The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Fighting for Joy

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This year, I set aside the entire month of March to declutter and purge our junk room. And here I am, five months later, trying to declutter the same room again. In the past I might have blamed my lack of storage but, really, I just have too much stuff that I don't need.

A couple weeks ago, I picked up Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. After hearing a few things about it on the interwebz, I picked up a copy for myself. Since decluttering and discarding my stuff has been my theme this year, I was interested in what this little book had to offer on the subject. I was not disappointed.

I generally don't make a habit of reading about organizing. Occasionally I'll read the odd article about it. It's just not something I'm interested in unless I have a specific problem I'm trying to solve. This book is different from every other approach I've seen because it has an element of what does interest me: psychology and philosophy.

31 Days to Less Clutter: Don't Be a Dragon

Well, it's been over a month since I started this declutter thing. It has felt so good letting things go! That little stamp I get on my Goodwill card every time I drop something off makes me happy too!

What Goodwill card you ask? Maybe everyone knows this already but I'm kind of excited about it! When you donate to Goodwill, you can get a 20% off coupon card. Bring it back every time you donate, get it stamped, and after four stamps you can use it on your next Goodwill purchase. Pretty great, right? You know what else is great?

This view right here. This used to be my room of shame. It wasn't functional at all. I have had great big plans for this room for some time but all that junk was getting in the way. Literally.

31 Days to Less Clutter: 5 Tips for Knowing What to Keep

So now that we've let go of our clutter, how do we know what to keep? I've been going around the house purging like a crazy person and I have a few guidelines that I'm going by. Because you know I'd never go so far as to call them rules. I'm a rebel like that.

1. Has it been used in the past year? 

If you're aren't currently using it, it probably isn't something you love or need. Seasonal decorations don't come out but once a year and there may be an extra set of dishes that you keep put away for when you have visitors. There are some things I'm keeping that I'm not using yet but I know I will once I tweak it. Or once I've decluttered and made some space for it. If you have it you should be using it!

31 Days to Less Clutter: Let It Go

Sing it. You know you want to. I'll wait.

I'm probably the only mom that's not sick of hearing Let It Go. I have boys though so watching Frozen is punctuated by episodes of Star Wars. I ain't even bovvered. I love Star Wars and Disney movies so it's all good.

Anyway, it's been a long couple weeks for me. Long and crazy, without any opportunity to write. I had my plan for how the month was going to go and then Hubby's work schedule got crazy. He's been getting home well after the kids have gone to bed and I feel like I've barely seen him. All the housework has been happening after the boys are asleep which means I haven't had much time for writing.

Or decluttering.

31 Days to Less Clutter

Do you ever feel like stuff is taking over? I have recently been tossing a lot of stuff out but somehow clutter still seems to accumulate! And not just junk mail type clutter, pretty decorating things clutter!

I need my environment to be clean and simple, without a lot of tchotchkes taking up space. I do well when I start with a blank slate and add in things one by one. Sometimes. Many times I feel like I have to use every. single. thing. because it's pretty. Problem is, once they're all together, it is definitely not pretty to me. It's cluttered.