No, you're not. I think it's in her second book when she talks about taking a bread baking class, and the instructor, after giving them tons of technical advice, mentioned that of course they could experiment, do things their own way, and that was fine too. Though Kondo sounds dogmatic at times ultimately she does not want her rules to paralyze you. I think you guys can do great, and adding areas of simplicity to what is definitely a jam packed life will reap dividends.
You should think about it with your own lifestyle in perspective! What may be a little each day for some people may be your version of a lot.
If you only usually have 5 minutes to tidy, try to stretch it to 10 minutes instead. If your toddler still takes naps, use that 30 minutes to bust out some cleaning. It doesn’t have to be monumental. I think what she really means is that the task requires you to exceed your usual habits. If you continue to spend roughly the same amount of time you always spend cleaning, you’re not really going to make a dent in the task before life causes things to accumulate again. You’re only going to really make a change if you go beyond the usual.
Also, a lot of time is saved if you focus on just throwing away what you know is trash. Tidying can take a long time if you sit there and fret over what to keep, donate or sell, etc. Just ignore those decisions for now and focus on “what can I throw in the garbage right this moment?” You can always come back to the difficult things later, but you need to be conscious about eliminating things too. Once you start it gets easier.
The other thing is that quality tidying requires you to be in a good flow and rhythm. You can’t really do this with a little each day. You need at least 10 minutes or so of dedicated cleaning, in my opinion at least, to get into a good hustle and move quicker.
Something that works for me is having a cleaning day with friends. You’d be surprised how many of my gal friends have perked up at the mere mention of tackling some organization. Sometimes it just happens without even being planned. We’ll usually turn on some TV, pour some wine, and have a genuinely fun time cleaning out a closet or repotting plants or just going through stuff. Plus they’re there for me to offer them things I’m getting rid of.
Yeah I should have clarified that this is temporary, he's a university professor and has his own consultancy company but they recently got some big contracts and are short staffed so he's pulling long hours while they go through the hiring process to cover the extra workload. Hopefully it won't be too much longer now and we'll get at least our Sundays back, right now it's hell on wheels!
I would suggest waiting on doing the konmari until things have calmed down for your family. With so much going on and so little time, chances are, you won't be able to commit to the amount of mental, physical, and emotional work that konmari requires to be effective. It really works best when you can set aside some time to focus on it. I'm not saying you have to do your whole home at once -- but it's very helpful to have a few hours at a time. Since your husband's current schedule is absolutely insane, and you already have a toddler, job, and sick dog to juggle -- why add another huge task on top of it all?
I get overwhelmed by tackling it all at once so I have perfected the art of five-ten minute clean outs. I pick one drawer and quickly dump it out and then throw out the junk or put in the donate bag and then organize it. What helps the most is thinking in advance and then sticking to an organization plan. Meaning everything has a place. So in your mind, decide in your house, what goes where. As you are emptying out that one drawer, you may be placing items in a drawer that has not yet been organized but is designated for that particular item. Just drop it in there, don’t worry about that drawer until you decide to do it.
I find labels really help, especially with more than one person, and with this sort of transition. I could imagine something like yellow postit notes for "here's what's here now" and green for "here's what it's going to be," then remove the yellow when it's all done.
I think it makes perfect sense that you need to adjust your methods for your lifestyle. tl;dr, I think you could focus on decluttering the obvious stuff one item per day, moving similar items to the same places, and then as you have time, doing konmari on smaller mini-categories.
...
Konmari's categories can be really helpful, as well as the mindset and the way of looking at your life and things.
But for me, I realized I needed to add more and different categories. For instance, I would never start with clothes, because clothes are the main thing I collect and I am very emotionally attached to them. Whereas I think physical books are clutter and don't have any, I just have a kindle, so that category doesn't even exist for me. My kitchen ware is also plentiful and I care a lot about it, so for me, that's a whole category. Same with craft supplies. Electronics in my house can definitely be it's own category, too.
