A bedroom!
As I mentioned previously, when we have moved, I have attempted to create rooms that I love. I suck at decorating and I suck at organizing. I have big ideas in my head but rarely do they translate into a nice, peaceful room. Here is why:
1. I see new room, I envision how it "could" look.
2. I vow to only put the things in room that I need and get rid of the rest.
3. I can't commit to getting rid of things
4. End of move crunch time hits where we just throw things in boxes to figure out later.
5. Every time I try to organize room, piles just get moved to another room or I spend time finding specific spots for each item, knowing full well that I can't and won't put that much stuff away every day.
A major part of this book and a point that I highlighted in the previous post is that using this method, which Marie Kondo has nicknamed the "KonMari Method" or "KM" for short, is the complete opposite of what we have been taught to do.
Think about it, you decide you want to clean and organize your closet, so what do you do?
1. Go through the closet and pull out the items you don't want to keep.
2. Try to organize the rest.
In essence, we have always been taught that you choose what to get rid of.
Kondo teaches exactly the opposite. Using the KonMari Method, you instead choose what to KEEP and discard all the rest. This simple change is what makes ALL the difference.
I started out extreme. I always do. I deviated from the book slightly in that I DID basically do a whole room. Although she wouldn't recommend doing this, she does state that every person must modify it to suit their needs. Doing something is better than doing nothing, but she encourages following as closely to the book as you can.
My personality is such that I NEED instant gratification. I NEEDED to see right away, before I wasted time on this, if it would work for me. If I would stick with it, vs the methods I've tried before where it lasted a few days and then became a disaster again.
So I got up early one morning and I emptied the master bedroom. To me, this was one of the most important rooms to do, because it didn't feel restful. When I cleaned, it would be an organized mess, clean, and somewhat organized, but still too full of stuff and NOT a peaceful place to be. If I followed the method exactly, rather than do the room, I would have brought all my clothes out and sorted that first. I chose to empty the room and closet. When I was done, the only items left in the room and closet were the bed and nightstands. I stripped the bedding off, I took every last item out. Alarm clocks, lamps, everything.
I'm going to share a before, but this isn't typical of the way the room looked, we had just gotten back from vacation and I was overwhelmed with laundry and catching up and stuff was just stacking up.
As you can see, it was pretty bad, not a place anyone wants to go to rest and relax. There was the broken down old dresser that we dragged in just to have a place to put clothes. The toddler bed that was really just a place to stack laundry since the toddler never actually slept in it. And just a lot of stuff.
I stopped here and went to ikea. If I was going to follow her method and try and fold most things, we needed an actual working dresser. She cautions against going out and purchasing things. You actually aren't supposed to until you are done. But I felt this was different and was needed. It took Elizabeth and I another almost 6 hours to put the damn dresser together. At that point, we moved the furniture around a little and put the freshly washed bedding on the bed and went to sleep.
The next morning, I started on the clothes. I had piled everything in the living room. Did I tell you how it has to get worse before it can get better? If I haven't...it HAS TO GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER. WAY, WAY WORSE. There aren't any words for what my front room looked like for the next 2 days. I lived in fear that the landlord would knock on the door or something and I would have to explain this mess.
I started by going through my clothing, I picked up each and every item and thought about it. That sounds time consuming, but it isn't. As she says, when you actually touch an item, you know right away whether it "sparks joy" for you. Does it fit well, do you enjoy wearing it. DID you actually wear it often. Now, I just went through my clothing 6 months ago and I HAD NOT bought much new since then. I just always felt obligated to keep things. I kept long sleeved undershirts because I might need them in the winter, who cares that the sleeves were too short for my monkey arms....it was better than nothing.
Not this time. If I didn't specifically like the item, it went into the donate pile and I had a small pile of "undecided". It went pretty quickly, much more quickly than I thought it would. At the end, I had a small panic that I would be walking around naked, I had so few clothes left. My donate pile was more than 3 times the size of the keep pile.
One of the things in the book that I found myself snickering over was that Kondo advises that you "thank" your clothing. No matter if you are keeping or discarding, you should thank it. Sounds silly right? I'm not talking to my clothes...sorry. But guess what...I did. Silently. And in a Jimmy Fallon "Thank You Notes" sort of voice.
"Thank you, black blazer from 2002, for getting me through numerous job interviews and meetings. Someone else needs you now, I hope you work just as well for her as you have for me."
"Thank you, pretty pink flowered dress 2 sizes too small, for making me look cute as hell when I met my now ex husband. Thank you, for hanging in my closet all these years waiting for me to fit into you again, just so that I can say I did. And thank you, Marie Kondo, for teaching me that I don't have to prove that to myself or anyone else. Now I can give you to someone else 20 years younger who can actually wear and appreciate you, which is such a better life than getting dusty in a closet."
