Monday morning, as usual, I was stressed about planning the menu and making a shopping list. Maybe the problem was my messy recipe collection, in binders so thickly crammed that I couldn’t wrench them out of the cupboard without pulling everything else out with them. I decided it was time to tidy my recipes! I’ve designated recipes Read More…
Konmari: Linens and Gift Wrap
Here we have two miscellaneous household categories: linens and gift wrapping supplies. I decluttered them on the same day, and gift wrap seemed too minor to give a post of its own, so I’m grouping them together. Gift wrap: not a lot to say. I culled a lot of secondhand tissue paper and ribbon scraps. Everything Read More…
Konmari: Art Supplies
Time to go through the art supplies. My art supplies have weighed on my mind for a while now. Although English is where most of my studies have been focused, I actually double-majored in English and Art as an undergrad. So I had a huge collection of oil paints, acrylic paints, watercolours, drawing supplies and pads Read More…
Konmari: Sewing Supplies (Where I Actually Sort Buttons)
It’s time to sort through my sewing supplies. Marie Kondo doesn’t have much nice to say about sewing supplies. She urges you to consider whether you really use your sewing kit at all. And she says nobody ever sews on the extra buttons that come with clothes. Excuse me, I do! You know what I also Read More…
Konmari: Valuables
The KonMari subcategory called ‘valuables’ includes things like credit cards, passports, and money. Here’s a category where I obviously haven’t been vigilant, despite going through it periodically as we have moved. I found a credit card which expired in 2010! It’s also a category where, previously, I have kept things on technicalities or out of Read More…
Konmari: Toiletries and Makeup
Toiletries are next in my KonMari tidying up, along with makeup. Want to see inside my bathroom cupboards before I started? Mostly it just makes me laugh. It’s not disorganised, really, because there’s a place for everything. But the way things are standing makes me feel like I’ve opened the door to the wrong room and Read More…
Konmari: CDs and DVDs
The next category of my KonMari sorting is the one called Komono, which includes everything left in the house except sentimental items. This is probably where I’ll spend the most time, since there’s a lot of miscellaneous stuff here. CDs and DVDs are the first subcategory. It wasn’t such a big task, not like the behemoth Read More…
Konmari: Papers
The second part of the ‘Books and Papers’ category is of course papers. That includes paper files, and any other paper stuff around the house. I thought this would be brief and breezy, but it turned into days of crushing agony. Read on. Files I tacked our household files on a Sunday afternoon. After implementing Read More…
Konmari: Books, Part 2
I finished yesterday’s post undecided about my academic books. Today, it’s time to tell how I dealtwith them. The problem, for me, with my academic books, is that they embody every type of value that Kondo describes: functional (I can use them), informational (they contain knowledge), emotional (I’m sentimental about them), and rarity (they are Read More…
Konmari: Books, Part 1
The next Konmari category includes books and papers. I started with books. Per the method, I pulled them off the shelves, and laid them out on the floor/table to go through one at a time. I followed Kondo’s four recommended divisions, but added a couple of my own to break things into logical groups: Books for Read More…