Hello again, friends. If you’ve been following along, you know that this past year after reading Marie Kondo’s international best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I was able to transform the way my home functioned, which transformed my family, business, blogging, and perspective on life. And each week this month I have sharing with you the various ways the KonMari Method has helped to improve the organization in my home based on the various categories as outlined by Mari Kondo.

Last week we  discussed how I overhauled our home library using the Kon’Mari method and this week I want to discuss the next Kon’Mari category, Kimono, or as I like to call it “all that’s left.”

So you may be asking what exactly the category of komono, or what the Japanese call miscellany is? Komono, covers a range of things left over from your first three categories, clothing, books, and papers you might have, from CDs and DVDs to stationery, electronic equipment and beauty products. Once you get to komono, your categories may vary from home-to-home. In my opinion, Kimono isn’t like Kondo’s other categories, but is rather an umbrella term for smaller categories. 

So, here is what I have learned from the Kimono category:

Just go digital: When it comes to dvd’s and cd’s, I firmly believe less is more. Since becoming a minimalist I no longer own physical CD’s, and the few my husband owns fit in the glove box of his car. I started off with a check mark because my husband and I stream or download movies from Netflix, VUDU, Hulu Plus,  and Amazon Prime. We no longer buy music but instead listen to music on iTunes and Pandora. This step helped me to reinforce what I already knew to be true for CD’s and DVD’s, always go digital. 

Less is more: I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I have long been a beauty product pack rat. Knowing that this stemmed from being both a recovering extreme couponer as well as an avid magazine subscriber, where new deals and articles about the latest skincare craze were around every turn. To combat this I only kept the things that “sparked joy”, products that I knew were very nourishing to my skin, body, and mind. I paid special attention to but keeping only the items we were actively using and discarded items that had expired. I wrote the year on all of the sunscreen bottles that I know we bought this year and donated the rest.

I also implemented a skin care and beauty product rule: if you wouldn’t take it on vacation, use it for a date night out, or isn’t something your family uses at least three times a week, you don’t need it. The beauty of this rule? I’m now on a journey to attempt to make 100% of my own beauty and skin products from scratch. This will be done to limit the amount of unnecessary funds spent on unnecessary beauty products and to learn eco-friendly, zero-waste ways to provide myself with safe, natural cosmetic alternatives, generally costing a tenth of the price of commercial brands.

Re-check your progress: So next on the Komono list, accessories. But then I was left pondering…what is this category? Didn’t we already de-own accessories when we worked through the clothing? I have no idea what Kondo meant by accessories, in this context. Just for giggles I went back through my closet and drawers to double check that no small, little items had crept back into my wardrobe. My lesson in this category? Check and then re-check your decluttering progress as you go. 

Value your valuables: So, you may be asking what I considered valuables to be. For our family, valuables are papers and items that we would need in case of an emergency or to go on vacation. I made sure to check to see if our passports, id’s, voting cards, and the like were placed in one box. I made sure to let my husband know where and what was now in this box, and in case of an emergency we are now good-to-go! My advice? Invest in a fireproof lock box for such documents. Peace of mind, friends! 

Electrical Equipment & Appliances: For me this category took longer than expected. I began by listing all broken and needed repair beyond my scope on my local Freecycle group. Why? They simply don’t spark joy for me, and the idea of keeping items around in case my husband may out of the blue, one day fix them? That’s a joy-killer too! Then I recycled any leftover boxes my appliances came in, and finally we went through your cords. A tip on Kon’Maring cords? Use those plastic bread ties and a sharpie to label your cords. There is nothing worse that a pile of cords behind a television! 

Take your time:  Friends this was the shortest category I undertook in my home. I completed this category in under four hours, just a weekend afternoon. But even though this category looks small or already completed, be sure to take your time and check and re-check your progress as you go. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This goes double for decluttering! 

So friends, this was my progress with the Kimono chapter in the Marie Kondo’s international best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. So, have you also undertaken the Kimono category? Do you have any tips or advice? I’d love to hear about it.