I cannot even put into words how it feels to have that weight and expectation lifted off your shoulders. I felt a hundred pounds lighter just letting go of stuff and expectations.
Have I mentioned that KonMari is about so much more than a clutter free home? It is. When she says "the life changing magic...", she _means_ LIFE CHANGING.
Already, I felt better. Not just mentally, but physically. I had more energy, less pain. I just felt better. What is this voodoo??!!
Once I decided what I was keeping, I started folding. Once again, I thought her methods sounded ludicrous and time consuming. But hey...why not give it a try, even though I doubted it would stay that way. I fully expected that within a week, I'd be cramming clothing into drawers again.
What I learned- I love it. I love the act of folding each item. Of look it over to decide if I still want to wear it, if it still brings me joy.
I'm writing this 30 days after the fact, I wasn't about to spend a lot of time writing about a process that didn't work. Not to spoil the plot for you, but 30 days later, my drawers and closet look exactly the same.
My old life: begrudgingly do laundry once the pile is roughly the size of Pike's Peak. Stack it on the couch as it comes out of the dryer. *Maybe* fold it and leave the folded laundry on the couch. Occasionally put the folded laundry away which was usually open a drawer, stuff it in, slam it shut. Most often, look at Mt Laundry and feel overwhelmed and go do something else.
My new life: sounds weird...but i've been doing it for 30 days....I almost cant wait to do laundry. As soon as the dryer is done, I bring the laundry to the couch or bed, sit down and FOLD it, and put it away. My drawers today look exactly, *exactly*, the same as they did 30 days ago.
She said not to do other people's stuff but I sort of figured I would end up, but before I knew it, Jeremy and Elizabeth were going through their clothes and getting rid of stuff! Jeremy and I sort of went through his together with me relaying the principles behind selecting what to keep. Elizabeth and I will probably go through hers together more in depth once I finish the rest of the house. I was surprised with the enthusiasm that they gained from my momentum.
At the last apartment we were in, Jeremy and I shared a closet. The house before that, we had 2 walk in closets, plenty of room. When we downsized to the shared closet, it was crammed full. Just crammed. Even after getting rid of stuff, it was crammed. Our closet here is quite a bit bigger than the last one, and it was sufficient but not pleasant. A lot of crap crammed in there, clothes ending up on the floor, etc.
After our purge and storing more of our clothes in the dresser, I'm happy to say that we literally could share a tiny closet in an old house (you know how closets used to be a lot smaller) and our clothes would fit.
Kondo says that you should strive to fold most everything, but there are certain items that just ask to be hung up. When you handle the item, you will know that this is something that should be hung up. So all that is hanging in our closet now are his button up work shirts, suits, polo shirts; on my side are blouses that didn't fold well, and dresses. Jeremy even sorted his bazillion neckties and got rid of a bunch that I hated. He didn't *really* need to keep those skinny knitted look ties from high school and early college, now when he had a variety of much better quality, attractive, professional ties.
The one deviation that we made from the book is after a week or two of folding polo shirts, I decided that it was not something I wanted to fold, they are awkward and its hard to fold them to sit right. So those get hung up now. But if we moved to a place with smaller closet space, it would be no problem to fold them again, we still have the drawer space.
Part of the reason why this is working for me is that there is simply so much less stuff! Less clothes mean that I have to do laundry more often, which is NOT a bad thing. Its still only every few days. What it was before was we would wear all the things we liked, then we would scrounge and pick from things we didn't like as much, and when I finally did laundry, it was a massive amount. Also, the things FIT. I don't have to figure out where to find hangers, or shove things down in the drawer to fit just a few more things. The space is already there.
She has you fold things so that they stand up, rather than stacking them. Its easier on the clothes, you can actually SEE what you have to wear and wear things more often and its a more efficient use of space. Here are our drawers now and I could go take a time stamped photo at any point, including this minute, and it still looks exactly like this:
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| Why yes, that IS my UNDERWEAR drawer. Care to share yours publicly? ;) |
See that little white plastic organizer in the top left drawer? That drawer holds my purse and contents of. When Mari Kondo said that every day she empties out her purse, puts her wallet in a shoebox under the bed, puts her receipts in the receipt box and stores her bag in plastic, on the shelf in the closet, I thought the chick was downright INSANE. I even wrote a post on a KonMari Facebook page I was on to ask "does anyone really do this? It doesn't seem very practical when you have kids." The response was...just try it and see what happens.
