Spring is in the Air!

With Spring in the air, and Kondo's latest book about decluttering read, I have a real urge to clean every corner of my house!

Since reading Marie Kondo's book ' The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up - the Japanese art of decluttering and organising (which I highly recommend!) I have been highly motivated to cull, give away, throw away and store items more effectively, throughout my entire home! Kondo's book was an instant best seller around the world, I think because her method of sorting and tidying is so different to any we've heard of before. She brings both a no-nonsense, and an holistic approach to a very practical (and at times emotional) task. As we accumulate things throughout our lives, we do tend to tolerate the stuff around us that has long past it's usefulness and ends up cluttering our living spaces. Below are 6 tips that I found extremely helpful from her book!

6 Tips to Organising your Home using Marie Kondo's Method. 1. Visualise your destination Imagine your surroundings as you would love them to be. Vividly picture what it would be like to live in a clutter free space. Ask yourself 'why do I want to tidy?' 2. Tidy all at once This means over a few designated months! (not in 3 days!) According to Marie, when you tidy a little each day you'll be tidying forever. Get stuck in and do it all at once. 3. Tidy in categories, not locations. We store items of the same category in multiple places in our houses. If you are tidying clothes for example, get all of the clothes out of every space in your house to begin with and then sort. Marie also instructs you in the fine art of folding which will transform how you store your clothes! One of my personal fav's is folding your socks like sushi rolls! 4. Ask ... Does it spark joy? This is the key question you ask yourself when you hold every item you are sorting. Hold every item in your hand and ask 'does this bring me joy'? If it does you keep it, if it doesn't you discard it. Your emotions and body guide you in making the decision - not your head! 5. Tidy in the right order! Marie suggests starting with clothes, then books, paper, and finally Komono (miscellaneous) She goes into great detail about categories within categories. A big mistake people make is starting with sentimental items eg, photos. 6. Discard first, then place things back Once you have discarded what you don't need, it's easy to decide where things should go, because your possessions will have been reduced to a third or even a quarter of what you started with. Marie also dedicates a section to dealing with sensitive items that connect you with your past and feel too painful to part with. So... if you're feeling in the mood for a big tidy up, I totally recommend this read! It's different to any book I've read before, inspiring and very motivating!