Here’s to decluttering,

Hello again, friends. If you’ve been following along, you know that last year I read Marie Kondo’s international best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and each week this month I will be sharing with you nine ways the Kon’Mari Method has helped to improve the organization and quality of life in my home over the past year.

Last week we discussed how my morning dress ritual was transformed from dreadful to peaceful through the Kon’Mari Method. This week I want to focus on the second category outlined in Marie Kondo’s book, my homes paper piles.

If your home is anything like my own, paper spreads around like the sands of the Sahara. It’s everywhere and hard to contain. We shuffle papers from place to place, from pile to pile, but sooner or later, paper will take its toll on the visual place in your home. 

I work from home in the legal field. My husband is a public school teacher. I am also a blogger. We are constantly bombarded with papers of all capacities. Decluttering paper, while not as tough as decluttering books, was in its own right an equally difficult challenge.

Keep in mind, the papers section of the book left a little to the imagination as the section was only a scant ten pages in length there were still many lessons on paper that we could learn. So, here are the nine lessons we have learned while using the Kon’Mari Method on paper:

Consider legalities

Regarding legal papers, we utilize a simple rule: if it doesn’t require a raised seal to be deemed legal, it can be scanned, stored, shredded, and discarded. The remaining papers such as voting cards, birth certificates, marriage licenses, mortgage packets, high school diplomas, my husband’s military forms DD214 records, and insurance records are kept in a fire-proof lock box in our home.

Take dates into consideration

When going through our original mortgage documents, tax records, and school records we took the Feds rule into account, we only kept seven years’ worth of documents. All else was scanned and stored. 

Art for art’s sake

In terms of created art, we take photographs of artwork and papers we want to remember with our iPhones and post them to Notabli, an app for saving and organizing your child and family’s most treasured moments.  Another fun way to save art is to scan art and turn it into online screen savers, which allows our family to be constantly surrounded by the images that spark joy in our lives. The 1% of art that we truly want to keep physically on hand goes into a fire-proof file folder or matted, framed, and hung up in our home. 

We re-evaluated what was important

Often people hold onto clutter because they feel it’s vital to their home’s success. To avoid this paper-induced black hole, we signed up for online bill statements, digitized product warranties, scanned only the greeting cards from deceased loved ones we truly treasured, shredded all checkbook registers and utilized our online check services at our credit union, and kept only a year’s a piece of pay slips. Everything else we shredded and recycled.

We created a household inventory

Kondo suggests putting all business papers in one clear plastic folder without sorting them into categories. Instead, opting for fire-proofed file folders. We stored all of our family insurance records. We then created a digital household inventory that lists out insured belongings, emergency information, tax and insurance documents, and our pet records as well. While keeping two file folder portfolios, we minimized our files by focusing not on physical records but by setting up a household inventory binder. This binder lists our overall inventory of insured goods and documents how we want our household to be run. 

We rethought mail

We started a new rule, a one-touch rule. Within minutes of mail coming into our home, we sort and file bills, advertisements, and junk mail immediately. All mail that will require our attention later is pinned to our family memo board. We do this to keep papers from drifting to other rooms. Once and done works well for us. 

We rethought photographs

Taking a lesson from my family artwork and digitized all pictures using the Notabli app. The only non-scanned photos we have are framed and mounted to the wall.  

I rethought my writing

As a blogger and writer, I use paper to sketch out ideas or get feedback from others. I applied Kondo’s method to my blogging by dividing my writing into three categories: assignments needing immediate attention, short-term projects, and long-term projects I might not revisit for months or years. I created a spreadsheet of ideas, added dates to both my blogging planner and Google calendar, and then wrote down all topics on sticky notes which were transferred to a physical editorial blogging board. This keeps my ideas both tangible and within reach. 

