Where are my keys? Has anyone seen them? Hello? Shit, where are they? I have a meeting, can’t be late!
You are running around looking frantically for your keys. You’re getting warm, sweat pearls are building up on your back and you can feel the heartbeat pumping. Your mood drops, super, this is not how you wanted to start the day, especially since you have this important meeting.
Do you recognize yourself, maybe it was your phone instead? This is such an unnecessary source of irritation. Give everything you have a "home" and you won’t get into those desperate situations in the morning where you are rushing around and screaming to the poor people in your household "where are my this and that..?" You can read a former blog article about this here.
Less stuff
The home giving process is so much easier if you have less stuff, surprise surprise! I was thinking that we are going to tackle that today. What do you say?
As I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of simplicity. My own cleaning product Ecoclean Homeline is an all-arounder. You make a dilution with water and then you can start to use it almost everywhere. You don’t need ten different bottles in the cupboard. Why make things more complicated than they need to be. Free yourself and use that time for something else, something that is important to you.
One lady who is doing this brilliantly and also has worked out a method is
Marie Kondo. She is a Japanese tidying expert and best-selling author whose ideas have helped millions of people create orderly, welcoming homes and working spaces.I love her simplistic, practical, and spiritual view on tidying and its impact on quality-of-life.
When you have fewer things around you, it will be much easier to find a home for the once you decide to keep. This means it will also be so much easier to clean since you will have everything is already in its place. You don't have to pick up and rearrange objects before you dive into the scrubbing and dusting, or shuffle things around to get to the surfaces you need to clean. Whether it’s you doing the cleaning or a hired professional, you’ll save tons of time.
Get the right mindset
Ok, so how will you then get rid of things you don’t need. Well, to get the mindset right, it’s not about throwing things away. It’s about discarding whatever doesn’t "spark joy".
Discarding really means choosing what to keep. Marie sais, the best criterion for choosing what to keep is this: Does it spark joy when you touch it?
But before you start, a few more things on your mindset since that is a huge part of succeeding, whatever you do.
1. Decide to tidy up - start believing with all your heart that you can be tidy.
2. Visualize your ideal lifestyle. What kind of life would you like to live in your home? Think about what comes after. Tidying can be life-changing.
For example, you would love to make and eat stress-free, healthy and delicious meals with your family in the evening. Listening to music while cooking, set the table in a pretty way and enjoy this everyday activity.
Tidy by category
Now you are ready to start. Important here is, you don’t decide where, by place or by room, you're going to tidy, you decide what you’re going to tidy. By category.
You tackle one category at the time.Gather every single item in the category from every corner of your home. Pile them on one spot. This way, you can see exactly how much you have.
By starting with the easy things first and leaving the hardest till last, you can gradually hone your decision-making skills.
Marie suggests to follow this order:
• Clothes (tops, bottoms, clothes that should be hung, socks underwear, handbags, extra items, clothes for specific events, shoes)
• Books
• Papers
• Miscellaneous items (CD’s, DVD’s, skincare products, make-up, accessories, valuables, electrical, household, kitchen, other)
• Things with sentimental value
While all your clothes are on the floor, why not jump in and relax there on the pile. Have some childish fun. After you’ve finished discarding, your pile will probably be three quarters less.
Try to do your tidying marathon in one go, not one day, but let’s say one month. If you drag it out, you will lose the effect of knowing what to discard and what truly sparks joy in you.
I have stared Marie’s tidying method myself, I am not finished though, so guilty. But I’ve done the first categories, not all in miscellaneous and sentimental.
The effect of a tidy home
I encourage you to start this process and it’s perfect now when you have spring-cleaning in your mind anyway.
It sets you free in from a lot of material things that you don’t use anymore. Before you let them go to charity, recycling or whatever you decide, say thank you to them, for their time and service. And you are now free to move on, to live more in the present.
Marie calls it “the magic of tidying up”, we learn not to be too attached to the past or afraid of the future. We also learn to see what we need, what will satisfy us or what we're really seeking. So tidying is a way to confront ourselves and set us free.
If you need help or more information about tidying and cleaning and have some fun with it, join my newsletter. Or get one of Marie's amazing books.