Kondo describes coming home from work as: Comes in the door, turns on tea kettle, takes off her jacket, thanks it for its work that day, hangs it in the closet. Changes her clothes and puts them away, thanks them for their work. Empties her purse, puts everything away. Puts on nice looking loungewear for her at home time. All of this takes less than 5 minutes and by now the tea kettle is whistling. She makes a cup of tea and guess what....she is free to relax. Make dinner, have a glass of wine, read a book, whatever she likes. As I mentioned in a previous post, she has just had her first child so I venture that some of that would change now.
Me coming in from whatever I was doing outside of the house, since it clearly isn't work: Drag screaming toddler in who doesn't want to come in, toss diaper bag on the couch, make a run for the toilet, hopping over stacks of clutter the whole way, look at the pile of laundry in the bathroom, can't deal right now. Got to get the toddler settled and figure out what to feed everybody and then try and tackle all the chores that need done.
So...what do I have to lose? I gave it a try. 30 days later, I'm still unpacking a small purse every day. Lucy is potty trained so I carry a small wetbag with change of undies for just in case, but I've totally converted to a small cross body bag. My wallet and keys are clipped together, with only the things i often need in the wallet. Just a small wallet now. Leaving the house consists of going to the bedroom, opening the drawer, grabbing the wallet and keys and the bag and the already prepped small wetbag, put the wetbag and wallet in the bag and off we go. No more scrounging at the register to find the debit card that is in the bottom of my purse because i didn't have time to put it back, no more wadded up receipts falling out everywhere. That was always so embarrassing and i would sort and organize a purse and vow to keep it that way. It was exactly the same concept as the house. It was just TOO MUCH STUFF. I also keep a larger tote bag in the coat closet that has sunscreen and stuff for an extended trip out of the house. I don't unpack that at this point in time, I just try and take any snacks or trash out of it when we get home each day.
The old me getting ready to go: where are my keys, I just saw them...I used them last ____....30 min later, found them! Now where is my wallet....meanwhile through all of this, my blood pressure is shooting up and I'm all stressed out because I'm about to be late to something. It set the tone for the entire outing and most of the time, for the whole day. I was stressed out before I even left the house.
The new me getting ready to go: <goes to dresser and grabs wallet and bag> ready to go, no stress! I'm usually on time!
I still have a long way to go. Kondo estimates that this is about a 6 month process, both for her in person clients that she works with and for her readers. I didn't think it would be, but now I can see that it is.
This is a mental exercise as much as it is a physical one. You know how I said that KonMari is about so much more than a tidy house? It is. My health has been poor for a number of years and even though I've removed certain stressors, it hasn't gotten better. I was living in a constant state of irritability. Snapping at everyone, constantly stressed out. Stressed out over stuff that most people would not blink an eye at. For me, it was just too much.
In just 30 days, things are so much better. Yes, I'm still irritable sometimes, especially when I can see that the kitchen is a mess again, or that there is stuff that needs picked up. I am NOT finished with the rest of the house yet, so there is still some clutter. But I could go spend 5 minutes in my front room which feels messy to me right now and it would be clean enough that I would feel comfortable opening my door to invite someone in.
Jeremy and I talked and we both knew the kitchen is something I struggle with badly. I used to love to cook but honestly, I had quit. I hadn't cooked in about 6 months beyond the occasional meal that usually did not taste very good because there wasn't any heart in it. I had come to despise it. It wasn't the cooking though, it was that before i could cook, i had to clean up. And once i cleaned up, and cooked, then there was the mess again. And with me feeling poorly, by the time I got everyone fed, I could barely stay on my feet to go clean up, and so it accumulated.
I run a bakery out of the home and before I started this process, I would have to go scrub the kitchen down and sanitize, to ensure that I had a clean working space. I wouldn't dare bake a cake for a customer in a filthy kitchen. You just don't do that. So, an hour of cleaning, after which, I was cranky and tired and not wanting to bake, knowing baking would just make more of a mess.
So basically what I told him was that I could handle everything else. I could keep clothes washed, folded, put away, I could even get food on the table. I could keep the rest of the house in shape. *IF* he could do the dishes. He said he could do that and he has...I've done them a time or two when he was busy with something else and I felt like I needed it done now, but we've also kept up on it so even when I've done that, it has been unload and reload the dishwasher and wipe things down. It's actually working. He gets the satisfaction of having a cleaner space and a wife who isn't pissy all the time and all he has to do is clean the kitchen and take the trash out. I do the rest.
All that to say, that these simple little steps that I poo-poo'd as being over the top, have been steps that I've implemented and kept and liked and have made my life SO much easier.
This is a super long entry that should probably have been split into two, I'm kind of just letting my thoughts about the process out as I go, but I will close this one up now!
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