We gave ourselves a timeline

As a family, we gave ourselves one month to complete this leg of the Kon’Mari method. At the end of three weeks, we had seven bags of paper. And best of all? Our family papers now reside in a single space within our office space, and nowhere else. And to keep chaos at bay we make sure to do a nightly paper sweep of our home and shred unneeded mail before heading off to bed. This is the ultimate takeaway for us, the Kon’Mari method for papers must be maintained daily! 

Decluttering our home files has brought my husband and me small joys each time we know we no longer have paper piles all over the home. We feel more organized. We have cleaner office counters. We pay closer attention to papers needing immediate attention. While decluttering papers is an arduous task, I guarantee you that you won’t miss those papers once they’re shredded and gone.

Now, to next week’s category: kimono and mementos. 

Friends, have you used the Kon’Mari Method to organize your family’s papers? If so, I’d love to hear about it! 

Here’s to decluttering,

Other posts in the series:

Part 1- The KonMari Method: Organizing Clothes

Part 2- The KonMari Method: Organizing Books 

Part 3- The Kon’Mari Method: Paper Organization (you’re here!)

Hello again, friends. If you’ve been following along, you know that last year I read Marie Kondo’s international best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and each week this month I will be sharing with you nine ways the KonMari Method has helped to improve the organization and quality of life in my home over the past year.

Last week we discussed how my morning dress ritual was transformed from dreadful to peaceful by way of the Kon’Mari Method. This week I want to focus in on the second category outlined in Marie Kondo’s book, my collection of books.

While I firmly believe in personal accountability and speaking one’s truths, I will also freely admit this category was a little intimidating for me. I was more than a little nervous about decluttering my books this past year. It makes logical sense to donate unused, unnecessary, unworn garments hanging in my closet. I mean, if I could neither fit nor wear, why own it? Books, on the other hand, were another story.

Why was this chapter so trying for me? Well, I love books. I have had a long love affair with the written word for as long as I can remember. To this day, I still consider Jane Austen and her heroines, Lizzy, Jane, Emma, Diana, Elinor, and even Mary Crawford to be great friends of mine. Did I also mention I married a book hoarder as well? My husband, an educator, anthropology major, son of a former librarian turned college dean and lover of all things Tolkien. He is my book hoarding co-conspirator and soulmate. So when I read that books were the second category that we needed to take on, I knew we were in trouble.

Though I was not a fan of parting with any titles, I was committed to finishing the entire KonMari process. We gathered all of the books we owned, which, we found out, were scattered everywhere– in our bedroom, under our bed, in our dining room sideboard, in the living room entertainment center console, in every nook of my office, piles in the den, everywhere. And the cookbooks, the stacks, and stacks of cookbooks in the kitchen were more plentiful than dust and dreams. Every room contained weathered books that we had to collect and bring together and sort!

There were so many. I soon realized that I had kept all of my literature anthologies, sociology reference editions, legal dictionaries, Art History volumes, books I had reviewed for this blog, and much, much more! Then there were stacks of hand-me-down books that my husband never actually planned on reading, and I have no idea when they came from. And let’s not forget my collection of each and every book Nicholas Sparks, Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, and Candace Bushnell ever wrote. It was a mess!

Luckily, with the KonMari method the sorting of books centered around keeping editions that “spark joy,” and not around parting with any book that sparked joy for our family. There were many books that were easy to part with, only a dozen or so books that we were kind of on the fence about, and few that we just couldn’t give up. Once we finally had sorted through everything and decided what was important enough to keep, we ended up with two huge piles. One pile of books to donate to our local public library, and a second pile that would fetch a fine price online for store credit through Amazon’s trade-in program. 

In all, we parted with 1,237 books. Kept only 203, of which nearly half were my husband’s teaching and lesson planning guides, which are necessary professional development tools. 

What really sparked joy for me while Kon’Maring my books? My leather and cloth bound books, my Jane Austen collection, not only remained but were now beautiful editions that stand out on my built-in bookshelves. I also kept my most-loved Charles Dickens novels, my husband’s graphic novel volumes, and a few family classics from Tolkien too!

