I’m extremely late to the Marie Kendo ‘The Living-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ train. Even though I purchased it back in the summer, I’ve only just got round to turning the last page – #ReadingFail. Overall it was a pretty good read. There were some parts of it that I don’t think I’ll ever put into practice, but other chapters really struck a chord and since closing it for the final time I do feel like the flat is the most organised and tidy it’s been, so I guess it works? Here are my top 10 learns just incase you want to be bitten by the tidying bug this weekend…
1. The whole ‘Does it spark joy?‘ thing is actually a really good way of clearing out, especially with makeup. If I hadn’t worn it for a while and it didn’t make me feel all happy when I held it in my hand, then off it went. The process is surprisingly simple.
2. Tidying in silence is the way to go and is actually more fun than it sounds. Marie recommends this and I’m with her on it because when I tidy I mutter away pretty much constantly to myself. Nope? Just me?
3. When I first read that Marie doesn’t agree with downgrading clothing from your wardrobe into loungewear status instead of getting rid of them completely I gasped, but actually it makes sense. After taking a long hard look at my bulging PJ drawer I realised that all my clothing cast-offs were pretty grim and it was time to let them go for real. Wearing loungewear pieces that you actually purchased for that purpose just feels nicer.
4. For quite a naturally tidy person there were some parts of this book that I felt I’d already aced (though probably not to Marie’s method!) and after reading the bit about clothing, it made me once again appreciate my capsule wardrobe set-up. Capsule wardrobes rule!
5. Marie loves tidying more than anyone in the world. FACT.
6. Bizarrely I was a bit of a paperwork hoarder. I think this comes down to the fact that at the old place we didn’t have a paper shredder and so even if I wanted to do clear out, there wasn’t really the option. Now me and my paper shredder are best friends.
7. Photographs were another category that we needed a bit of help with. Mark takes loads, gets them developed and then they sit in the envelope, piled up in a stack. After reading the chapter on them we headed down to Paperchase, picked up some albums and put together five albums worth of pictures that I now can’t stop flicking through.
8. Tidy alone. Tidying in front of an audience isn’t too fun. ‘Aw you can’t get rid of that!‘ becomes an all too frequently used phrase.
9. Don’t read this book when you’re away from your home because an uncontrollable urge to tidy will come over you and you won’t be able to think about anything else.
10. It’s catching. When I started reading this book Mark, who’s a bit of a hoarder by his own admission, rolled his eyes. After a couple of weeks and after witnessing me having the paperwork cull of all paperwork culls, he felt compelled to do the same. Result.
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