Marie Kondo has been making waves in the house organizing sphere for quite some time now, but even more so now that Netflix released a TV series featuring the guru herself in "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo." I have watched the show myself and some of her ideas have been on my mind lately. My family of four just recently picked up and moved across the globe with most of our possessions in only seven suitcases. As we are settling into our new home, I am trying to be conscientious of what new things we bring into our house. Having less stuff can make for much easier organizing.
One of the things people struggle with the most in keeping an organized home is keeping up with the heaps of laundry. I definitely have struggled with this myself. Since we couldn't bring much with us on our move and we were moving from a tropical to a colder climate, we didn't bring many clothes. We planned on getting more suitable clothes for the climate upon arriving at our destination.
As I was doing laundry today, I realized if you have less clothes you have less laundry. Yes, you must do the laundry more often instead of ignoring the growing piles so it may seem like you have more laundry. I like the extra push of needing to do it or else we wouldn't have anything clean to wear. Another bonus is that you have much less to fold. We seem to have the perfect amount right now that at the point where our clean clothes are getting low, we have the right amount of clothes for a good full load.
In her show, Marie Kondo has everyone put all of their clothes on the bed and then go through each piece of clothing and to get rid of any piece that doesn't spark joy. If you have a hard time with this concept of your clothes giving you joy, I suggest you sort your clothes by these rules:
How to Pare Down Wardrobe:
If you're interested in more Marie Kondo tips you should read one of her books:
I enjoyed watching the episodes on Netflix. I hope she ends up having more episodes :)
I definitely purged my closet afterwards and got rid of a bunch of clothes (sold some, donated, tossed out depending on the condition). It was a nice feeling and less cluttered!
That was a big move for you all and 7 luggages, that's incredible! Hehe.
I have found that as I aged (and retired) my wearable and necessary wardrobe became smaller and I was able to donate large quantities of nice clothing to church charities.
The reminder to "do it" and not leave boxed up in the garage is a very good suggestion as it is not always that easy to part with some of our "cherished" belongings and need that extra push to move it out the door.
I occasionally volunteer at our local library and the books mentioned are in our library and can be available for free for several weeks.
If you are interested be sure to check your library and if they are not available, ask the librarian to put them on the wish list and generally they will try to accommodate and order the books on that list when funds are available.
It is amazing that you and your family were able to condense to seven suitcases, but the old saying; "where there's a will there's a way" does apply sometimes.
Good luck to you and your family in your new home and undoubtedly, a new adventure.
