KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Serendipitious

Well done Thistle-down, makes a massive difference and worth every moment of effort. I bet you keep going in there to take a peek at what you've achieved. :j:j

I am very envious of your closet - I have had similar in previous places and they don't feel instrusive in a room like wardrobes do. I really dislike wardrobes because of their bulk and the way they dominate a room.

Everyone's doing so well. Apparently it's Recycle Week 12-18 Sept., I am beginning to think people should come on this thread for advice and a kick-start!

http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/recycle-week-2016

And a competition here in 4 days time:

http://www.recyclenow.com/recycleweek

Only normal rubbish/recycling out so far today, but only grocery in as incomings.

I do have bids on a Bay item with 8 watchers and 5 days still to go, so am hopeful.

VJsmum

Bit behind

Min's game day #10

1 pair split fake crocs
1 pair slippers
1 pair boots
1 pair ankle boots

all the above past their prime and unrecyclable

1 random pink child's mitten - why was that in the car?
1 smashed, scrapped and nakkered mobile phone
1 receipt for a skip we had when we kondoed the sheds earlier in the year (2 sheds - i can honestly say that we haven't missed them)
1 receipt for a hotel OH stayed in last year
1 leaflet for a church in Paris
Some random paid credit card statements from 15 months ago

Photos

1 of DD as a bridesmaid with someones thumb over the lens
1 of DS as a baby with half his head chopped off - this was in an album amongst other, similar photos
1 random crowd shot from a birhtday party
1 of niece on bike with her back to the camera
5 of our honeymoon that are really dark and / or are bizarre (box of snails!!)
1 of our honeymoon where i look dreadful.... and OH looks about 10 :rotfl:

mrs-moneypenny

Well done thistle that looks fantastic.

Welcome dill

Currently kondoing the peel from potatoes (scrapping them) lol will do more tomorrow. Plan to kondo ironing pile tomorrow while carpet fitters are here.

Thistle-down

Thank you all! I think I needed to get one small area completely finished just to prove to myself that I can actually do it. Being able to enjoy my clean closet and bedside area will hopefully keep the motivation going to finish the rest of the house.

I've been up 3 times so far to look at it. :j

It may have been covered before, but what do you do with a huge pile containing all different sorts of items? The pile is too big to pull out (or even find) individual items, say if I wanted to sort through books only. Lord knows how many books may or may not be lurking in the pile.

GreyQueen

Thistle-down wrote: »

Thank you all! I think I needed to get one small area completely finished just to prove to myself that I can actually do it. Being able to enjoy my clean closet and bedside area will hopefully keep the motivation going to finish the rest of the house.

I've been up 3 times so far to look at it. :j

It may have been covered before, but what do you do with a huge pile containing all different sorts of items? The pile is too big to pull out (or even find) individual items, say if I wanted to sort through books only. Lord knows how many books may or may not be lurking in the pile.

We've all experienced this slipping back to peek at a kondo'd space, just to check it hasn't lapsed.

I nipped into the Bedroom Cupboard of Doom in Mum & Dad's room (it's about the same size as your closet, but only about half as deep, judging by your pix). I straightened a couple of boxes on the shelf and slightly moved one thing on the hanging rail away from the outside wall, but that was just me being me.

It was still orderly! Cannot believe it!

Re great tangles of Stuff, or 'mare's nests' as I think of them, I regard sorting as various stages.

1. Go through and remove obvious bits of trash like sweetie wrappers, the hangers off pairs of socks, broken bricks etc etc.

2. Roughly sort by category; apparel, footwear, stationery, toiletries, whatever you have in there.

3. Take each category to a flat surface like the bed and sort the socks from the tam o'shanters and kondo them; are they joyous, carp or just misplaced?

4. If there are a lot of tiny things, I sling them onto a tray and take them somewhere I can sit in comfort. Small things can be very time-consuming and you may have to spend more than one session with a trayful of tiddlers. I like to chit-chat or watch something whilst sorting.

It works for me, anyway.;)

milasavesmoney

Threw out face powder I had had for 25 yrs or longer. :eek:

Minimise-to-Maximise

Thistle-down wrote: »

I posted this on my diary as well, but it really belongs here:

It took 5 1/2 hours, but I did it. I only kept about 5 things to sell, it felt more important to get the clothes out of the house ASAP than to make an extra pound here and there.

I have all my too-small-but-keeping clothes in one large and one small suitcase stored in the closet, everything else that fits is hung up or put away in the drawers (rolled and folded as in the book, the space left is astounding!) I took 6 huge bags to the charity box across the street.

