the life-changing magic of tidying up

just got this for kindle. i have housekeeping problems. i don't want to be ashamed at the state of my home anymore. document your life-changing magic here.

I am much more inclined to straighten up, organize and declutter than I am to sweep, vacuum, dust or mop. So much more satisfying!

i'm confused. what did you get for the kindle?

thread's title is also a book's title

sorry for confuse

I made it through the first stage in this book: the bedroom. My wife and I cleaned out our closet, drawers, extra storage, etc. It took an entire day, and we don't own a lot of clothing. But I now have only what my little three-drawer dresser can contain, as well as half a closet shelf of sweaters and six dress shirts. I donated seven bags of clothing to epilepsy foundation.

Most essential and fakey-zen thought for me: sometimes the purpose of a piece of clothing is to teach you that you no longer want/need/will wear it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/garden/home-organization-advice-from-marie-kondo.html?_r=0

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/10/23/garden/23TIDY3/23JPTIDY3-blog427.jpg

it's good. i like her style. i made 3 bags of trash but i need to do some other things today so i'm not totally following the instructions.

Mr. Jaq and I did the whole "put all the clothing in a pile in the front room" thing and got rid of so much stuff that did not bring the joy. It's been spilling into other areas of our existence - like we cleared everything off the dining room table finally and have kept things that would normally be piled there put away. It's more relaxing to be home now.

I am having trouble w/ the books purging. I suffered a traumatic book loss once, and I've got book-hoarding down to an art. Plus, I mean, I'm an English teacher. Last summer (pre-Kondo), I got rid of ~40% of my books, and now I'm down to six Billy-sized cases. Given that it's basically the only thing I collect/love as a physical object, I'm hoping that MK will look the other way re: my library.

Kitchen is next. I kondo'd my home office last week, and it was super easy. Who needs a bajillion paperclips? Not me. Who has them? Apparently everybody. I now have one shoe box full of office supplies, and I'm feeling p. radical about it.

I don't think the books or records will ever not bring the joy. Bathroom and linen closet is the next area for me to take on.

i did this too, it was great

i have to take one more pass at the books i will never read though

a friend of mine is super into this and claims its really amazing. idk i love stuff, owning stuff, looking at stuff i own. also my apt is clean already

moving every couple of years helps with this, since it's a pain to pack and unpack. so we just give a lot of stuff away each time. should just stop buying stuff I guess

if you are satisfied with your house situation i don't think this book is for you, lampy

i like theories about organization though

what do you like about it harbl?

i like how she is kind of extreme and doesn't bother to talk about why i procrastinate or you need to Always Be Cleaning crap that i have always had trouble with. just throw your life in the garbage.

What was th emost expensive thing you threw out

Wha t was the heaviest

it's not really a theory of organization, it's more just extreme anti-clutter. it's easy to be organized if you have like, no stuff.

i didn't throw out anything expensive or heavy yet. i don't own anything expensive!

I am much more inclined to straighten up, organize and declutter than I am to sweep, vacuum, dust or mop. So much more satisfying!

― Aimless, Sunday, February 22, 2015 1:22 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same, great tidier, virtuoso throw of things into the garbage, terrible cleaner

i wish i could throw out my car

The secret to having a tidy dwelling is to keep all your shit at your parents :~}

i bought this house like a year and a half ago and still my second bedroom is the don't-want-to-unpack zone. slowly i have just been throwing everything in there away. it makes me feel so free. i only have 2 cardboard boxes left but also some plastic totes. i'm going to dump their contents. i haven't used any of the stuff in them.

i live to donate garbage bags of my crap

i recently threw 2 xl garbage bags of clothes in to a donation bin

right now i have a garbage bag full of dumb towels that were cluttering up my closet

and a bag full of books I will never read

:D

The best thing for me is her clothes folding and "vertical" drawer stacking - that continues to be awesome everywhere I apply it.

We still have 2 pallets of banker boxes, stacked 4 high, in the basement from our move to this house 5 years ago. Maybe by summer I'll be up to tackling them.

throw them in the river m8

Have to touch each thing, see if there's joy, then into the river

let the river touch joy --the life-changing magic of tidying up pt 2

i bought this as a pass agg birthday gift for my boyfriend in a fit of pique but after it came it just sat on the porch for a week because i was gone and so the post office sent it back. amazon gave me a refund and i didn't even have to do anything. very clutter-free.

