KonMari 2016 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

camelot1001

Kondo'd some free prosecco last night at a lovely christmas night at a beautiful shopping centre in Glasgow. 4 of us went, took advantage of their free drink and nibbles and none of us bought anything! We had a lovely meal and shared a bottle of wine and had a good catch up.

I'm having a new kitchen fitted next week, walls need to be plastered, lighting changed, etc, etc. Advertised the old kitchen for free on Gumtr££ (no takers from freegle) and someone is coming to take it away as it is removed. From the e-mails and texts from this chap, they don't have a fitted kitchen and he has offered to buy the sink, hob and extractor - he's coming over on Sunday to have a look and keeps thanking me, says it's the chance of a lifetime. If he is genuine he can have the sink, hob and extractor, will have to judge when he turns up. Otherwise, I will ask him to make a donation to my preferred charity.I will save the money earmarked for a skip which will help.

Packing everything into boxes, quite a lot for the CS which I will take tomorrow, along with the glass for the bottle bank, feels good to be getting clutter free!

elona

I went to get weighed yesterday morning and have kondoed three and a half pounds and was slimmer of the week :j

I lugged home a huge bag of fruit, gave some to dd and had six portions of fruit for breakfast this morning. There is still a large tray full to eat before it goes funny.

Most of the Christmas presents have been wrapped and I just have little items for stocking presents to sort as they got delivered today.

GQ

I love historical mysteries especially Paul Doherty, Alys Clare, Michael Jecks etc.

MMF007

I seem to have Kondo'd all the energy from my arms n shoulders! Wallpaper 90% done. The bits left don't need me to erect pasting table (hooray), and will wait til tomorrow.
No point doing the last fiddly bits while kn4ckered, will only make a mistake.
The paper is quite dark but has a lovely shimmer and it sits above some pale cream, textured tiles. I think it looks very good and weirdly it seems to make the small (albeit south-facing) room look bigger?!
DH has muttered about a tart's boudoir. :rotfl:
Once the plan blind is back up he'll see the full effect

As the paper had no pattern match ( a cunning plan!) there is little waste to kondo

Am planning on getting all fleeces, jackets and heavy jumpers together tomorrow to see what magic sparks happen and what can go.

GreyQueen

Morning all.

I have been enjoying one of my rare insominical nights so have amused myself of minimalism websites and thinking about Things. And Stuff, I was thinking about Stuff, too. And about why we keep things over and above needs, to the point where our life becomes difficult, uncomfortable, argumentative, dangerous even.

My Thought for Today is that we do it because of Fear.

Fear that we won't have enough shoes, tee-shirts or knickers and will end up having to go barefoot, topless or even commando. That lack will make us vulnerable.

Fear that we won't have the Right Kind of Stuff and that people will look down on us for being unfashionable, shabby, boring or sad. And no one will love us and we'll die alone and be eaten by Alsations. Even though we've never owned a dog in our lives and have no plans to start now.

Fear that if we part with Things, or decline to acquire Things, we won't fit in with society and will be friendless, alone and possibly even turned on by the pack. Happy memories of schoolyard bullies come to my mind here, for heinous crimes like Having the Wrong Shoes.

Fear that if we don't look after the Things, no one else would ever want them, and they would end up in a tip somewhere and be Wasted. By holding onto them, we stop that happening for a few years/ generations. And get to have part of our homes as warehouses/ substitute landfills.

Fear that if we release Things now, we will need them in the future and won't be able to get them. Because they won't exist, or we'll be poor and won't be able to afford them. Or they won't be exactly right and we'll have to use inferior Things and thus be inferior people.

Bearing in mind the Scariness of all this, it can seem reasonable to have everything we need now, plus a replacement, plus a replacement for the replacement, plus the old Stuff which we replaced because it wasn't good/ fashionable/ modern enough.

;):o:p:D If you find Justin, please send him my regards.

MMF007

To prevent anxiety I have a SMALL cupboard for supplies bought on offer (eg, coffee, dark choc, washing liquid, etc). It is all neat and orderly and I really do like having that arrangement. It partly stems from a joy of getting items on offer (careful price-tracking pays off!), and partly because I used to live miles from any shops so a practical reserve was necessary.

After years of experience finding a perfect pair of work shoes but never being able to find the same again the following year I do have 2 duplicates pairs (neatly boxed, stored in cool dry, out of the way location). I did a quick check last week and realise there are a couple of pairs I haven't worn for ages, maybe 2 or 3 years, so I do need to revisit this category!

I refuse to have spare pillows because we cannnot have guests (no spare room, too old to sleep on LR floor).

I think we have more towels than we need because I asked for, and was given, 3 gorgeous towels last xmas and I haven't released any of prev stock. Will visit that category in future. All stock still go with bathroom decor so it will be a case of checking sizes / wear.

As mentioned yester, I am aware of the need to do the joy test on warm fleeces, jumpers and poncho-type thingies. When I was an employee I worked at home one day a week (because there was not enough room in the office for the staff, we all did one day a week at home) and in winter I used to wear a big fleecy poncho to keep warm during this sedentary day. I suspect that can go now because when I am home now I am active :j There may be others to go and now would be a good time to give to CS.

I do think that the KM journey, well doing it steadily rather than in one big hit, develops one's sense of proportion

Best Kondo of the week - another 1.5lbs. Had stuck a bit for a few weeks so revisited the diet book and found my mistake. Amended behaviour and Lo and Behold, success!
A bit like The Life Changing Magic - if the process is spluttering, revisit first principles!