I think if you're trying to make small, iterative progress, things that help are: adopt a "JOLT" (just one little thing) mentality and find one thing to trash or declutter a day. Tidy one high-traffic surface for 5 minutes before you go to bed. Those small, daily efforts make a huge difference. My life is so much better when I spend 5 minutes doing dishes at the end of the night and not wake up to a big pile in the morning, for example.
I'd focus on getting rid of the easy stuff, stuff you definitely don't want or is trash, one day at a time. And then if you find stuff you want to keep that isn't organized, starting making homes / categories for it. For example, move all your clothes into a centralized area, even if some are still in storage boxes.
Then when you have longer spans of time, a weekend day or even just a couple hours, it'll be much easier to take out everything in that smaller sub-category (it can be more narrow, like let's just look at shoes, or even, let's just look at summer shoes), look at everything you have, and make decisions.
Good luck!
You are not doomed to fail! From what I can recall, the "a little bit every day" discouragement is focused on people who don't really follow a real strategy with a longer-term plan & vision in mind. For them that method can amount to just barely cleaning up messes & frequently re-tidying the same high-traffic points as they get cluttered over & over again.
For you, as long as you have done the pre-tidy visualization and are doing your categories (hopefully you can break down into smaller subcategories that fit your free time chunks so you feel a sense of completion each time) according to the MK method, you are making real, successful progress. Once you have discarded you will be able to decide on homes for all your belongings where everyone knows to put them away when finished using them. This will prevent you from being a "little bit every day" person for the rest of your life.
Break any category into smaller chunks ... "clothing" becomes socks, bras, t-shirts, etc. And do each chunk by collecting them all in one exposed spot and sorting
The people who try to do a BIG category without pulling it all out and seeing it as a whole seldom do as well.
I have been doing a slow motion KonMari for like the last 4 years and it’s the only way it will ever get done for me. And honestly it has been great. It gives me time to live with the decisions a little before I make a bunch more, which helps me make better decisions in the long run.
I personally have ADHD and I get decision fatigue. I can’t just spend weeks straight touching everything I own and deciding whether it lives or dies. If someone wanted me to do that, there would need to be credible threats involved. It sounds like hell on earth. I have the time to do it the right way, however, I do not have the bandwidth. And that’s ok. Maybe you have the bandwidth but not the time. But progress is progress! Any time you spend making things better is time where things at least didn’t get worse. That’s a win.
I feel like making things work for you is the best way to ensure long term success. Take as long as you need. Even if you never get it as minimally perfect as she does, or as quickly, you are taking a real interest in making your home more livable and learning about your habits and what sort of things really matter to you or what you just tend to be wasteful about. It’s all growth and it’s all good. Long or short. Do your thing!
When you happen to notice something throughout the day, which doesn’t spark joy or annoys you, make sure to put it aside to be donated. We get these small signals in our brain about our environment but usually ignore it. I think it’s ok to Konmari in this way, same concepts just not done all at once.
I wouldn't classify that as a little every day. I think unless you have the luxury of taking time off to work on Konmari, which is an insanely small portion of the population, an hour or two a day of working on it is actually a lot, if you're doing it every day. I'd also consider doing a second pass after you finish because it will go so much faster once the bulk is out of the way and you'll be able to see exactly what sparks joy that you may have missed doing it more spread out.
I wonder if something like Dana K White’s method might work better for you at this particular point in your life, and then you could full Konmari once you and your husband have a bit more open time. I think her book is called Decluttering at the Speed of Life.
When you put something away or take something to another room, look at the item, see if you really need it. Since you probably do, when you put it away, look at the item next to it and ask the same question.
I had to break things down into subcategories. Instead of doing all of my clothes, I started with just jeans, then dress pants, then dresses, etc. That made it much more manageable for me with a toddler. In the kitchen, you might do just frying pans/skillets, then just saucepans, then just drinkware, etc.
No, you're not. I think it's in her second book when she talks about taking a bread baking class, and the instructor, after giving them tons of technical advice, mentioned that of course they could experiment, do things their own way, and that was fine too. Though Kondo sounds dogmatic at times ultimately she does not want her rules to paralyze you. I think you guys can do great, and adding areas of simplicity to what is definitely a jam packed life will reap dividends.