Burn After Cleaning

i bought this book today

It is my intention to have far less things. Compared to most people I know, I am light on useless crap. Sometimes I buy small ceramic things and I have some feminist art I found at a bus stop and carried home once. I am willing to part with all the things that do not give me joy. I have many things that give me anxiety, like a vase with a weird crackly surface. When I see this vase I worry that it will get dirty and that I will have to clean it and that in cleaning it the surface will crack more and more. I should probably get rid of it. I think I could start a very well curated Etsy store for tasteful 1970s pottery.

My problem is more about clothes. I need much more clothes than the ones that give me joy for practical reasons. I work with special needs kids, I cycle everywhere, rain and shine. I have a whole pile of clothes that exist to get destroyed by the elements, I need a t-shirt to wear everyday in hot weather. Sometimes two. I don't want to ruin my "special spark of joy" trousers by wearing them when I cycle across town and then get vomited on by a four year old. I need a pair of jeans to wear when I paint the hallway or a t-shirt i don't mind getting splattered when I cook. the problem with so many decluttering minimalist manifestos that i see is that it doesn't keep in mind the fact that I sometimes don't have time to do a wash and I often have to do things that are dirty or messy. I always have to bear in mind that my parents are basically hoarders and I have to stop myself from keeping things that "might come in handy" all the time.

is everything supposed to have a "special spark of joy"? what is "joy" anyway? I have a box of lightbulbs, a flashlight, an off-brand leatherman, laundry detergent, and a tin where I keep quarters for laundry, in the weird built in shelf thing by my door. I feel satisfied that I have these things, and that they are in that place because it is strategic and convenient. Is that the same thing as "joy" ... idk

I have too much stuff and have clutter issues but I'm going to stick with "emotional resonance" or "physical need" when cleaning. My joy is internal, thanks

except for that mop I bought, the joy mop

my mop is pretty damn dope.

i haven't read the book (my mom has it), but does the author address the issue of items related to one's menstrual cycle?

i also realized that the majority of space in my apartment is taken up by things that are part of an "archive" or "library" ... where the thing is a part of a larger collection of things, so it isn't just about my relationship with each individual thing.

but for the most part (like 99%), everything I own is either art/knowledge-related or it is functional. I don't have a bunch of trinket-y things. I have very few things that are mementos or are kept for purely sentimental reasons.

i'm moving house tomorrow and christ alive do my partner and i own far too many books. she'd never let me get rid of them though

my wife read this book (or some of it at least) and said it's mostly about folding things and rolling clothes up into tubes and dumb shit like that

The clothes-into-tubes thing is cool - that way you can see all of your shirts in the drawer rather than just what's at the top of the stack...

Xp lol no it's not

It's a great book if you can see past some of "whimsical" wording - which is prob the result of translation - and the "spark of joy" in relation to practical items is explained pretty well; the point isn't getting rid of stuff, it's about deciding what's worth keeping and appreciating your shit and what your shit does for you. So the "joy" of tampons is supposed to be like "I appreciate these tampons bc they stop me leaking blood everywhere". So yeah it's corny af, but makes a lot of sense.

NB I read it a while ago and still haven't actually konmari'd any part of my house.

Xp lol no it's not

It's a great book if you can see past some of "whimsical" wording - which is prob the result of translation - and the "spark of joy" in relation to practical items is explained pretty well; the point isn't getting rid of stuff, it's about deciding what's worth keeping and appreciating your shit and what your shit does for you. So the "joy" of tampons is supposed to be like "I appreciate these tampons bc they stop me leaking blood everywhere". So yeah it's corny af, but makes a lot of sense.

NB I read it a while ago and still haven't actually konmari'd any part of my house.

Xp lol no it's not

It's a great book if you can see past some of "whimsical" wording - which is prob the result of translation - and the "spark of joy" in relation to practical items is explained pretty well; the point isn't getting rid of stuff, it's about deciding what's worth keeping and appreciating your shit and what your shit does for you. So the "joy" of tampons is supposed to be like "I appreciate these tampons bc they stop me leaking blood everywhere". So yeah it's corny af, but makes a lot of sense.

NB I read it a while ago and still haven't actually konmari'd any part of my house.

