Sunday, November 23, 2014

Tidying Up - Clothing

The book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has received much coverage as of late. Various bloggers and vloggers have mentioned it. The author and the book garnered attention from the New York Times. Additionally, the book is an NPR bestseller.

I am on an eternal quest to streamline and simplify my life, so I had to read this book. The task of gathering all of one's possessions of like kind (clothing in my case) and spreading them out on the floor seems daunting enough. Add to this that you must handle each piece and determine if it sparks joy. Items that do are to be thanked and kept. Items that do not spark joy are to be discarded, but only after thanking it for its service to you.

A little odd? Yes. But does it work? Yes. The sight of all of your clothes in one spot (rather than strewn about the house in various closets and storage bins) is an eye-opener! And I think I started with less stuff than many.

A Four-Hour Tour
I was able to gather, sort, and act on all of my clothing in roughly four hours. Four hours seems like a good chunk of time to lose, but that four hours covered everything -- gathering, sorting, organizing what I'd kept in my closet, and preparing the other items for donation or for selling.


The author says that once you apply her method of tidying (the KonMari Method), you will never backslide to cluttered living. That is the part that only time can reveal.

2 comments:

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  2. 've found that reading Marie Kondo is life changing but I don't know what to do: not a single piece of clothing in my closet sparks joy. Not. One. This presents a serious problem because I don't want to spend money on clothes at the moment and it's frowned upon in my milieu to walk around naked. I will have to give this some thought. Of the items I have quarantined à la 333 many of them do give me joy but are too warm for the extremely mild Winter we're having. Yikes!

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