The following post was written in early May 2020, but for some reason I never published it. I’m not sure why. I found it recently because I was trying to remember when I had gone through my Marie Kondo tidying challenge. I’m working on a followup post on tidying with kids, and I want to reference my original tidying challenge.
About a year and a month ago, I took on the challenge to tidy my possessions according to Marie Kondo’s KonMarie system. It’s been a marathon, but a great experience. I started at the end of March 2019, and called it done about two weeks ago [end of April 2020].
The idea is simple: go through all of my possessions and only keep the ones that “spark joy”. The challenge for me was my large numbers of possessions.
The KonMarie system breaks down the process into first discarding things that do not spark joy, and then finding ways to store all the things that do bring joy. Furthermore the discarding step is broken down by category: Clothes, Books, Paper, Komono (miscellaneous), and Sentimental.
This breaking down by category was critical for being able to get through this monumental task. Sometimes I would go for a few weeks without doing anything, but when I started again, I wouldn’t be starting from scratch. I would pick up at the category where I left off.
I finally finished the sentimental items around February or March, and so then I worked on storing things. I’ve found storage to be critical for two reasons: first good storage sparks joy and second good storage helps give natural feedback that helps to keep things tidy.
The joy of good storage surprised me. I had always thought of clothes drawers as utilitarian items. Discarding clothes didn’t change that, although it did help prevent that kind of guilty feeling of seeing clothes that I never wear. But following Marie Kondo’s advice, I rearranged the clothes first off by folding them vertically, then sorting by color, and using empty spaces to store things that go with clothes like hats, ties, and sunglasses. The end result is that I smile when I open my drawers.
I’ve found that good storage will naturally tell me when I need to do a bit of tidying. Marie Kondo recommends that you keep your storage areas about 90% full. So when I get a new shirt or a new book I can put it in the drawer or on the book shelf, but as the last 10% gets used up I can tell that I need to discard things that I no longer need. This has already happened with clothes and with books.
Working on storage was hard in a different way than discarding things. It requires creativity and sometimes materials like boxes. Also there is no clear definition of done. I ended up going with the it’s done if feels done to me. Essentially, I aimed for the areas where I store things to spark joy in some way and to look maintainable.
It’s not perfect for sure, but I’m happy about my stuff and how I’m storing it. I’m proud of that, and can say that I have finished.
Of course there is more to do. Maybe I’ll hang up some pictures or artwork. I’d love to go through my digital possessions and discard what doesn’t spark joy and find good ways to store what brings joy. Hopefully, we’ll go through our joint possessions as a family. We’ll take those things on at some point, but for now I’ll just celebrate this milestone.