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The Organizette!, Issue #80 -- I purged my clothing using KonMari Method June 07, 2015 |
Welcome to the Plan-and-Organize-Life.com Newsletter. I hope you enjoy getting the newsletter and that it helps to keep you on track with your organizing goals. Remember, you can get a lot done in only 10 minutes of decluttering and organizing! Table of Contents -Introduction
Introduction Hello everyone! For us, the school year is ending and summer break will soon be here. I’ve been busy hanging out at the school more than usual because of all the end of year activities. For summer, I have a huge list of things I’d like to accomplish this summer (mostly a lot of reading), but I also need to finish putting together some structure for the kids for the summer. I can’t let them play the entire time; that just wouldn’t be fair! It’s time for another round of Self Sufficiency Boot Camp as well as some home chores and responsibilities. I promise you, they will still have plenty of time to play and be kids. Over the past weekend, I purged my entire wardrobe using the KonMari method from the book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo. Scroll down to read how it worked out for me.
Click the logo above to learn more! The Monthly Mission – Calendars and Meal Planning What good is having your home in order if you don’t have a system for keeping everyone on time for their appointments and a time saving plan for eating every day? See how a central family calendar is key along with planning ahead for meals so you don’t need to waste time making extra trips to the grocery store. To read about June’s monthly mission, click here. I Can't Wait! If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately. Check Out These Pages! Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.
As I mentioned last month, the hottest organizing book at the moment is Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”. After reading it, I decided to tackle my entire wardrobe using the method she describes in her book. Friday afternoon, I collected all of my clothing from around the house… out of every drawer, closet, and shelf that I could find anything, including shoes and handbags, and put them in the middle of the floor. I’m not a huge clothing person so it didn’t seem like I had all that terribly much, but still a bit more than I expected. Here is a "before" picture of my clothes. Not knowing how big the room is, it's hard to tell how big the pile is. I'd say it's about 3 x 4 feet and about one foot tall. I actually had to go grab some shoes and some handbags after I took this picture.
Sad but hard was that a lot of clothes I actually really liked no longer fit me. Yikes! And then that brought about all kinds of other emotions about weight gain. Let’s not go there right now. But, because of that, about a third of my give-away pile was of clothing that simply no longer fit. When I was done (or so I thought), I looked at the book again. Marie says that most of her clients let go of 2/3 to ¾ of their wardrobe. I only gotten rid of maybe one-third, and remember, some of that was simply because it didn’t fit, not that I didn’t like it. This picture shows my "after" pile. On the left is my "keep" pile. It's a couple feet tall, epecially with all those hangers, which are now mostly gone! There are also a few things behind all those hangers. The long pile on the right is my "get rid of" pile, including some shoes and a purse.
I think my main issue was that I currently live mostly in jeans and t-shirts. I have one dress. Most of my clothes are just a bit on the boring side. My joy vs. non-joy scale is a bit askew. I know she says not to worry about getting rid of too much, because you will be left with only the things you truly love wearing, and it will be fine. But I started thinking about not having enough, and not wanting to spend money on new things when I had perfectly functional (though not loveable) items sitting right here. For example, I have three turtlenecks that really, give me no joy. But when we head up to the snow, I need to have them to keep me warm. It was just difficult letting go of my practical budget minded personality. Some things, it simply didn’t make financial sense to get rid of. In the end, I decided to leave things as they were. I still got rid of three bags worth of clothes and accessories. I will continue to evaluate what I have and decide when it’s served its time with me and let it go when I’m ready. I also learned that I need to spend my money on items that I truly love. I need to see and feel the item to be sure it sparks joy and deserves my money. I have more t-shirts than I probably need, many of them because there was a BOGO sale on them. I also got rid of a couple relatively new tops that just didn’t do it for me (purchased online). The other thing I took from the KonMari Method was to fold more of my clothing. Previously, most of it was hanging in my tiny closet and it was pretty full. She says you can fit more clothing in less space by folding and filing your clothes into drawers. I will have to agree with her on that one! Now my closet has some breathing space holding items that need to be hung, and most of my tops are now in drawers where I can see them all easily. I think this was a good exercise in purging my belongings. It helped me to let go of more than in previous attempts to purge, but I still have some things out of practicality. I now know what I have and what I need to buy as I have gone through all of my clothing in the house. Even if you don’t use this particular method, it’s quite liberating to let go of a lot of your excess clothing that is doing nothing more than taking up space. Next mission? She recommends books. I feel like I’m constantly purging our book shelves, but I also continue to buy books. So, we’ll see how I tackle that this summer.
Tracy Greene
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