Konmari Day 1

       The Konmari method starts with clothes. She wants you to gather all the clothes in the house and put them in a pile to go through one at a time. You should only keep the clothes that bring you joy. Then you thank the other clothes before getting rid of them. This lady obviously doesn't have kids. 

      Even though I wanted to follow her instructions to a T, I had to break this up. Otherwise, my kids would have drug all the clean clothes all over the house making them dirty. That wasn't going to happen. I still had issues with one small one at a time. Lorelai thought it was hilarious to climb through the pile, mix up my organization, and unfold all clothes that didn't make it back in the drawers fast enough. Regardless, I pushed on. By the end of the day, I made it through half of our clothes excluding Aaron's. He has to go through his own stuff.

       

       This is my day one results:

All these things will be leaving out house shortly. Yay!

Starting the KonMari Method

           I have tried every decluttering method I could find. I feel like I should be able to manage my house by now. After all, I have spent days, months, and years decluttering and cleaning. I have tried getting rid of two things every time one item came into the house. I've tried getting rid of 40 bags in 40 days. I've tried getting rid of 2015 things in 2015. I completed this one and my house still has too much. I've tried getting rid of things corresponding to the day of the month challenge, one thing for the first day, two things for the second day. I've tried by room. I've tried setting a timer. I've tried one drawer or area a day. I've tried books where they give you a specific thing to clean, organize, and declutter every day. I've taken courses. I'm even a fly-baby flunk out. (She lost me at "you must wear shoes in the house." Yeah, I don't think so!) All these methods helped, but none of them worked completely for me. Many made me feel like a failure at house keeping which is a big deal since I consider that part of my job. 

            Why can so many stay-at-home moms handle their homes and I can't? Well, I can't yet. I will figure out this secret! Yesterday, I jumped on the KonMari bandwagon and finally purchased a copy of "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing". I ordered the kindle version because I didn't want a book on decluttering cluttering my house. That's just wrong. I finished reading it and even though I think the author is a little crazy, I plan to utilize this book to the T starting with saying "Thank you, all previous decluttering/ cleaning methods for getting me started. You have served your purpose in my life."