An added bonus? We freed up an entire floor-to-ceiling bookcase to house family photos, vintage records, and fun heirlooms. Kon’Maring my books has been a true success. 

So, here’s nine lessons I learned from the Kon’Mari Method on books:

1. When it comes to books, live in the moment. Why had we kept all of these books for so long? Simple. I suffered from “Oh I’ll read that someday” or “So-and-so gave that to me, so I can’t get rid of it,” but the truth of the matter is, if a book has sat on my shelf for over a year I’m not going to read it and it’s okay to let the books go onto new homes and new eyes.
2. Location, location, location. If we’re keeping books that we don’t really plan on reading, that’s just wasted space, and in our small house, we can use all of the extra space we can get! Let the book go!
3. e-Books are awesome. I acquired most of my books before e-readers were really trendy. But now that I own an iPad I can add numerous titles, most of which are free to my online cloud services without taking up one square inch of my home. 
4. Public library here I come. We have a fantastic public library in our area. So unless it’s a book I know I’ll read over and over again, I will reserve it from my library first. Plus, I can read these books to my heart’s content, and have up to six weeks to read each title at my convenience without these borrowed beauties taking up any valuable real estate on my bookshelves.
5. Bigger, better deals. My library is also very good about getting new released out to patrons within a week of release, in most cases. So far I’ve been able to read or request the books I want to read without ordering from Amazon. In fact, my library has an online book request section. I also now check out the OverDrive app, an app which allows users to check out newly released books from their local library from the comfort of their own homes as an e-book selection for one month. This has saved my budget nearly a hundred dollars a month! 
6. My sinuses thanked me. No matter how often I dusted my books, I often sneezed around my older, dusty editions. Since donating so many volumes my sinus headaches and allergies have lessened considerably.
7. My reading style shines through.  Books, like clothing, are all about style. Every book I kept is now a forever book. Each book represents my interests, passions, and tastes. Should I move, downsize my home, or move abroad I know that the books I own are non-negotiable keepers. I can see just what types of fiction and memories I like to read, what cuisines I enjoy cooking most, and what stories truly impacted my life. I went from owning random books to a sophisticated, cultured, curated home library. 
8. I can be a more giving person. I still review cookbooks, non-fiction, and memories. Now, instead of holding onto every book simply because I carefully combed each page, reviewed each tile, and vested time into each author’s central message,  I can enjoy a good story and pass those books on to others. I also now gift a lot of books and have enjoyed sending books to friends and family out of state and country. 
9. I am not a sellout. It took me some time to come to terms with the idea of parting with my books did not mean that I didn’t love each and every author, genre, and edition. That getting rid of a title didn’t mean the information they presented to my mindset would be taken away from me. This is hoarder mentality. I no longer had to be the woman who felt she was letting down Marie Antoinette simply because I do not keep her narratives on my bookshelf. 

In all honesty, decluttering my books was cathartic to my soul. I continue to be amazed at the relief I feel when we get rid of stuff! A year later my home library has been transformed from a rest stop for unknown titles to a working, always in progress home library. 

I’m excited to take on another area next week– so stay tuned for papers and document decluttering!

Here’s to more organized homes,

Other posts in the series:

Part 1- The KonMari Method: Organizing Clothes

Part 2- The KonMari Method: Organizing Books (You’re here!)

It was around this time last Spring when I first heard about Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant, from friends who spoke her praises with an almost religious zeal. They described her methods as transformative. My friend started her method was nothing short of life-changing. They each described how they’d transformed their lives, homes, businesses, and marriages. They all told me this wasn’t a book to check out of the library, that this book was “a keeper.” And in case you have been living under the proverbial rock for the past two years, they were speaking fondly of Kondo’s 2014 book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, the decluttering craze that continues to sweep the globe.

