KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Slinky

Deep joy has been experienced here today.

1. A customer I'd been chasing for money since January has paid
2. I met my lovely friend and we both needed to visit H*mebase an Ikeea. We both found everything we wanted/needed in both shops.
3. I gave my friend the silver necklace I discovered in a drawer a few weeks back and she loved it.
4. She's agreed to survive until next year at least to get the birthday card she was supposed to have this year (she has a terminal diagnosis but has outlived the prognosis already).
5. The Variera pan lid stand from Ikeea has been deployed in a cupboard and now all my chopping boards are standing up, not slithering around all over the place.

System

Saw this on a group post elsewhere and thought i'd share it with you.

Slinky

ScotinLondon wrote: »

Where I live, we can rehome some electricals to a charity which provides for people who can't afford to buy their own. We were able to re-home our v. old washing machine that way. The charity picked it up and everything. Just a thought.
SIL

Thanks very much SIL, you've just reminded me about a charity we donated furniture to a while back, I'll offer the toaster to them.

Siebrie

Thanks for the support everyone. If only we could kondo terrorists, eh? Maybe they should have had someone who held them and said: "I am keeping you, you spark joy in me".

Slinky

SIL the charity want my toaster, and also an almost new electric toothbrush we never use either and will collect, so thanks for the reminder.

GreyQueen

Judi, love it, thanks for posting it for us.

I think Marie Kondo is as mad as a box of frogs. I've said so on this thread before now.

But she is a loony with an essential wisdom and this kooky little woman has hit a chord with people far beyond her native Japan. For that, I'd say give the woman a medal, never mind her best-selling author status and (hopefully) a handsome income. Heck, plenty of people attain fame and fortune without contributing a fraction as much to the common good.

Lots of us here have been serial declutterers. We're familiar with Don Aslett and Karen Kingston et al. We may well have picked up every single book on decluttering and simple living in our public library or bookshop.

We've got form. We've tried. We've heard the dictum have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. We're on first-name terms with our local charity shop volunteers. We're up and down to the tip so often, the car can find its way there on autopilot.

And yet, as fast as we've simplified and decluttered and feng shui'd and rearranged the furniture, the Stuff has come back again. It's like trying to stand against a landslide, it. just. keeps. on. coming. We've had dark nights of the soul when we've struggled and imagined featuring in an episode of some hoarding telly series. We've wept with frustration when clearing out relatives' homes, and imagined the boot on the other foot, and our relations clearing up our stuff after we've passed from this vale of tears. And imagined how shaming that would be to our reputations.

KM changes this for us. Two slender books by a kooky young woman from the other side of the planet have literally changed lives, even in those who have never read her, as they catch the habit by observing kondo-ites going about their business.

*********

MMF007, the Easter Project is the Bedroom and Bedroom Cupboard of Doom at the parents' house, so I won't be able to do a metaphorical hands-across-the-loft to you. I will be there in spirtit, though - watch out for dead birdies!:rotfl:

PollyWollyDoodle

GQ, as usual you've elegantly summed it up! I believe you take what you want from KM, and I don't talk to my socks nor do I empty my handbag every night but this method has worked for me where others haven't. I have rediscovered Stuff that didn't see the light of day and I've stopped buying Stuff when I realised how much I already had.

Some of the MK concepts don't translate to life in the UK because clearly Japanese homes are very different. I'm just happy that I can see the floor in my spare room, I know where my passport, utility bills and car documents all are, and I am better-dressed than I've ever been because I only have clothes I love in the wardrobe!

ivyleaf

KM is the only de-cluttering method I've tried where the places I've decluttered and tided have stayed decluttered and tidy! Mad as a box of frogs, probably, but it somehow works.

I don't somehow think much stuff will be leaving the house for a while (apart from things that can go to the charity shop), because there are roadworks on the route to the tip/recycling centre which make it a particularly unpleasant journey atm (a large truck nearly ploughed into us last time, when the driver suddenly realised he needed to change lanes on the approach to a roundabout :eek: )

The works are due to continue until the end of May so it might just have to wait until then, unless we want to pay the council a hefty sum to come and take stuff away. Which we don't

GQ We recently had occasion to put our cat in the cattery for a couple of nights, and in the pen next to his was....a pair of beautiful Norwegian Forest cats! I was interested to see that their eyes seemed a little smaller than a common-or-garden cat's eyes, slightly slanted, and a lovely shade of green. And oh, their fur! I just wanted to cuddle them

Ooh, nearly forgot to say that the big Sainsburys near us has a box for used water filter cartridges to be recycled. It's meant to be just Brita ones but I expect they're all made in the same place anyway.

Slinky

Had to shoot out to the local supermarket late on as I remembered that my car has to go to the garage tomorrow. I grabbed the last large bag of clothes hangers liberated from my clothes clear out a few weeks back to take to the shop to recycle and the recycling cage wasn't there. Arrgghh. So I had to cram all my shopping into the trolley all around the bag of hangers. Not good. So the hangers will be visiting the garage tomorrow as I'm not bringing them back into the house.


Had a tidy of a couple of drawers containing shorts and walking trousers when I got home. Mine and OH's were jumbled together across two drawers. We now have a drawer each and everything has been rolled. Found a pair of his shorts to chuck (the elastic in the waist was crackling), one pair of mine don't spark joy so will go to the charity shop on the walk back from the garage.


I kept a pair of jeans I don't wear anymore but they give me joy as at one point I was struggling to pull them on and the button and buttonhole were about 4 inches apart. I stopped eating carbs and now the jeans hang off me. I keep them to try on every now and then to remind me not to put the weight back on.

Chieveley

Evening folks - see this thread go a mention in Martins Wednesday email -just finished reading Spark Joy courtesy of the library -preferred the first book. Must have a look on you tube for the videos. Hopefully so unworn winter scarves/mitts off to cs tomorrow. Have a great week-end everyone, but one hour less kondo time.