A few years ago my Mom read a book by Marie Kondo (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing) and mentioned to me the concept of items in your life “sparking joy” or else getting rid of them. Over the years I’ve done my fair share of decluttering, and I’d say about 80% of my house feels pretty neat and tidy. It is SOOOO much less stressful to me since we got rid of a million kitchen implements, toys, books, half empty bottles under sinks, etc. — and we’ve made a conscious effort to not replace those items with more stuff!
However, the two parts of my life that I cannot seem to get on board with purging completely are my clothes and my photo albums. My photo albums are all for sentimental reasons. Some day I need to get things digitized and captioned (and printed into a nice book so we actually look at them) or else get rid of them. I have dozens of photo albums from throughout my life. I seriously love photos, but they’re overwhelming to me at this point as well.
But, that’s not the point of this post. Today I’m talking about clothing. I just watched the first episode of the new Netflix Series “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” and got re-inspired to tackle my closet. I find I hold onto clothes for one of 2 reasons.
- Sentimental Memories (that shirt was Jaime’s before she died, I was wearing that dress at my sister’s wedding, those were my favorite basketball shorts in high school, etc)
- Weight Loss Dreams, i.e. Those were my favorite jeans 40# ago, I used to love wearing that tank top to show off my back and arms, damn I looked good in that dress when it fit me, etc.
I’ll let you guess which category 80% of the clothes in my closet currently fall into. *sigh* SO, that’s my new decluttering goal in life – letting go of the weight loss dreams clothes. When I lose the weight, I want to get new clothes anyway! 😉 The other night I started with my drawers (socks, underwear, sports bras, regular bras, PJs, swimsuits, & workout pants), and my goal is to move onto my closet THIS MONTH. I’m putting that out in the universe so that I actually do it. 🙂
On a funny note, I literally found nursing pads in my bra drawer and the hospital issue mesh postpartum undies in my underwear drawer, so clearly those have been in there since my last big purge 5 years ago! It feels so good to let go of all the things that don’t spark joy in my life, even when the process itself can be painful to start.
Your’s is the 3rd post about Marie Kondo. Glad her advice is having such a position impact!
Haha, yeah. It’s a bit overdone right now, but also super applicable to most people’s lives!
I need to watch that show… We’re due for another purging here too. I did the kids’ linen closet this past weekend and got rid of so many sheets!
I have jeans I’m pretty confident may never fit again. I sold 2 pair on Poshmark and that gave me joy after getting over the truth that they’ll never look good on me again. Truly. We laugh about it as I’m bringing in $50-$100 a week but I have sold over $11,000 of stuff on FB and posh since starting in Mar 2015… 😂 That’s real money and turning clutter into cash brings me serious joy!!!! I need to watch that show just to come up with stuff to sell!!!!
I have a stash of those bra straps too… And no bread that they go with (purged years ago). Why do we keep stupid stuff???
*no bras… Not no bread. Good lordy!
I don’t have nice enough stuff to sell on Poshmark I don’t think. Hm…. maybe worth a second look though. It’d be easier for me to purge things if it resulted in more cash money in my pocket!
Hey, I sell stuff for friends that results in just $5 here and there – it adds up. My stitch fix stuff sells well… Especially the jeans. You’d be surprised! I shipped out $37 in sales today which is a good day. We joke about how I’m killing squirrels when Brian is killing elephants to make money, but it all adds up and goes to the same place! I finished up my accounting for the year today ($2,300)… Better than last year and $57 into 2019. I’d be happy to help you get started! I love it!
I really want to watch Marie’s series but I’m afraid it’ll turn me into a mad woman. I LOVE organizing & purging so it might be too much for me and I may donate my entire house.
Lol!
YES! Goals for me these next few weeks! Thanks for sharing, I didn’t know about that show!
I just watched the first episode (a young couple with 2 kids – seemed applicable), and it was fun! She’s just so joyful and non-judgmental and just wants to help people feel happy in their space.
I’m downloading her show on Netflix now so I can watch it on my commute home. I have a thousand of those bra straps hanging around and buttons… all the extra little baggies of buttons every time you buy a coat, blouse, anything with buttons! I feel like purging “stuff” while also trying to purge all this extra weight with be very cathartic!
I just combined all of my buttons into one little container when I did this last weekend! I like having extra buttons for when one pops off, but I trashed the million little bags they were in. 🙂