Here in the West, we think of decluttering as donating a few knick-knacks here and there, but Kondo’s decluttering services command a waiting list in Japan of no shorter than a six to eight-month period. Luckily for the rest of the rest of us who wanted to research this unicorn of organizational systems Kondo’s book breaks down her revolutionary approach to decluttering into a simple two-pronged approach, which she has dubbed, tidying.

The short of the method is as such: First, you must change your mindset. You have to wrap your mind around the idea that your home should only serve to house the items and belongings that spark joy in your life. And how do you know if you’re belongings spark joy? Simple, you gather all of your belongings by category throughout your home and touch every item to see what items truly spark joy. Items that do not spark joy, the item should be thanked for their usefulness and donated. Second, once only your most joy-sparking belongings remain, put every item in a place where it’s visible, accessible, and easy to use daily. And it is at this point that Kondo says will you have reached the nirvana of peace-filled housekeeping, and never have to clean again.

While all of this sounded wonderful, as a working woman who could barely keep up with the demands of daily life I didn’t know how practical this method would be. But once I read Kondo’s book, I got motivated and as it turns out, tidying was my quickest way to household happiness.

There is so much information that I learned from the Kon’Mari method. For the next five, Thursday’s I’ll be sharing what I learned from the Kon’Mari method by category, starting today with clothing, and ending with Kondo’s newest master-level book, “Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up.”

Here’s what I learned about clothing:

Lesson #1: Tackle Categories, Not Rooms:

In the past, I have always tackled clutter one room at a time. Generally starting in my bedroom and working my way to the front of the house. Instead, Kondo’s first rule is to tidy by category—making sure to engage and sort you’re all of your certain types of clutter at once, in a single day. She advises beginning with clothing since it’s the least emotionally loaded category for most people. Then onto books and so forth, leaving emotional items such as photographs, letters, and holiday cards, things that hold great sentimental and emotional attachment to the end, to keep your momentum going in decluttering. I gave each category one afternoon which seemed more than plenty.

Lesson #2: Regard Your Belongings:

With a new mindset in place, I realized my closets were a disaster.  To remedy this, Kondo asks that you consider your clothing’s feelings: Are your clothes happy on a corner shelf? Are they happy crowded onto hangers? Are your workhorse socks being best utilized, lint-covered, and balled up? As silly as it may seem, after considering this perspective, the clothing, and unmentionables I spent so much time acquiring didn’t look very valuable after all. I spent two separate occasions. A large purge and then a second afternoon to create my first capsule wardrobe. Now, every day when I open my closet I love every item I see. It’s such a relief. My biggest lesson? Treating your things with respect makes them look better. 

Lesson #3: Nostalgia Be Gone:

As I started emptying the closets, I happened upon several hat boxes filled with letters and old photographs. Serious mistake. Seeing photos of my grandmother sent several days of decluttering to the wayside in afternoons filled with watching the film Beaches, shedding tears, and vast amounts of wasted time. Mind you, this was my fault. I did not heed Kondo’s advice to focus only on the category of belongings at a time. I was procrastinating.

While I was keen on the idea of living intentionally with clothing that sparks joy every morning, I still had hang-ups: What will I be left with? Will I wear it to meetings? What about date nights? What about church attire? Will I have to sacrifice my favorite belongings for the sake of decluttering? In the end, the Kon’Mari method helped me work through this clothing insecurities and fill my closet with only pieces that currently fit, will work for a multitude of occasions, and are easily seen in my closet. And as for those nostalgic items that you really can’t (and shouldn’t have to) throw out but that are taking up space in your home, why not hire a storage unit and keep them there? You can see them whenever you want, they’ll be safe and secure, and your home will be minimalist and tidy – it’s a fantastic solution. 

Lesson #4: Purging is Cathartic:

From this point forward I took decluttering my home seriously. Channeling Kondo’s advice, to say a prayer upon entering a client’s home, I lit a candle, said a little prayer, and started digging through each day’s tasks. Every day between work, on breaks, in the evenings, and all day Saturday I purged. 

