KonMari Method - Part 1: Discarding
So I've been hearing about this tidying method called KonMari, and you've probably heard of it too. Its from the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. The name of the method is her name shortened together. Yes, this is not an many generation technique, but of one living person who tidied since she was young.
Since it is the new year, this method came to mind and thought about trying it out. Now I'm the kind of person who likes things out where I can see them so its easier for me to find and retrieve. This results in a messy looking space. It may bother people who look at my space, but its fine with me. When I was in college I moved around quite a lot so I had to keep my possessions to as small as I can get so it makes moving easier for me. Now that I haven't moved in some years, I have gained a number of possessions, and not my space has became cramped. While the messiness isn't something that bothers me, the number of possessions I have does. I am lazy so I haven't taken the time to go through all of my possessions in a very long time. I think its time to change that.
I got the audiobook which is probably the shortest audiobook I've listened to so far. Its almost 5 hours long and the reader is quite nice to listen too. Not a boring listen at all! In fact I couldn't stop listening to it. its quite motivating and inspiring. So I highly recommend it.
Her method is quite simple but can be quite drastic. You must first spend some hours, but no longer than a day on just deciding what to keep and discard everything else. She advises on keeping items that spark joy. That is the secret to keeping a tidy home. Getting rid of everything and only keeping items that make you happy. She describes items as if they are alive. That they need to breathe and shine as well as serve you a purpose. She wants you to recognize that items have a purpose on your life and once they served that purpose you must let them go with gratitude. You need to treat items with respect. Having excuses like needing them someday is only to serve to fool yourself since that someday is not going to happen. Forcing the items onto others is also a big no-no.
To start, she advises to go by category rather than by room. This is a mistake that I see in almost every KonMari checklist I see on the internet. I have to admit I did not follow the discarding step exactly. I could not go through my space in one day since the task was rather dizzying to me. But I was determined to keep at it. I didn't start with my clothes first, but I have convinced myself to follow with the category steps.
The clothes were already giving me a tough time. I do not have many in the first place, and some of them I had for a long time. I rarely go clothes shopping either since I only buy if I needed something. I don't find much joy in clothes, but I don't want to end up having 3 tops and bottoms. This may not be the KonMari way, but I've decided to sort them through frequency of use, then sort out which I don't want. So I have 3 piles: ones to keep, ones that I might keep, and ones to discard now. Hopefully I will look through the might keep ones later and further decide those pieces properly. Even though I said I didn't have many, it took me two days to go through them. I was quite lightheaded after I was done. As for storing, I will put that in another post.
Next are the books. There are two types of books I have: personal collection, and ones for selling. Working at home can make this KonMari thing difficult since her method doesn't mention work related items. My personal collection is smaller since they are ones I've had since high school, and had reduce as I moved since books are ridiculously heavy. If there was an ebook or a copy at the library I would go for that instead. The sentimentality outdoes the joy factor making it hard to choose. At this point it makes me a little sad or upset how little joy I have for the items I hold. Yet I did not want to have an empty room in the end. I will probably revisit the sentimental items when I get to that category. The rest of the books were easier to choose since some were reference books I've used like languages and learning guitar. I know I won't ever pick those up again, at least any time soon. Now magazines however is a slight hoarding problem I have. I have saved some old magazines I was subscribed to that have articles or info I was interested in "for the future" and some free booklets from stores. They are mainly recipes that I haven't gotten the chance to try. Of course food would spark some joy so having to go through each issue to rip out recipes and a some other articles took awhile. What I've ripped out was way smaller than the stack of magazines it once was. Not even sure why I kept some of them. A bit of sentimental stuff also popped up, and it was hard not to go through them. I thought I could do papers on the same day, but the magazines took longer than I imagined.
Now papers. I anticipate this will be hard since most of it are notes and handouts from college. Spending so much money on college I find it be a waste to discard them.The KonMari method insists on throwing all papers away. There exceptions to sentimental ones and important ones. But as I go through them I realize how much old stuff I've gathered and haven't thrown away. Looking at my old history class stuff, I realize it is meaningless to really keep these. Sure, I may want to remember some important people I would like to look at again, but the internet would probably give me them and more. Then I go onto other subjects and can't help but see the majority of them to be junk. The amount of papers I disposed of were as much as my clothes.
Komono, or small articles is pretty much everything else so it can be called the Miscellaneous category. This is one I've been wanting to tackle since the start. Unfortunately the previous categories has resulted in a lot of garbage bags that I need more time to get the bags out of the way before being able to tackle this category. Despite doing the previous categories, my space hardly looks any different. I was rather slow in getting into discarding in this category. Not only because of the break I did, but since its also a lot harder to decide what to discard. I've forgotten to thank the items, and also felt some regret in the things I've thrown or going to throw away. I have tools like allen wrenches that I needed only once, but it is tools. Kondo didn't mention of these kind of items that seem necessary that doesn't bring joy so I ended up keeping them. There were also old things I've kept that I don't have any sort of memory other than having it for a long time. This habit is definitely a very hard one to deal with. These things did get dirty that it makes me want to throw them away immediately but the sentimental factor is what makes me hesitate. I decided to take pictures or videos to remember them. They should have been in the sentimental category, but the gross state they were in I had to deal with them right then. If I couldn't take care of them properly up till now why should I even continue? I did take two items out of the trash and try to wash it. In the end, I didn't throw away as much as I thought I would. There are old electronics that I need to recycle, toys that I want to donate when the holidays are near, and stuff to sell. I didn't have as many komono as I thought I did, so I may have to go through them again when I go organize them.
Last category is the sentimental items. Other than the photos, I wasn't sure what other sentimental items I've put off for this category. Not a great start. I have a notebook where I've kept movie tickets, photos, letters, and so on. Not the best archival method. The majority of them are easy to part with since they bring little joy, but others were harder. Photos from school and old friends. Although I don't remember their names or have anymore happy feelings when I look at them, its a bit hard to throw them away. Or papers of old teachers I liked that have encouraging words, but what I wrote back then was too embarrassing for me to read. I decided to keep at least one or two mementos of those teachers, and some highlights of my youth which are mainly field trips, events, and the such. The rest of the book is going to the trash.
Discarding things is both hard and easy. I've discovered a lot old things and had many mixed feelings and memories. If I was Kondo's client I would probably failed since I didn't end up with 1/3 of my original possessions. I still have trash to get rid of and deciding what to do with the empty totes and boxes. I may discard more as I sort through them again while I organize them in part 2.
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