Fuck u, zing!!!

that describes like 80% of everything that everyone does

otm

tbf the show does address that thought - that by tidying up, you can actually move onto confronting your problems rather than avoiding it through clutter

and i can believe it somewhat - letting your home become a sprawling, unknownable mess is a pretty good metaphor

https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/3ydn2xJwzTh5NT2bGy5afw--~B/Zmk9c3RyaW07aD0zODY7cHlvZmY9MDtxPTgwO3c9NDQwO3NtPTE7YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b24-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/best_life_342/701376bbbee91a175b218b557f6324d3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPVk-m1Pr4s

kondo is great. accumulating too many possessions is bad.

Just hearing about this book / TV series over the last couple of weeks is basically giving me palpitations, and I'm going to find any way I can to mute it from everywhere I go.

🖼

I watched one ep -- to me it kind of sounds like every other "life changing" thing that only changes your life for about two weeks before you start to slide. Also, fuck folding t-shirts into little nugget shapes.

Getting rid of excess stuff is good, but you need to address the in-door and not just the out-door, i.e. how to avoid buying stuff you don't need in the first place. Otherwise you're just performing routine maintenance on your excessively consumeristic life. I find that we often go through that process of "Oh, x thing is ugly and doesn't serve a purpose" but then we wind up buying y thing that we convince ourselves will make our lives better than x thing did, and it doesn't. Same happens with clothing -- getting rid of stuff I wound up not wearing doesn't prevent me from falling for the same add'l 40% off sale items "well it's not exactly the color I want" trap over and over again.

isn't the idea that between the shock-awareness of doing it all at once (and seeing what your life can be like with less clutter), and the various little moves of being aware of each little thing and whether it sparks joy etc., that you're training yourself in a more mindful way of relating to possessions?

not that that precludes any backsliding!

Otherwise you're just performing routine maintenance on your excessively consumeristic life.

what's wrong with routine maintenance?

I think the point was that it would be more lasting and sensible to reject an "excessively consumeristic life" than to merely maintain it in a way that makes it more tolerable.

I think that to do a solid job I would need a dedicated amount of space and a sustained amount of time - neither of which is likely to become available in the near future.

I can nibble around the edges for minor quality-of-life improvements. A few days ago I cleaned out a coat closet. Donated outgrown coats, pitched solo mittens, unsentimentally jettisoned maybe 15 of the 25 scarves we've accumulated (almost all gifts, btw). I have never bought a scarf; I have worn a scarf maybe three times in my life. But I have gotten a scarf for Christmas at least 10 times in 47 years.

I can pretty readily do the same to the "stupid board games with one essential part missing" shelf. (Mostly gifts.) And the art supply bins in which fully half the markers have dried out, or half-abandoned craft projects. (Mostly, you guessed it, gifts.)

Sometimes seems like it's less our own purchasing habits, and more the well-meaning grandparents/aunts/uncles at birthdays and Christmas. We try to direct them away from giving Stuff. But for some folks the idea of a huge pile of gifts under the tree is a marker of love, and I can't always head it off.

Then there are the boxes I'd really like to go through to see what's in them. I don't have space or time to lay things out on a table even long enough to sort into piles (bills to pay, personal memorabilia,concert and movie ticket stubs, work samples, kid artwork, trash, stuff that is OBE, stuff that will never matter again, stuff I will be heartbroken to lose, etc.).

We need the table because that's where we eat. I get halfway through one pile and it's dinnertime again. Where does the stuff go? Back into the box labeled something like "miscellaneous personal save, 1994-2019"

at least change the label to "half-sorted miscellaneous personal, 1994-2019"

I would actually enjoy 'tidying up" peoples spaces. But I would be the opposite of Marie Kondo and probably traumatize people about all the decisions they made in their life.

Yerac, lol. "You paid ACTUAL money to see Limp Bizkit? In two thousand FOUR?"

I would make them tell me about the show first and their favorite lyric.

Otherwise you're just performing routine maintenance on your excessively consumeristic life.

what's wrong with routine maintenance?

― sarahell, Tuesday, January 22, 2019 7:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the point was that it would be more lasting and sensible to reject an "excessively consumeristic life" than to merely maintain it in a way that makes it more tolerable.

― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, January 22, 2019 8:07 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right, it's this. So many times I feel like we have gotten rid of something we "don't use" only to replace it with something else we convince ourselves will serve the same purpose better, and then we don't use that either or it's equally lacking in longevity. Purging consumer goods can easily become an integral part of consumeristic habits instead of an antidote to them--an essential part of dealing with the inflow of stuff rather than a means to a more minimalist life.

