You’ve probably already heard about the book and have either picked it up yourself or wondered about
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up for normal people.
By “normal,” I mean married suburban people with kids, active lives and a lot of STUFF. We have the normal everyday stuff plus church stuff, karate stuff, event stuff, work stuff, craft stuff…just stuff.
We’re not minimalists. We’ve been purging and decluttering for almost seven years and I started a major declutter right after Christmas last year.
Yet still, since starting the book about a week ago, we’ve gotten rid of six more large garbage bags and over 300 items—and that’s just out of the boys’ bedroom, playroom and our laundry room!
It’s one of my mantras for 2015 and something I repeat often when I teach on productivity or organization:
STOP ORGANIZING CLUTTER.
I’ve incorporated storage solutions into our home but I was still spending too much time managing our stuff. My kids were tired of it, too. Going through their bedroom and playroom decluttering and throwing out trash for the umpteenth time and swearing it would be my last (again) is what pushed me over the edge.
I want to be done decluttering. I want to be in the maintenance phase and I knew that to do that, I had to get ruthless.
[tweetthis]The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up helps you get ruthless with your stuff. [/tweetthis]
My life is incredibly full and I am not willing to give anything up right now. Maybe you feel the same way.
So cutting projects and activities is really not an option.
I do, however, want to…
- use my time more efficiently
- live more peacefully
- stop wasting time looking for lost items
- simplify and live with less
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is like the final frontier of decluttering.
She tells you that it could take you six months to do your entire house so we’ve given ourselves until we host Thanksgiving. I know we can do it. My goal is that by Thanksgiving, no rooms of our home will be off limits, nothing will be stashed before company arrives and we’re able to host without the last-minute scramble to get the house in order. It’s a big goal but we are already well on our way.
Purchase your copy here:
Here is what I believe is The Magic of the Konmari Method:
You tidy up by category.
I proved this to myself as I did the boys’ rooms and kept running across random art supplies. I re-sorted them several times. It would have been so much easier to do all at once. This alone will revolutionize how you’ve been decluttering. Instead of going room by room, do one category at a time. This way, you know what you have and you can more easily purge and find places for what stays.
I cheated a bit by doing just the boys’ rooms rather than ALL the clothes in the house or ALL the art supplies in the house together. But my system worked and their rooms are in order so they can relax and enjoy the rest of their summer break.
There are broad categories as well as subcategories to follow. Keep reading for some cute visuals of the categories.
You keep only what sparks joy.
It tuns out that all of my youngest son’s plush toys spark joy. Every. Single. One. And he really does love them and play with them and each one holds sentimental meaning for him. They take up space on his bed, but so what?? We kept them all. However, evidently only about 1/4 of their Star Wars figures and toy cars spark joy so the rest went into the donate pile. Many other toys were easy for my boys to give up but giving them control over the process and reminding them “the more you part with, the less you have to clean up” was a terrific motivator.
Everything has a place.
Day 1 I gutted their rooms and took EVERY last thing out (as seen below). We went through EVERY item.
The key was that only about three categories went back in–and those categories included only what sparks joy. We containerized and labeled them, too (they’re in the closet, not pictured). One of the black bins holds cords and controllers and the other one is…EMPTY!
The best part is, nothing is stashed anymore. I’d been “cheat cleaning up” for months (ahem) years and always had laundry baskets or boxes full of STUFF to sort and distribute later. No more! It’s so freeing! That IS life-changing.
I’m loving the method and the book is really easy to read and inspiring. Some of her ideas are a little “out there” but you can breeze past those and focus on what speaks to you.
I’ll probably be writing more about this as we continue the process but I wanted to let you know what my experience has been like.
I also love this perspective from the creative and inspiring Juju Sprinkles. Read part 1 and part 2. She made these adorable illustrations for each of the categories, too!
You can find all of them (and lots more ideas) on my Stylish Organizing Pinterest board:
Follow Tabitha Dumas’ Blog’s board Home:: stylish organizing on Pinterest.
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I’d love for you to pin and share!
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