have been so busy with it ever since. It has made such a difference already, my mornings are so much easier, I don't seem to have to fight with things anymore to get even the simpest task done and I no longer feel overwhelmed with how much cleaning and tidying needs doing. Things are just so much more manageable.

All your posts have been very inspiring to me but I am posting now because I find it interesting that you are talking about anxiety. I have always been an anxious person, particulary with social anxiety. Kboss2010 - You could be talking about me in your post no. 1497!

My biggest problem at the moment though is actually getting rid of stuff. I had kept a lot to donate to a woman who does carboot sales to raise money for Lupus UK charity but she kept letting me down. I don't drive and have recently lost access to someone else's car. I am torn between trying to do the right thing with all my stuff or giving into sneaking things into the bin! I am not to intersted in selling items because my Kondoing is not about making money but making time for me.

On the subject of making time, I will make more time to post on here but now I really must get up and start moving, I have tidying up to do!

Sarah.

tibawo

FLA27 wrote: »

My biggest problem at the moment though is actually getting rid of stuff. I had kept a lot to donate to a woman who does carboot sales to raise money for Lupus UK charity but she kept letting me down. I don't drive and have recently lost access to someone else's car. I am torn between trying to do the right thing with all my stuff or giving into sneaking things into the bin! I am not to intersted in selling items because my Kondoing is not about making money but making time for me.


Sarah.

I would be tempted to contact her and set a deadline [in a polite way], that way I would feel you would be justified in your own mind of throwing them out. Having them lurking can be problematic in that if you are like me things might sneak back out of the pile either fro me or the girls and/or you are missing out on the buzz of the new tidy space that you have created. To me having stuff around is like doing half a job.


I tend to ebay my stuff as i need the money but i have chosen this as it is gone in the week and i add random KD to it. If i did my own car boot i know it would linger and linger as the good car boots seem to be always on days i have to do other things!

silvasava

FLA27 - you can post on Freecycle that you would prefer things to go to charity. Some reputable charities will collect (or they may leave bags for collection - check the small print!) Would it be possible for you to break it down into manageable carry bags to donate when you go shopping? As GQ says - having an exit strategy makes it so much easier! Good Luck

MMF007

hebwood wrote: »

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.

I couldn't sgree more !! That exactly sums up the stage I am at and despite the odd emotional melt down along the way, it's a really enjoyable journey. I wonder if this is because most of us never thought we would or could deal with the physical clutter? And maybe because it is somehow sort of lifting the weight of the emotional stuff off our shoulders as we happily jetison the 'baggage'?
Glad you are feeling much better :T:T

PWD, GQ and Mavvy - I am pretty laid back in many respects and don't get anxious about much
BUT I did not have the happiest childhood (nothing that would actually horrify anyone, just a bit rubbish in some respects).

Kboss2010, I cried when I read your post. It resonated a lot with me and I felt for you and our other Kondo-ites who were in similar positions.
When I was a kid we had enough to eat and we were never in danger of being thrown out on the streets but we only had secondhand clothes (and that is my big Kondo problem ), we never went out (I am still not brilliant in social situations, although I do like going out and am much better at
just chatting to people than I used to be!), and my mum was and still is 'a bundle of nerves'. So anxiety has played a big part in my life in that respect.

But do you know what else I thought as I read the posts? I thought how far everyone has come, how strong and determined we all are, and how glad I am that the MK thing really works :j

so, enough psycho-babble. I need to go and open the freezer drawer, the one in which I know exactly where to put my hands on something yummy for tea because I kondo'd it ages ago and it has kept neat ever since, and then get cracking with some housework

lovin' it, just lovin' it ,

have a great day everyone

M

FLA27

Tibawo - I did set a deadline. That was the problem, she still made excuses! I am a little worried about things sneaking back. I have hidden some things in the shed but now that needs Kondoing too!

silvasava - Freecycle is a good idea actually. I think I might even have an ancient account somewhere too. We also have a local thing here called Streetlife, it's a social network thing based on where you live. I could advertise it all on there. There are some things I can move around in carrier bags but this is the last resort, I have promised myself that I will stop carrying heavy stuff all the time. My poor shoulders!

mrs-moneypenny

Morning all

Food shopping done, bird baths and feeders washed out and filled. Kitchen tidied several pages of a book read. All recycling bagged and put out-it was only collected yesterday I'm sure it breeds! Plan to sort the stuff I've set aside for CS and get it bagged ready to take next weekend hopefully more will be added to it by then.