ENDING IS BETTER THAN MENDING

https://static.adweek.com/adweek.com-prod/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ikea-lamp-hed-2017-600x315.jpg

https://www.scifi-movies.com/images/contenu/data/0004210/affiche-brave-new-world-1980-1.jpg

I appreciate that someone wrote this article. I couldn't articulate a lot of this before . I think someone mentioned on the netflix thread about her shinto mindset.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marie-kondo-white-western-audineces_us_5c47859be4b025aa26bde77c?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&ir=Entertainment&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=women_fb&fbclid=IwAR3N6HJMCDeFg9bYOTmG1howmeMOI5WV3KQnPpirnwCGJddHvlM07lpI9nQ

interesting, but it also seems absurd that that joking tweet about books required an apology

Oh, I didn't even see that. My tweet blocking powers are getting stronger and stronger.

also totally makes sense to me because the little once more religious Jewish voice in the back of my head said "that's idol worship" when I was watching it, lol

thx for that article Yerac

I think the point was that it would be more lasting and sensible to reject an "excessively consumeristic life" than to merely maintain it in a way that makes it more tolerable.

― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, January 22, 2019 5:07 PM (yesterday)

this is kinda like my "waiting for the revolution" type anarchist friends that don't see the point of voting or getting involved in any form of activism that doesn't result in overthrowing capitalism, the patriarchy, etc.

lol what? It's nothing like that.

it kind of is because you are going to accumulate things and clutter and stuff you don't need because that is life in America, sorry.

or stuff you want for a while and then don't want -- consumerism is like gravity at this point -- sorry, this is just how I feel and also true

Buying behavior can just as much be altered as hording behavior. Of course no TV show is going to focus on not buying stuff though /trench

imo it's a trickle-down effect, by making you reconsider what you want to keep it makes you reconsider what you've been buying, and what you'll buy in the future

whether you buy it yourself, or receive it as gifts from well-meaning family members, like YMP's, you are gonna end up with a bunch of stuff you end up not wanting ... maybe not as much, but ...yeah, I challenge you to create an anti-clutter force field in yr home to prevent it from getting in.

Oh well for sure it can't be 100% stopped, I understand that well having a 3yo and a 7yo. We have a policy of throwing away all goodie bag junk after they go to sleep for example.

there’s kind of a Say’s law to clutter imo; having a tiny apartment helps. people with houses seem to love filling them up with random crap. my sister has an entire room in her house that’s just ‘storage’ (enormous piles of junk)

I have an anti-clutter forcefield. It was work though.

Plus it helps that my spouse was a techno hippie and he cleans his shit up like an adult.

having a tiny apartment helps. people with houses seem to love filling them up with random crap. my sister has an entire room in her house that’s just ‘storage’ (enormous piles of junk)

yeah!!! i remember when real estate ppl started selling the concept of the "bonus room" -- where the bonus room really was just a room to put piles of junk so the rest of the house could look fashionably tidy. otoh, I know plenty of people who live in small apartments that rent storage units.

Yeah was just talking about that with H -- we are a musician and artist and we always talk about wanting a house to have space for doing music and art. We just visited another musician/artist couple who had moved to a house with extra rooms, but they had managed to fill the extra rooms with crap and still not have space for music and art.

i just recently made more room in my apartment for music stuff -- such that, in theory, i could set up my drums in my living room -- which maybe i will do, however the downstairs neighbors would have an issue with me practicing them

Buy them earplugs

But them in little gift baskets with a note on scented paper saying you’re going to be drumming now

hahahah

everyone hates the drummer neighbour

having a tiny apartment helps. people with houses seem to love filling them up with random crap. my sister has an entire room in her house that’s just ‘storage’ (enormous piles of junk)

a reason why I am not allowed to live in a house with a basement ever again

Our last place had a garage and my husband was mad the new place didn’t - but guess what we never parked the damn car in there we just filled it with junk. Not having a garage means we def have accumulated way less junk in the last 5 yrs than we did in 2-3 yrs in the old place.

I do like doing the dishes tho, its a nice satisfying job that leaves the mind free

One of the big choices I make is whether to do the dishes every day or every other day. I need to judge how long it will take me then choose a musical selection of that duration. If I overshoot or undershoot timewise, I'm annoyed.

doing the dishes is a highlight of my day to be sure

I'm starting to enjoy a good hoovering as well

The importance of house cleaning has been growing for me over time, but it is also a source of stress and frustration because the other members of my household do not give it the same priority.