I did make an unexpected stop in the middle - once the closet was empty, it seemed like a good time to make the shelf. Not sure how smart this was, but 45 mins later and it was up. Well worth the extra effort.

I managed to do my all my handbags (now in the wicker basket on the new shelf) and some shoes, but the rest of my shoes are scattered around the house so need to get them all in one place before doing it properly. The ones in the bedroom are in the grey laundry basket under my clothes.

It was very hard work, I don't know if I could put that kind of effort in every day but certainly at least twice a week. I feel like I accomplished something huge today.

Before (there's clothes in the blue and red suitcases, too):



After:

That's an amazing transformation Thistle-down. And extra bonus points for speed DIY with the shelf in the middle of the mass sort out.

I laughed out loud at GQ narrowingly missing injury with an anti clutter book and really loved everyone's musings on photos.

I still haven't even started sorting mine. Worse still is the fact I also have some film clips on an two different old camera that used two different types of cassettes. One broke so I couldn't view the cassettes any more let alone save to a different format. I bought a replacement camera on eeeebae but still haven't started the transfer process. I can transfer to DVD I suppose but how long will I or anyone else have a DVD player for?

And then there are the film recordings on an old digital camera that are sitting on memory cards. Plus clips on my ageing laptop and on my phone. I know the kids will want me to keep them. And I want to have my memories of family members sadly departed and of the kids as littlies but it's so overwhelming.

Every winter for the past ten years I've meant to do this task and it's just got bigger. :eek:

It's my wedding anniversary this month. I've been married for a decade more or less and still don't have a wedding album :rotfl::o

GreyQueen

That Freedom from Clutter book was actually lost in the bookcase on the other side of their sitting-room for years. When it eventually resurfaced, I oh-so-nonchalantly placed it accessibly on the wall unit. It's that small white-background hardcover edition which can deliver quite a wallop.

Am hiding upstairs from Janet S-P on telly, her voice really grates on my sensitivities. I did manage to get Mum to agree I could bin a 'Trainee Pensioner' comedy badge - or button as the Americans would have it - only about 12 years after the retirement card it came on was recycled.

Have made plans for the next three days' worth of activities which will see us blatting around the county. I have been 98 miles today and twice passed a DVLA patrol van lurking on different roads. Yup, this car is a [STRIKE]piece of[/STRIKE][STRIKE][/STRIKE] err taxed and insured vehicle registered to an address about 20 miles from where you saw it, guv'nor.

I also lined up some of the bookslide fiction beside her chair and it turns out that she's read one of them. I didn't understand how as she has a read-and-chazzer-pile them and this one was in the back of the unit behind other books - it was keeping company with the cookbooks and French dictionaries and birdwatching books which landed en masse on my noggin.

Turns out she had duplicate copies of this particular work of fiction.

silvasava

Out all day yesterday and only managed to Kondo 5 cartons to some friends for packing. Managed a bit more today but RL keeps getting in the way!
So, about 8 leaflets/ booklets gone into recycling and a hair product spray gone to a friend and a can of hair mousse going to another friend. A!so managed to Kondo some money for DH's car insurance but haggled another £25.00 off so paying less than last year.
Am home all day tomorrow so really hoping to make big inroads - DH already wants me to kondo some of his hair and beard lol.

Siebrie

I have kondoed some paperwork: dd1's last year's schoolwork, doodles from dd2, 'craft' from both dds. I have put everything at the bottom of the old paper box, otherwise they will want it kept. On this type of paperwork I make executive decisions!

And I kondoed two tasks that were nagging me: I got hold of the horseriding instructor and booked dd1 on her first ever horseriding class, and I decided I did not want to join the BBB classes in the village. I will join them when they have returned to normal gymnastics lessons halfway October. That will save €5 per session, although that is not the motivator; I just could not find out what to wear/bring, and it was bothering me. Silly, actually, but easier not to go then to keep on worrying, I don't have the time or the energy for worrying. I know what to wear for gymnastics.

I have involved dh more in the after school schedule he stops work at three, and can pick up the girls from their schools at 15.30. Monday and Thursday dd1 has math tutoring at 16.15, Friday dd2 has swimming at 17.10. Not too bad, seeing I take dd1 to music on Wednesdays at 15.15, and dd2 to ballet at 17.00. Now I have just added horseriding on Saturdays at 10.30. Busy, but I think we will manage.