Welcome FLA27, hope you manage to get rid of your stuff to good causes, the boot season is just about to start again, maybe the person doing the boots was putting you off as she didn't wNt to store it over winter, I hope she or someone collects from you soon.

Hugs to all that need them and I hope you are all as well as can be.

Mil gave Dh her not used electric shredder so I have that as a stopgap till I decide what to replace ours with.

Wishing everyone a joyful weekend

lessonlearned

Fla 27 - most chazzas will do a pick up if you have a fair amount. You might have to wait until they are in your area on a chosen day.

Some very intersting comments about how our Kondo journey seems to be affecting our view of life now.

Like many I was brought up in a fairly poor working class household where money was always tight. My parents and other relatives were resourceful though, always managing to stretch the pennies and dream up little sideline money making activities.

I think I just assimilated it all without realising it at the the time, developing a strong work ethic and lots of creative and practical skills which have stood me in good stead, both in the lean years and the years of plenty.

Even when I've been quite well off I've never been a real spendthrift and I can't bear to see waste.

I find that as I've got older I seem to have just gradually drifted towards a simpler and more minimalist way of living. Losing both my husband and my mum somehow compounded this, I learned that ultimately possessions don't really mean anything. "Stuff" is intrinsically worthless. What really counts is family and loved ones.

Hanging onto their "stuff" won't bring them back and Some of their possessions actually bring back sad memories, for example the blanket I used to wrap my husband in to keep him warm in his wheelchair. It just brought back so many unhappy memories so I was relieved to let it go.

My progression to simplicity was often held up because I felt guilty of discarding some items, ie sentimental, or the "I paid good money for this, it's never been used, what a waste". This is where both MKs book and this thread have helped me.

I try not to just chuck things away. Some I sell, some I donate and some goes to the recycling centre. Very little goes to actual landfill.

I am very aware of just how wasteful a society we have become and I do find rampant consumerism rather sickening. Things like Black Friday actually disgust me and I was appalled by the mindless consumption of the young couple in the recent Spend For Less programme.

It seems I'm not alone, I think a lot of people are starting to feel the same way.

Slinky

kboss2010 wrote: »

It's funny isn't it how things often look from the outside?

My OH thinks I'm one of the most laid-back, calming people he's ever met and that helps him with his own stressing. And I hear that a lot from people I know completely randomly. Yet I feel like one of the most anxious people on the planet most of the time. I get "the fear" when I bump into someone I known unexpectedly in the street and probably seem really rude because my first instinct is flight. I hate answering the phone when someone I wasn't expecting to hear from calls.

My people skills are rubbish when it comes to conversation yet I once had a manager hire me in a public-facing role *because* they thought I was good with people. And last year I had a stranger at a party come up to me to tell me that she'd seen me at work a few years earlier and she'd asked her manager to poach me because I was so nice and helpful to her every time she came in to buy lunch :rotfl: It was one of the best compliments I've ever had but I don't know what this girl saw in me because in my head dealing with the people makes me feel like :eek:

In short, I have issues. And I'm trying to fix it, I'm at the initial stage of figuring out my weird idiosyncrasies so I can spot them as they crop up and try to change my reactions to situations.

I think I appear calm in certain situations to people because I've just genuinely run out of adrenaline and *ahem* monkeys to give that the only reaction I have left is "so what? Stop worrying and let's just get this thing fixed so I can go home and sleep because I'm on autopilot right now"

Have you ever heard the phrase 'fake it til you make it'? To me it sounds as though you've be unknowingly pretending a level of confidence you don't think you have. However the more you 'fake' it, the more that level of confidence becomes natural.


