Tidy
Happy Monday, friends. First full week of work for many of us in, oh, at least a couple of weeks. Hard getting back into the swing of things, isn't it?
Since it's a new year and I had mentioned displays of things to help us organize our homes and our stuff in my last post, I wanted to continue on that theme today.
A while back our daughter told my wife and me about an organizational expert from Japan named Marie Kondo. She wrote a book entitled "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up," and espouses what she calls the KonMari Method, which indicates that you should discard items that do not "spark joy" but it's also necessary to thank your soon-to-be-jettisoned stuff as it departs. This has apparently turned into a lifestyle brand, and, yes, now, there's a Netflix series featuring Ms. Kondo (and an interpreter).
My wife and I were always pretty neat in our overall habits, but as I've mentioned in this space in the past, moving to our current home (smaller than the previous one) required some adjustments in how much stuff we could have in hand. Not only is this home a bit smaller than our former house, but we also don't have quite as many designated storage spaces here. So transforming from pretty good organizers to ruthless ones was essential.
Our newly formed habits have served us well, but we still find the odd closet or storage area that needs help. To wit, we were trying to put something into a cabinet we keep in our garage over the weekend. This is our spot for storing seldom-used kitchen items, like electric skillets, griddles and waffle makers, among other things. Anyway, I attacked this and spread out many of the items on the hood of one of our cars (with towels to keep all items clean, of course). My wife and I agreed quickly on what could be tossed and suddenly my biggest problem was carrying all of it to the trash.
After that, we decided to give Ms. Kondo's program a look and watched the first episode. It seems that the format is much like these shows where someone comes into a house that the owner wants to renovate or improve, and works with them to get it the way they want. But in this case, it's a top-to-bottom analysis of what a family might have in its bedroom closets, its kitchen counters and cabinets, and its garage.
Drama ensues, as one would expect, but it's interesting to see how people adapt to the process and the outcome. It really is, if this first episode is any indication.
And, no, this didn't make me want to charge up my attic steps to clean more stuff out. I know what's up there, and there's not that much of it these days (in fact, every time there's a neighborhood garage sale I do a visual scan of that and other storage areas to see what we might have to get rid of, and am satisfied that we have too little to bother with).
So if you're a Netflix subscriber and have an interest in organizing a little better, this might be for you. If you're not, I would think there are videos on YouTube or elsewhere.
Good luck.
Since it's a new year and I had mentioned displays of things to help us organize our homes and our stuff in my last post, I wanted to continue on that theme today.
A while back our daughter told my wife and me about an organizational expert from Japan named Marie Kondo. She wrote a book entitled "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up," and espouses what she calls the KonMari Method, which indicates that you should discard items that do not "spark joy" but it's also necessary to thank your soon-to-be-jettisoned stuff as it departs. This has apparently turned into a lifestyle brand, and, yes, now, there's a Netflix series featuring Ms. Kondo (and an interpreter).
My wife and I were always pretty neat in our overall habits, but as I've mentioned in this space in the past, moving to our current home (smaller than the previous one) required some adjustments in how much stuff we could have in hand. Not only is this home a bit smaller than our former house, but we also don't have quite as many designated storage spaces here. So transforming from pretty good organizers to ruthless ones was essential.
Our newly formed habits have served us well, but we still find the odd closet or storage area that needs help. To wit, we were trying to put something into a cabinet we keep in our garage over the weekend. This is our spot for storing seldom-used kitchen items, like electric skillets, griddles and waffle makers, among other things. Anyway, I attacked this and spread out many of the items on the hood of one of our cars (with towels to keep all items clean, of course). My wife and I agreed quickly on what could be tossed and suddenly my biggest problem was carrying all of it to the trash.
After that, we decided to give Ms. Kondo's program a look and watched the first episode. It seems that the format is much like these shows where someone comes into a house that the owner wants to renovate or improve, and works with them to get it the way they want. But in this case, it's a top-to-bottom analysis of what a family might have in its bedroom closets, its kitchen counters and cabinets, and its garage.
Drama ensues, as one would expect, but it's interesting to see how people adapt to the process and the outcome. It really is, if this first episode is any indication.
And, no, this didn't make me want to charge up my attic steps to clean more stuff out. I know what's up there, and there's not that much of it these days (in fact, every time there's a neighborhood garage sale I do a visual scan of that and other storage areas to see what we might have to get rid of, and am satisfied that we have too little to bother with).
So if you're a Netflix subscriber and have an interest in organizing a little better, this might be for you. If you're not, I would think there are videos on YouTube or elsewhere.
Good luck.
Comments
Post a Comment