Tag: decluttering

Categories
House

Read The Organized Home

Read The Organized Home by Remodelista

The Organized Home: Simple, Stylish Storage Ideas for All Over the House

Buy fewer (and better) things. Store like with like. Get rid of the plastic. Display—don’t stash—your belongings. Let go of your inner perfectionist and remember that rooms are for living. These are a few of the central principles behind Remodelista: The Organized Home, the new book from the team behind the inspirational design site Remodelista.com.

Whether you’re a minimalist or someone who takes pleasure in her collections, we all yearn for an unencumbered life in a home that makes us happy. This compact tome shows us how, with more than 100 simple and stylish tips, each clearly presented and accompanied by full-color photographs that are sure to inspire. Readers will learn strategies for conquering their homes’ problem zones (from the medicine cabinet to the bedroom closet) and organizing tricks and tools that can be deployed in every room (embrace trays; hunt for unused spaces overhead; decant everything). Interviews with experts, ranging from kindergarten teachers to hoteliers, offer even more ingenious ideas to steal. It all adds up to the ultimate home organizing manual.

Got lots of great prompts from this. Sure, there were some goofy things like decanting your laundry detergent 🧐 and hiding the aspirin in a pretty tin. But I appreciated that they offered multiple storage suggestion for each tricky item, and different versions of each room so there will probably be a solution that works for your space. I also liked the resources list of specific items and suggestions for what they’re useful for. I can have a hard time thinking of alternative uses for things, or alternatives to buying a specialty storage item sometimes, so I liked that they highlighted both buy-it and shop-your-house ideas.

It would be expensive to start this from scratch and buy everything new, but being creative with what you already own and shopping secondhand would probably make it more doable (if you have the time and patience 😉).

Yeah, it’s kinda bougie, but I’m kinda a bougie gal with expensive taste (even if I don’t always indulge it) 🤷‍♀️ I go into books like this knowing they’re aspirational and to some extent advertising for lovely products – they’re selling you the idea of organization, the promise of domestic tidiness and less stress.

And, I always need a reminder to dump shit and cull back to essentials and favorites.

I’m rethinking how I’ve organized some things in my kitchen and closet – anything I need to frequently grab and carry over elsewhere should be rethought. Anything I use on a daily basis that’s annoying should be improved.

Continue reading “Read The Organized Home”
Categories
Getting Shit Done

Watched Tidy Up with KonMari

Watched #1 in New York Gina Kruger Tidy Up with KonMari NHK by Tidyup with KonMari from youtu.be

Marie Kondo, aka KonMari, is a cleaning consultant.

Earlier this year, organizing consultant Marie Kondo was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. One of her books on how to tidy up your life sold 1.5 million copies in Japan, and is now finding big success abroad. Her de-cluttering method focuses not on deciding what to throw away, but on deciding what to keep. And what should you keep? Only the things that excite you.

With her Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up series stirring up phenomenal sensations all over the world, KonMari visits New York to help people distressed about tidying. Gina Kruger, who lives with her husband and 2 sons, is helpless as things pile up uncontrollably in her house. KonMari comes to rescue. In the KonMari Method, you tidy not from one room to another but by category; you go through categories, such as clothes, books and sentimental items, and pick out only what sparks joy. What happens to Gina’s house as a result? Check out all the tidying techniques that are guaranteed to make you want to start tidying immediately!

Categories
Lifestyle Mental Health

Confronting Sources of Guilt and Overwhelm in the House

Bookmarked How to cleanse your home of negative emotions – The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee by Ingrid Fetell Lee (The Aesthetics of Joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee)

If you’re looking for a clean slate for the new year, go beyond decluttering to purge your home of regret, guilt, shame, and overwhelm and create more space for joy in the year to come.

Guilt, shame, anxiety, regret: these emotions can take up residence in our homes without us realizing. And while all emotions have a purpose, dwelling on (or with) them when we’re not actively processing them can weigh us down. This is because when triggers for difficult emotions are present in our space, it’s impossible to escape their influence.

Guilt arises out of things that we feel we should do, but haven’t done for one reason or another. I have a tendency to leave things out to remind myself to do them… Guilt can also come from self-betrayal: when you violate your commitments to yourself.

Where to look for guilt in your home:

  • Unfinished projects
  • Items related to hobbies or habits you haven’t made time for
  • Things you bought but never used
  • The pile of books to read that you’ve lost interest in
  • Gifts you feel like you should keep, but don’t actually like

A major source of regret is spending. If you’ve spent money on something you don’t use, or you’ve overspent, the item can feel like a reminder of lack of self-control or foolishness.

Where to look for regret in your home:

  • Things you overspent on, but no longer love
  • Things that remind you of choices or hurts that you’re struggling to leave behind

Anywhere where our true selves rub up against the judgments of others, be they family or society, can be a place where shame might creep in. The closet, the bathroom, or the kitchen — places related to the body — are especially prone to being sources of shame.

Where to look for shame in your home:

  • “Skinny clothes”
  • Clothes you don’t like but feel you need to wear to look “presentable”
  • Books, music, or other media that you feel you should like but don’t actually enjoy

If you look around your home and feel overwhelmed, it may be because you have a lot of things in your home that are demanding your attention… each of these is a reminder of an action you need to take… Overwhelm can also come from broken systems.

Where to look for overwhelm in your home:

  • Piles that need to be sorted
  • Broken things
  • Things in need of maintenance
  • Places where you repeatedly notice a sense of frustration or friction
  • Organizational systems that aren’t working well

Anything that makes you feel on your guard can aggravate anxiety.

Where to look for anxiety in your home:

  • Things that are uneven or wobbly
  • Awkward things that don’t quite fit or feel uncomfortable to use
  • Things that jangle your senses with unpleasant noises or textures
  • Sharp edges that you have to be careful around
  • Fragile things you’re always worried about breaking
  • Formal decor that you worry about messing up

I’m a very mise en place / out of sight is out of mind person, and I do tend to leave things out as reminders for myself. But that’s not in keeping with the kanban method I also try to practice of picking your next work and keeping all my to-do’s in one spot. I used to have a “project shelf” in the garage but stopped putting stuff in there after we had some water and mouse problems — but I think I need to reinstate it, perhaps in a new home.

Right now I’m trying to address the overwhelm factor – and also the equity of housework – by not doing all the little stuff that needs doing myself, but instead making a list that DH and I each spend ten minutes twice a week knocking out. This is in contrast to Gretchen Rubin’s rule that if it takes less than two minutes you should just do it right away — because I can easily blow half an hour doing these little tasks and then feel resentful that I did extra housework when I already do the lion’s share, even discounting cooking time. I still deal with a lot of things immediately to prevent task buildup, but hold off on things like refilling the olive oil ewer and hand soap when it’s low.