As a child I had to be bribed to go to parties, I was terribly shy. I never thought I'd eventually set up my own business and SELL to people. I still find it a bit scary and hide behind the phone a lot as rejection isn't so bad as face to face.


Years ago somebody recommended the book 'Feel the Fear and do it Anyway' which shows that the more you do things you initially find difficult, and they don't kill you, the easier they become.


Might be worth a read?

ScotinLondon

ScotinLondon wrote: »

So the dreaded exam has been kondoed - YAY :j Exam result in April..:(

So now no exam for a month and now I am thinking about the house and clothes and stuff that is in the house...

Will start on underwear & tights tonight - they have already had one cull, so another one tonight (that is if I don't fall asleep first).

Then over the weekend, will go either go through my clothes and then CDs and DVDs. Am trying to get all my western clothes into one cupboard and then start thinking about what to do with all my Indian outfits. There is a charity near me that will take them, as there is no-one in the family that is going to India soon either.

Wish me luck!

SIL

So did I do my tights & socks et al? Did I heck?!? Was asleep too quickly as soon as I ate.


even today - had a much needed lie-in. After all the late nights and early morning starts especially on the weekend because of the dreaded exam...it was worth it. Though am still feeling very tired though.


We grew up the same, we were bought up in a comfortable lifestyle but not with luxuries like a lot of my relatives. We didn't go on first holiday back to land of my mum's birth until we were in our teens. We were also taught to save up for anything that we wanted, that has stuck with me even now.


Am also hoping that KM will unclutter my house and mind too. Doing bits at a time and not strictly in the book order.


Lessonlearned - we are the same with the consumerism and the black Friday, cyber Monday nonsense. We only buy what we need, not what we want.


Fla27 - we use streetlife a lot where we live. Have got rid of a few things through it and found a lot of reputable and good tradesman through it too. We will be using to sell a few more items on Streetlife, once I get my act together.


Hoping to start on CDs either today or tomorrow.


Have a good rest of the day all.

GreyQueen

tibawo wrote: »

I have been following the current topic on lifestyles and find it very interesting. I am watching DD move between being aware of not spending beyond your means but also having enough not to be looked down upon by her peers. I keep telling her that her true friends are ones that are there for the long haul.


It does gob smack me what some of them get from their parents for nothing. I actually questioned whether it was just me being mean! As i have involved them in KD I think she is starting to realise that if she saves some of money she gets from bits and pieces instead of buying carp her outlook on life will be different.

Evening all.

There's a very recent post on miss minimalist's blog http://www.missminimalist.com/2016/03/three-words-for-my-younger-self-own-less-stuff/ which might be an interesting read for yourdaughter.

I must admit I'm pretty gobsmacked when I encounter some of my peers who are on very modest incomes but are buying cars for their teenagers. And not because their teens can't access education, social and employment opportunities without a car, either, we're in a city with plenty of all of the above easily accessible. Hell, I couldn't even afford to learn to drive until after I'd left college and was earning.

Crazy thing is, they'll be paying the insurance and running costs of the car as well, because the youngsters concerned aren't working more than a few hours a week at minimum wage jobs.

Welcome to FLA27. Nice to have new people introducing themselves and sharing the kondo journey. I'm another car-free person and declutter a bagful or wally-trolleyful at a time, gorilla arms are sooo last century dahling. And some chazzers can collect, too.

Have been busily gardening today and kondo'd all the remaining leeks into the freezer. Have two IKEYA blue bags of nasty weeds sitting on the allotment but will aim to get them to the tip tomorrow. I have seriously uncompostable weeds like horsetail, bindweed, docks and couch grass, and take them off-site.

I opened a drawer this morning to get a top out and I could see white melamine where there was this strange thing called 'space'. You may have heard of 'space' but it's seldom seen in this mini-flat. I grinned at it joyfully.