After an absolutely wonderful long weekend away celebrating Easter with my husband and parents in Italy, we’re back to our day-to-day lives and spring to do list. This involves shaking off the winter with a bit of reorganization and decluttering some of the extras that have built up over the past few months.
Have you heard of Marie Kondo? She’s a cleaning expert in Tokyo {seriously!} and has inspired me with her method explained in her book The Life-Changing Method of Tidying Up. She suggests focusing on what to keep {instead of looking for things to discard} and picking up each item you are considering saying “does it spark joy?” What a great concept — and how many things do we all have that just detract from our happiness? That shirt we stopped wearing three years ago or the old plastic tailgate cups that just take up space {and should have been left in college!}. Those are elements that don’t spark joy for me anymore. Here are the tips I’ve adopted:
1. Group like items together {instead of going room by room}. You may find you have multiples of the same item, and you can choose what inspires you most out of that group. Plus, who needs eight spatulas?
2. Pick up each item and ask “does this spark joy?” If the answer is no — it goes. Set the items together that you’re keeping to be organized once you’re done sorting.
3. I’m a work in progress on #2 and getting better. But — there are still times I’ve been unsure. If I am, I put it in a duffel bag under our bed. I set a calendar alert a year from now {truly!} and if I haven’t thought about the contents in a year, I donate the items. It sounds extreme to wait that long, but I’ve found it’s worked for me {and sometimes something I thought I was ready to part with, I really did enjoy wearing seasonally}.
4. Place all your papers, including cards, photos, receipts, etc. on your kitchen table. These items take up so much space in drawers {so guilty here}. File the papers you need like your tax forms, keep any receipts from the past month to check your credit card statement, and toss the rest. Leave cards and sentimental letters till last, as they’re the hardest. Appreciate the joy they gave you when they arrived, and then let them go {eek! so hard, but necessary}.
5. Now invest in great storage solutions — shelving system and shoe cubes for your closet, a proper filing box for those important papers you kept, etc. This will keep things in their place and easily accessible for when you need them next.
Most importantly, let things go with gratitude. Appreciate what things were to you, and what they can be for someone else. Next I’m thinking about the capsule wardrobe. I’ve been really inspired lately by ideas of a uniform and brands like Cuyana with their motto of “fewer, better things.”
