Decluttering the modified Kon Mari way

Decluttering

Although there are some sad things in my life, I am working on the things under my control. 1 of those things is the organization in my house.

I have been reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and The Art of Discarding. Although I haven’t finished them, I starting running with some of the ideas. I am going through each category to decide which items spark joy and which do not. I am detaching emotion from stuff, and finding joy in the notion of air space around my stuff.

Here are some random observations:

I like the idea of whiteboards and notebooks more than I like the actuality of them. I have all these beautiful, unused whiteboards and notebooks. Time to take a deep breath, thank them for their service, and set them free.

I have made two minor but life-changing decisions. 1. I am no longer allowing myself to pick up brochures or magazines. Whenever we go somewhere, I love getting free travel magazines and brochures about new places and events. And then I never look at them and they become clutter. From now on, I stop before I stop.

The other decision: when I put a book on hold at the library, the library puts a paper slip in each book. They kind of serve as bookmarks, but they are also sort of floppy and end up as clutter as well. The other day I noticed a recycling bin next to the check out. Duh. So simple, but it never occurred to me before! Now all slips go in the recycling before I leave the library. I have a small stack of bookmarks in a drawer next to my bed.

Here are some “after” pictures of a room that we have disliked immensely. Since it sits in the center of the house, it can be quite definitional, although it has been largely ignored as we flock to our bedrooms and desks. I am decluttering the heck out of it. These pictures are not great, but they give you an idea of what the room looks like, and what the new sectional looks like. I will take better pictures for the next post.

Please take note of the three tier cart. It used to look like this:

Oh what a coat of paint can do!