Have a great Saturday All,

M

Poppy_Golightly

Well thought out and considered opinion. Totally agree xx

tibawo

That 'fear' really rings true Grey Queen. For me it is mainly the fear of not having the right stuff. It also used to be fear of parting with things too but I am learning with the support of everyone on here going through the same issues that ' I paid good money for that' needs to be balanced with the joy it brought, and for me, will I realistically use it again!

This week I have released some more things on eBay and taken a bag of stuff to cash for clothes. A week on weds all the craft staff things will be gone. Any left overs are going on a car boot job lot. I don't want it hanging around as knowing me it will be shoved on a shelf and start to multiply!

My 'work in progress' shelves is coming along well. Being realistic I think I will not add anything else to it as I doubt I will have time to sort anything extra before Xmas and I ear marked the space for the tree!I have a box of half finished craft things that is diminishing and one shelf is filling up presents which will go once people have their trees up!

I need a book case and found the ideal one on eBay but it had no measurements so I emailed the seller. Got a response of it is nearly three foot. What's nearly ? An estimate? Slightly under/over? By a cm or an inch? The book case needs to fit in an alcove so a nearly measurement is not ideal.

Have a good weekend all. As the man in red will be here in less than a month why not motivate yourself by thinking of the 'joy' the items you have finished with might be ideal in bringing others joy in 2017?

greent

Pooky wrote: »

Will be kondoing a big chunk of savings tomorrow morning as DD2 passed her driving test today and we'll be getting car insurance tomorrow - it's a good job I've mentally detactched myself from the money as it's an eye watering amount.

My DD passed hers back in July. I added her to my car insce the same day - my policy runs from 1st May, so it was for just under 10 months. I have a 7yo car (Golf, not a high insurance group at all) with limited annual mileage of 5000 and my personal no claims is full level. To add her was £1250!!! :eek::eek: (including a £35 'admin fee':mad:) I spoke to our neighbour about it (he's a manger of an insurance brokers and he said we had a good deal! :eek:

I feel for the younger generation - OH and I bought a 2 bed house at 21 with a £2k deposit (house was 42k) and had a car and a motor bike. Annual car insurance was around £150. How on earth anyone is meant to get on the property ladder (same house we bought now sells for £130k - way beyond the reach of 2 21yos nowadays) is beyond me

Charis

GreyQueen wrote: »

Morning all.

I have been enjoying one of my rare insominical nights so have amused myself of minimalism websites and thinking about Things. And Stuff, I was thinking about Stuff, too. And about why we keep things over and above needs, to the point where our life becomes difficult, uncomfortable, argumentative, dangerous even.

My Thought for Today is that we do it because of Fear.

For most people that fear is either because of memories of austerity, which for working class folk persisted well into the sixties, and often beyond, or because they already have huge debts encouraged in our capitalist system (student loans, credit cards, mortgages). The reaction is often to buy yet more things to comfort oneself that one still has a place in society and the kids don't stand out as being different at school. My granddaughter's mother has just bought her the new iPhone. On credit, I have no doubt. It's unlikely that she will be able to use it as they can't afford broadband or phone credits. Illogical, but so is this broken society in which we are trying to survive.

MMF007 wrote: »

I do think that the KM journey, well doing it steadily rather than in one big hit, develops one's sense of proportion

Last night I watched the new series of The Gilmore Girls on Netflix with my daughter. She was rolling about with mirth when the rich, middle class, American granny of the two main characters, was having some kind of a breakdown after her husband had died and she had a whole army of helpers boxing up her goods for disposal (or storage, it wasn't clear which). The reason she gave was that she had 'read a book by a Japanese woman called Marie Kondo called "The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying"'. Hilarious. She was wearing a pair of her daughter's old jeans and a scruffy teashirt because nothing was bringing her joy. It was just a passing phase. For her, the approval of her peers outweighed the bliss of offloading her burden of stuff. Definitely not a thing to attempt in one big hit, especially at a time when the balance of one's thinking is askew. More a habit to develop as we go. Discretion takes time to learn after a lifetime of hoarding.

Pooky

greent wrote: »

My DD passed hers back in July. I added her to my car insce the same day - my policy runs from 1st May, so it was for just under 10 months. I have a 7yo car (Golf, not a high insurance group at all) with limited annual mileage of 5000 and my personal no claims is full level. To add her was £1250!!! :eek::eek: (including a £35 'admin fee':mad:) I spoke to our neighbour about it (he's a manger of an insurance brokers and he said we had a good deal! :eek:

I feel for the younger generation - OH and I bought a 2 bed house at 21 with a £2k deposit (house was 42k) and had a car and a motor bike. Annual car insurance was around £150. How on earth anyone is meant to get on the property ladder (same house we bought now sells for £130k - way beyond the reach of 2 21yos nowadays) is beyond me

This is one of the reasons we saved and saved to buy each of them a decent little first car and to be able to tax and insure if for them for the first year. Both are sensible girls and as soon as they started driving lessons they put money aside towards car maintenance, the next years tax, insurance and MOT so they'll be in the habit of saving for it before it's due rather than having to pay it monthly which often costs more. Both intend to save for a flat deposit whilst living at home and paying keep rather than rushing into renting somewhere and losing the chance to save.

We've been saving since they hit teenage years for this, a bit here and there. We don't do holidays and they've never asked for designer items or after school activities etc so we feel pleased that we've managed to give them both the independent that will set them up for the next stages of their lives. DD1 has been able to get a really good job along side Uni because she drives, this allows her to run her car and save for the future.

It's hard going for the youngsters of today but in reality there was no way on earth my parents could have afforded to pay for driving lessons for me, let alone buy me a car so it's all relative.

My first house was £36k and we got 100% mortgage for it with an income of just £8k - that was 18 years ago now and houses along that road sell for around the £185k now which is daft.