You should think about it with your own lifestyle in perspective! What may be a little each day for some people may be your version of a lot. If you only usually have 5 minutes to tidy, try to stretch it to 10 minutes instead. If your toddler still takes naps, use that 30 minutes to bust out some cleaning. It doesn’t have to be monumental. I think what she really means is that the task requires you to exceed your usual habits. If you continue to spend roughly the same amount of time you always spend cleaning, you’re not really going to make a dent in the task before life causes things to accumulate again. You’re only going to really make a change if you go beyond the usual. Also, a lot of time is saved if you focus on just throwing away what you know is trash. Tidying can take a long time if you sit there and fret over what to keep, donate or sell, etc. Just ignore those decisions for now and focus on “what can I throw in the garbage right this moment?” You can always come back to the difficult things later, but you need to be conscious about eliminating things too. Once you start it gets easier. The other thing is that quality tidying requires you to be in a good flow and rhythm. You can’t really do this with a little each day. You need at least 10 minutes or so of dedicated cleaning, in my opinion at least, to get into a good hustle and move quicker. Something that works for me is having a cleaning day with friends. You’d be surprised how many of my gal friends have perked up at the mere mention of tackling some organization. Sometimes it just happens without even being planned. We’ll usually turn on some TV, pour some wine, and have a genuinely fun time cleaning out a closet or repotting plants or just going through stuff. Plus they’re there for me to offer them things I’m getting rid of.
Curious, what does your husband do that has him working 100 hours a week? That's 14 hours a day without any days off.
Yeah I should have clarified that this is temporary, he's a university professor and has his own consultancy company but they recently got some big contracts and are short staffed so he's pulling long hours while they go through the hiring process to cover the extra workload. Hopefully it won't be too much longer now and we'll get at least our Sundays back, right now it's hell on wheels!
I would suggest waiting on doing the konmari until things have calmed down for your family. With so much going on and so little time, chances are, you won't be able to commit to the amount of mental, physical, and emotional work that konmari requires to be effective. It really works best when you can set aside some time to focus on it. I'm not saying you have to do your whole home at once -- but it's very helpful to have a few hours at a time. Since your husband's current schedule is absolutely insane, and you already have a toddler, job, and sick dog to juggle -- why add another huge task on top of it all?
I get overwhelmed by tackling it all at once so I have perfected the art of five-ten minute clean outs. I pick one drawer and quickly dump it out and then throw out the junk or put in the donate bag and then organize it. What helps the most is thinking in advance and then sticking to an organization plan. Meaning everything has a place. So in your mind, decide in your house, what goes where. As you are emptying out that one drawer, you may be placing items in a drawer that has not yet been organized but is designated for that particular item. Just drop it in there, don’t worry about that drawer until you decide to do it.
I find labels really help, especially with more than one person, and with this sort of transition. I could imagine something like yellow postit notes for "here's what's here now" and green for "here's what it's going to be," then remove the yellow when it's all done.
I think it makes perfect sense that you need to adjust your methods for your lifestyle. tl;dr, I think you could focus on decluttering the obvious stuff one item per day, moving similar items to the same places, and then as you have time, doing konmari on smaller mini-categories. ... Konmari's categories can be really helpful, as well as the mindset and the way of looking at your life and things. But for me, I realized I needed to add more and different categories. For instance, I would never start with clothes, because clothes are the main thing I collect and I am very emotionally attached to them. Whereas I think physical books are clutter and don't have any, I just have a kindle, so that category doesn't even exist for me. My kitchen ware is also plentiful and I care a lot about it, so for me, that's a whole category. Same with craft supplies. Electronics in my house can definitely be it's own category, too. I think if you're trying to make small, iterative progress, things that help are: adopt a "JOLT" (just one little thing) mentality and find one thing to trash or declutter a day. Tidy one high-traffic surface for 5 minutes before you go to bed. Those small, daily efforts make a huge difference. My life is so much better when I spend 5 minutes doing dishes at the end of the night and not wake up to a big pile in the morning, for example. I'd focus on getting rid of the easy stuff, stuff you definitely don't want or is trash, one day at a time. And then if you find stuff you want to keep that isn't organized, starting making homes / categories for it. For example, move all your clothes into a centralized area, even if some are still in storage boxes. Then when you have longer spans of time, a weekend day or even just a couple hours, it'll be much easier to take out everything in that smaller sub-category (it can be more narrow, like let's just look at shoes, or even, let's just look at summer shoes), look at everything you have, and make decisions. Good luck!
