Decluttering Clothing – A Journey to Sparking Joy

Thanks for stopping by to hear how the decluttering journey is going.  I am so excited to be joining up with these other talented ladies and share how we tidy up our homes.

A Journey to Sparking Joy:
Anderson & Grant
Making it in the Mountains
DIY Passion
Dwelling in Happiness
Zevy Joy
Cupcakes & Crinoline
Lost in the Found
The Happy Housie

We are reading through the book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. As I move through this book I want to be completely honest about what I think.  Already, I know that there are things that I will find valuable and then there are things that I will not always agree with.  I will say though, so far I am enjoying the benefits of what I am learning regarding decluttering and the results.  I am going to share what I am doing based off of the book and how I interepret some of her directions. I am showcasing some very real pictures of the process too.

This week’s challenge was to start by decluttering our clothing.  Marie Kondo encourages her readers to focus on categories rather than rooms and in doing so the job is focused and gets done all at once.  Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a small kitchen renovation therefore I just could not drag out all of the clothing in our entire home into one room and start sorting.  In addition, I have a little toddler that has become my decluttering helper so we did not have all day to work on this.  One piece of advice I did really enjoy was to sort based on what you DO want to keep, versus what you do not want.

To make this the most clear and helpful I am going to share what and how I sorted…

• I stuck with the rule of, “choosing what I wanted to keep because I enjoyed it”
• I started with the clean laundry and as I folded it – I sorted also.
• I moved into the closet and began pulling out all the clothes.  I then put back the things that I wanted to keep and left out the things that were not of value to me.
• I hung clothing in the closet based off of her recommendation from heaviest clothing to lightest.
• I did continue to keep and store my summer clothing after sorted (even though this was against her recomendation).
• One thing I did keep reminding myself, was that we have little closet space and I wanted to be able to use my closet best.  So it kept me motivated to get rid of quite a bit, seeing only a fraction could really fit into this shared space.
• I split my declutter session into two seperate times.  I started with the closet and then on another day I moved into the dresser.

At the end of it all – I have more space to see my clothes, kept what I felt happy wearing, wore a pair of pants that I forgot I had, and am not missing what I gave away.  I would say it was a sucess! I was able to do this in my own time and according to my own interpretation.  From my understanding, Marie says you shouldn’t have to do this again if you do it right the first time, so I may not have done it perfect as I would like to spend more time on it. I am okay with that though and would definately recommend trying some version of this. What I loved most was letting go of things that were unnecessary or taking up space and instead focused on what I really liked having and would get the most use.  A similar way of thinking on choosing joy in situations and really thinking about the good.

Stay tuned next week as we tackle accessories.  Make sure to check out all the other ladies participating in this challenge!  Have a great week friends.