The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Somewhere I read something recently about this book, the life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing."  The word "decluttering" got my attention. When I stumbled on it in Target one day, I bought it. 

I hate clutter.  I like for things to be in their place, but I tend to collect things.  Before I know it, I have tons of stuff and many times, it just sits there unused.  So, the thought of decluttering drew me to this book.  Not only do we have too much stuff, but we will eventually be trying to sell our house.  My thinking is that if I can declutter and organize now, it will make things so much easier later when we try to sell and then eventually move.  Also, sometimes I feel quite overwhelmed with taking care of my home and that my home gets in the way of my family.  I would love to change this.

The gist of this book is "Effective tidying involves only two essential actions:  discarding and deciding where to store things.  Of the two, discarding must come first."

Here are some other quotes from the book that explain it:

When you tidy your space completely, you transform the scenery.  The change is so profound that you feel as if you are living in a totally different world.

The key is to make the change so sudden that you experience a complete change of heart.

Tidy in the right order.

Do not even think of putting your things away until you have finished the process of discarding.

Typically people tidy by location.  The author of this book says not to do that.  We tend to store the same type of item in more than one place.  She suggests tidying by category.  The way it works is you gather up all of a similar item and throw it in the middle of the floor or wherever--just all together.  Then, you take each item in your hand and ask:  "Does this spark joy"  If it does, you keep it and if it does not, you get rid of it.  It sounds a little cheesy, but I was willing to give it a try.

The author suggests an order that you use and so I decided to start that way.  She recommends clothes first, then books, papers, miscellaneous, and finally momentos (the hardest things to get rid of).  If a category is too big, you can break it down.  So, with clothes, you can break it down to tops, pants, socks, etc.

It was time to change out our clothes from winter to summer, so the timing was right to start with my clothes.  So, on the first Saturday in April, I got to work on tidying my clothes.  These are all seasons of my clothes i.e. tops, bottoms, socks, underwear, etc.

It took a while, but I narrowed it down A LOT!  The author of the book says that as long as you are choosing clothes that give you pleasure, you'll be left with the amount you need.  I really saw this to be true!

I made a pile to throw away, a pile to donate, and a pile to keep to sell.  I loaded up quite a few trash bags full of stuff (forgot to count) and took it to Goodwill.  I boxed up some things that were a bit nicer that I think I can sell and put them in the attic.  

The recommended storage method of all that is left is folding.  This was interesting to me.  I know some people already do it, but I have always thought most things needed to be hung up so that I could see what I had.  Well, boy was I wrong.  The author says that by neatly folding your clothes, you can solve almost every problem related to storage.  She suggests storing things by standing them up rather than laying them flat.  I googled some of her videos of how to fold things.  You basically fold each item into a simple, smooth rectangle.  She also says not to ball up your socks which was something else I have always done.  You fold them.  So interesting.

So, here are some of the after pictures.  I am loving this so far.  I don't think it has added too much more time to putting away my clean clothes either.  

This is all of my clothes for both winter and summer--in my closet--not the off-season in my attic.  I really really like this!!  The only thing I didn't take a picture of was my winter shoes.  They are more bulky so they are in a different place.

The really cool thing about this was that Hannah was watching me do this and decided she wanted to do it too.  So, she worked on her own clothes at the same time.  YAY!

I eventually got around to doing the boys clothes too.  They aren't able to have both seasons of clothes in their closet right now though because they share a closet.  I am so glad that I was able to get rid of stuff and decide what I want to sell in Rhea Lana in the fall.  I am ahead of the game there.  Now, I am not 100% sure that they will keep their drawers looking all nice and tidy because they are little boys afterall, but we shall see.

I have not been able to get Kris on board yet.  Maybe in time.  He has a ton of dress clothes that he wears daily.  He insists that he wears everything.

I waited a couple of weeks and tackled my books.  We definitely had books in more than one place in our house.  I did not do the kids' books that they have in their rooms.  Hannah did go through hers herself, but I have not done the boys' bookshelf yet because I wanted them to have a say in what to keep or discard.  I forgot to take a picture of the bookcases before, but here is one after I had started to empty them.

I think these were some of Hannah's books.

As for books, the author says that you need to forget about whether you think you will read it again.  Instead, take each book in your hand and decide whether it moves you or not.  Keep only those books that will make you happy just to see them on your shelves, the ones that you really love.  This was pretty hard for me.  I love books.  However, it has made me rethink purchasing books especially for my Book Club.  I am also bad about finding a book that I want to read and just keeping a stack that I intend to eventually get to.  She says the moment you first encounter a particular book is the right time to read it.  I think this is probably true.

These are our bookcases now.  Again, I donated some and kept some to sell later.

I kept our set of the classics in the living room book shelves and I have a few on my night stand.  Other than that, this is pretty much what I had leftover.

Talk about a weight lifted off.  I am convinced that this method, called the Konmari Method, really works.  She says that it will take about 6 months to complete everything.  I like that.  You can't do it all in one sitting.  Probably the area that I am most excited about working on is my kitchen stuff.  Hopefully, I will get to it this summer!  I plan on documenting my progress!!