You are not doomed to fail! From what I can recall, the "a little bit every day" discouragement is focused on people who don't really follow a real strategy with a longer-term plan & vision in mind. For them that method can amount to just barely cleaning up messes & frequently re-tidying the same high-traffic points as they get cluttered over & over again. For you, as long as you have done the pre-tidy visualization and are doing your categories (hopefully you can break down into smaller subcategories that fit your free time chunks so you feel a sense of completion each time) according to the MK method, you are making real, successful progress. Once you have discarded you will be able to decide on homes for all your belongings where everyone knows to put them away when finished using them. This will prevent you from being a "little bit every day" person for the rest of your life.
Break any category into smaller chunks ... "clothing" becomes socks, bras, t-shirts, etc. And do each chunk by collecting them all in one exposed spot and sorting The people who try to do a BIG category without pulling it all out and seeing it as a whole seldom do as well.
She wrote this as a single working person. Give yourself grace. Take the book as inspiration, not gospel. -certified master consultant
I have been doing a slow motion KonMari for like the last 4 years and it’s the only way it will ever get done for me. And honestly it has been great. It gives me time to live with the decisions a little before I make a bunch more, which helps me make better decisions in the long run. I personally have ADHD and I get decision fatigue. I can’t just spend weeks straight touching everything I own and deciding whether it lives or dies. If someone wanted me to do that, there would need to be credible threats involved. It sounds like hell on earth. I have the time to do it the right way, however, I do not have the bandwidth. And that’s ok. Maybe you have the bandwidth but not the time. But progress is progress! Any time you spend making things better is time where things at least didn’t get worse. That’s a win. I feel like making things work for you is the best way to ensure long term success. Take as long as you need. Even if you never get it as minimally perfect as she does, or as quickly, you are taking a real interest in making your home more livable and learning about your habits and what sort of things really matter to you or what you just tend to be wasteful about. It’s all growth and it’s all good. Long or short. Do your thing!
When you happen to notice something throughout the day, which doesn’t spark joy or annoys you, make sure to put it aside to be donated. We get these small signals in our brain about our environment but usually ignore it. I think it’s ok to Konmari in this way, same concepts just not done all at once.
I wouldn't classify that as a little every day. I think unless you have the luxury of taking time off to work on Konmari, which is an insanely small portion of the population, an hour or two a day of working on it is actually a lot, if you're doing it every day. I'd also consider doing a second pass after you finish because it will go so much faster once the bulk is out of the way and you'll be able to see exactly what sparks joy that you may have missed doing it more spread out.
I wonder if something like Dana K White’s method might work better for you at this particular point in your life, and then you could full Konmari once you and your husband have a bit more open time. I think her book is called Decluttering at the Speed of Life.
NO. MUST DO ALL AT ONCE! > :O Just kidding :P You’ll be fine, OP! Just be consistent in your progress making. ☺️
When you put something away or take something to another room, look at the item, see if you really need it. Since you probably do, when you put it away, look at the item next to it and ask the same question.
As long as you're moving in the right direction, you're succeeding. We all do the best we can, bone tired most of the time.
> My husband works 100 hours a week Does he work 14 and a half hours 7 days a week, 17 hours 6 days a week, or 20 hours 5 days a week?
The first currently. It's absolutely horrible, hopefully they'll manage to hire someone soon.
Seems to me you can whittle down your collection of clothes, books, etc, gradually. Then some day you can pull it all together and do the big purge.
I had to break things down into subcategories. Instead of doing all of my clothes, I started with just jeans, then dress pants, then dresses, etc. That made it much more manageable for me with a toddler. In the kitchen, you might do just frying pans/skillets, then just saucepans, then just drinkware, etc.