What was surprising? The more I purged the more my clothing style emerged. I was left with clothing that didn’t look better on someone else, things found in magazines belonging to someone else’s journey, I was left with clothing that looked amazing on me. Mind you, this realization came 16 bags of donations destined for consignment and Thredup later. Sixteen bags with non-joy-giving clothes. Sixteen bags of guilt-ridden clothing. Clothing I tortured myself over no longer being able to fit. Kondo’s clothing purge ideas gave me the freedom to enjoy my clothing for one reason, to make myself happy.  Kondo also advises hanging clothes so that the line along the bottom slopes upward—it adds an optimistic “smile” to your clothes. I did this too!

Lesson #5: Fold Everything:

So, once you’ve sorted out the things you plan to discard, you then decide where the remaining clothing and everything else for that matter should go. Kondo suggests clothing would be happier folded in a dresser. So, almost everything aside from dress clothes found themselves again. Everything from unmentionables to workout clothing, everything. 

I started folding using KonMari’s vertical fold, which can be applied to everything that starts with a long rectangle and then folds from the bottom up, and in half again until it’s in a little package. How do you know if it’s done well? It stands up on its own!  To keep these little folded packages standing at attention in the dresser, Kondo suggests using shoe boxes as drawer dividers. 

Lesson #6: Love Your Closet:

This is why people become evangelical about the KonMari method. Once you’ve cleared away the clutter, you truly can see the light of day on your own, hard-earned things! What do I love most about my closet, post method? There’s breathing room between pieces, I can move my belongings along the bar and see light between every piece I own. Each piece in my closet gives me hope, and dare I say joy. What brings me the most joy? My simple, vintage polka dot dress. 

Lesson #7: Don’t Let Others Go Through Your Donations While Decluttering:

Kondo warns against allowing others to delve back into donation and discard bags since they’ll want to stop you from getting rid of so much. Never a truer statement was made. Throughout my closet cleaning, I was met with not only self-doubt but also family members asking, “You’re not getting rid of this are you?” For this reason, I suggest decluttering alone.

Lesson #8: Your Style Shines: 

For years I’ve worn the same rotation of easy-to-launder, neutral pieces. The color was a nonentity. There were not any pieces vibrant with color in my closets. Once a closet full of dirt dobber brown grabs, now houses my true, truth-speaking passion for color, including turquoise, coral, and shades of pink. These are the forgotten colors of my youth, the colors I had long admired in my study abroad in Europe. These were the colors that drew me into Art History. These are the dances of tone. These are the colors that now greet me each morning.

Lesson #9: Getting dressed is not a chore:

Getting dressed is a joy. Having dug out my current closet from nothing short of a painful, weight-fluctuating past. Now my closet feels richer. My closet feels simpler. My closet is easier to navigate. I feel privileged to have nice clothing and take pride in what I wear. Case in point, every Saturday morning I run errands and take a long lunch with my family when able. Every outfit I put on, despite having owned many pieces for years, brings a smile to my husband’s face. 

Kon’Maring my closet has helped me to see that when there are gaps in my staple wardrobe it’s okay to purchase new or new-to-me items to fill those needs. I also now collect only things I love in my closet. I now focus on finds such as hand-crafted handbags instead of expensive handbags. I look for cool, moisture-wicking cotton summer dresses and beautiful abalone shell earrings.

My only criticism. While cleaning is so much easier I still have to tidy from time to time. I would assume that only the most devout, extreme-minded KonMarists would never have to clean again their closets. This was not my experience. Maybe it’s the fact that I live in an older, dusty house but I still dust my closet floor and clean my closet doorknobs weekly. But now that everything flows with color, order, and purpose maintaining my closet is a pleasure and never a pain. 

I am a better person for having Kon’Maried my closets. 

For next week, books. I’ll be sharing how I went from being a Bibliophile on the verge of being a hoarder to a Zen reader. 

Here’s to better living,