You may have noticed it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything of consequence, and appear to have pretty much done nothing for weeks and weeks on end… this is partly true; I haven’t blogged about much, however behind the scenes I have been tackling a rather large project.

A little while ago I started to read Marie Kondo’s ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’. (*this is not an affiliate link, I popped a link in purely so you can see what the book is about)  I initially saw someone post something about the ‘konmari’ method of tidying on Instagram and became intrigued because this woman had reduced her clothing by three quarters in an evening. It isn’t long since I last decluttered, but I still felt cluttered, my clothes were stuffed in drawers, the washing piling up, my craft room.. well let’s not even talk about my craft room. I needed a change, I needed a challenge, so I grabbed a copy of the book and started reading.

Marie Kondo approaches decluttering in a different way the the myriad of decluttering and sorting books I’ve read in the past. Her basic principle is that to have something in your home it must spark joy. Obviously you need to define your own joy on some items (toilet paper for example) but your home wouldn’t be particularly joyous without it! In order to know if object spark joy it’s necessary to pile them up in one place and then hold them one by one.. it sounds silly, but so far I have donated 15 shopping bags of clothes, several freezer bags of jewellery, 80 books (including all my beloved declutter books), and put all my paperwork in order. Considering I donated several bags of clothes and books back in October this was rather eye opening.

A portion on the donate pile.

I haven’t finished all the categories that Marie suggests yet, and some will be harder for me than others (childhood sentimental items in particular), but I am feeling much more energised as far as the home goes and am looking forward to a space that is less ‘full’ and allows me to just get out some fabric and sew, or catch up on Project Life without battling with my craft room to get the things I need. It’s definitely changing my mindset about what I want in the house as well. If you’re battling with stuff I highly recommend this book as anyone who has chatted to me of late will know.

Empty drawers! I also have half empty drawers for the first time ever!

How about you? Are any of you using the Konmari method? How are you finding it?