Here we go! Category #1 is clothing. So the first thing you need to do is gather ALL your clothing and place it in a pile on the floor. Notice I said ALL your clothing. That means every stitch of clothing you own, and from every little hiding spot you have. Empty your closet, and your dresser and then go get the clothes you have stashed in the spare closets, and in the basement, and attic. Don’t forget the coats and jackets in your entryway/mudroom. The only exception is clothes in the laundry! Remember, according to Marie, we should be sorting by category not by room. Sorting by room will ultimately give you more work to do. Think about it... You chose to sort by room, and began in your bedroom. You sorted and organized all the clothing in your room. Now you’re finished and you’re pretty darn happy with yourself. Now, you move on to the next area. Maybe the basement, only to discover a few bins of clothing down there. Considering you just organized your room, including clothing, you may feel a little defeated to have to organize more clothing, and find space for it in your newly organized closet and dresser. The way I understand this, is one of the underlying goals here is to store all like items together. All clothing, for example, should be together in one room because by dispersing all your clothes (or any type of items) throughout various areas of the house you never get the full picture, and will fail to grasp the overall volume of stuff you own, which will you cause you to never finish the discarding process. I must admit that I am not a keeper of clothing. Clothing is an easy thing for me to discard. My tastes and style change so frequently that I often don’t keep something for more than a year. Coats are the exception for me. I don't like wearing coats so I certainly don't want to buy new ones. I also don’t keep things if they don’t fit. When I go shopping I only buy things that I need. And I don’t buy the same top in multiple colors just because I like the style. I don’t get much enjoyment from clothes shopping, in fact I kinda hate clothes shopping. I have 2 criteria/questions I ask myself when I shop. One is “do I NEED this?” And second is “do I LOVE this?” The answer to both questions must be yes or I won’t buy it. And I don’t buy something simply because I have a coupon to use. I would rather let the coupon expire and not buy something at all, then spend any money at all on something I don’t truly need or love. With this mindset, I just saved more money than the person buying something they don’t need just to use a coupon. See, being organized can save you money! With that said, I realize that not everyone is like me. Some of you may have some pretty strong attachments to certain pieces of clothing. We will work through this. You may know that you don’t like an item or the item has no attraction to you, but your rational self may question if you’ll need it in the future or think it’s a waste to let it go. All these thoughts make it difficult to let things go. One by one, you will pick up each item and ask yourself the following questions. -Do I love this? -Do I wear it regularly? Obviously if you say yes to both questions, you keep it, and if you say no to both questions you get rid of it. That’s easy, until it’s not. What if you answer yes to one and no to the other? So consider why you have the item in the first place. When did you get it and what purpose did it have for you at that time in your life? Then reconsider the purpose it’s serving now. If it's still serving a purpose, then keep it. BUT, If it’s no longer serving a purpose then the item has outlived it’s reason for being in your house. According to Marie, this is where you thank the item for the purpose it served when it did, even if it’s only purpose was to teach you what you don’t like. Not every piece of clothing needs to be worn until threadbare. To quote the book, “To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose”. I admit that this part made total sense to me. If an item is so important to you and has a true function then why is it buried so deep in your closet or worse yet, the basement, and you haven’t worn it in years? You need to really think about that. If you really think about that question, the answer will probably become clear.
“If things had feelings, they would certainly not be happy. Free them from the prison to which you have relegated them...let them go, with gratitude”. That's another direct quote from the book. If you have an item that you don’t truly love but you know you will need it again someday and can’t afford to buy it again, then by all means, keep it. But be sure to make a home for it so it’s not buried out of sight. Out of sight usually means out of mind, which usually ends in you buying another one because you forgot you had the first one. This is especially helpful if the item is a high ticket item. But if its something cheap, it could be worth it to get rid of it and just buy it again, IF you end up needing it again down the road. But better yet, maybe you have a friend or family member who has an item like this that you could simply borrow IF you needed it. Just be sure to give it back as soon as you are finished with it. This will serve you twofold...one because you aren't spending money on something you only need once, and two, you don't have to worry about where to keep it or have it clutter your home. The Konmari method has a certain order to sort things in. Clothing being the first category. But within the clothing category is subcategories, which is apparently pretty important also, and goes like this... -Tops -Bottoms -Items to be hung (coats, jackets, suits, dresses) -Socks -Underwear -Bags -Accessories -Specific event items(swimsuits, uniforms etc) -Shoes Now you start the decision making process with each item, starting with off-season stuff going through the sub categories. Then do in-season stuff within all the subcategories. Now you can get to work on the keeping/discarding process, but you must finish this step before you move on to the second step of putting it away. Whatever you do, do NOT begin putting anything away until have completely finished the discarding step. Make sure you have a few trash bags in which you’ll place all your discards. When the bag is full, close it up immediately, and take it out of the house, and make plans to take it to the donation center immediately. Don’t let it sit around the house where you will have the urge to look through it again. Whatever you do, don’t look back through your discards after you have discarded them.
This photo is ALL the clothing I own except for stuff in the washer, and my coats which i hadn't brought upstairs yet when I took the photo. I just did this back in the summer but I'm doing it again for sake of the blog series LOL
So I may or may not have anything to discard this time. I’ll have an entire blog post, just about putting things away, tomorrow. But be sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram to see more inspiration throughout the week.
