3395: How The Aspiring Minimalist Can Modify The KonMari Method by Jen Smith of Modern Frugality on Marie Kondo

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a Minimalist Monday edition of Optimal Living Daily, How The Aspiring Minimalist Can Modify The KonMari Method by Jen Smith of ModernFrugality.com and I'm Justin Malik.

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to Optimal Living Daily or the OLD podcast where I read to you from some of the best blogs I can find and get permission from, mostly covering personal development and minimalism on this show.

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So for now let's get right to it and start optimizing your life.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_00]: How The Aspiring Minimalist Can Modify The KonMari Method by Jen Smith of ModernFrugality.com

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Have you been sitting in your house wondering where all this stuff came from?

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're like me, it didn't come all at once. It crept up slowly over years.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: A new apartment brought new furniture, new marriage brought knickknacks and kitchen gadgets, and new jobs and events brought logo tees I swore I was only going to wear around the house.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Did you know that the average home size in America has increased by over a thousand square feet since 1973?

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And the average family size has decreased, so we should have so much more room for activities.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Yet we still feel trapped in homes that seem to shrink every time we come back from Target.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_00]: If you feel this way, then you're probably ready to embrace a more minimalist lifestyle.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: There are many roads to minimalism, and the first step is figuring out which way is right for you.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I personally like The KonMari Method by Marie Kondo, with a few modifications made along the way.

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: She's not a minimalist per se, but that's kind of why I like her.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: What is The KonMari Method?

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I was introduced to The KonMari Method to decluttering when I read Marie's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was pretty minimalist already, and blamed most of the clutter in the house on my quasi-hoarder husband.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_00]: But even for someone who doesn't love to shop or accumulate, Marie showed me there were still items in my closets and drawers I was personally holding onto for the wrong reasons.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: She recommends a category-by-category declutter versus room-by-room.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_00]: You start with the first item group on the list, take all of that particular item out from every room in the house, put it all in a pile, then decide what stays and goes.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_00]: There are rules to follow that will help speed up the process and keep it going.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Her method is definitely a rip-the-band-aid-off kind of approach.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Other great minimalists offer insight to doing things slowly and easily, but Marie Kondo says you shouldn't drag the process out any longer than you have to.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm an all-or-nothing person, so this sounded great to me, but I'm also really busy, so I took the essence of The KonMari Method and modified it for my needs.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're a visual person, I made a free printable schedule called Weekend KonMari Tidying Guide, because everything is more fun as a printable challenge, right?

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: She recommends doing everything in a weekend, but I was happy to see in her new Netflix series that she allowed people six weeks to complete the process.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It's much more reasonable, and I hope it will get more people on board with her program.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: How do I make The KonMari Method work for me?

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: While in the fibers of each episode's narrative, but not clearly stated in her Netflix series, are her rules for tidying.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Marie's first rule to decluttering, which she calls tidying, is to commit yourself.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: This is aided by the second rule, to imagine your ideal life.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: It's basically visualizing your why for wanting a more minimalist life.

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: That can be less time cleaning, a more calming place to come home to, or for the ability to downsize your home.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Her third rule is to finish discarding first.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: If you love organizing and planning, raising my hand right now, then it can be tempting to organize between every group.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Guilty. But because I wasn't able to do everything in a weekend, and I didn't want to live in a tornado all week,

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I opted to organize between groups.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if Marie would approve, but it worked best for me.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Next is to tidy by category, not location, and to follow the right order.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_00]: She breaks up the home into five categories of items.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Clothing, books, papers, miscellaneous, and mementos.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: The point is to find the hidden things where they shouldn't be, and to keep similar items close together, so they're easier to find.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I love this concept because it starts with the end in mind.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: If I keep all my papers in one place in one room, then I'll never have to search the entire house again looking for one bill or receipt.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I try to follow this rule, but it was hard to remember all the places I kept things,

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and I felt it was more important to get the job done than scour every inch of my house to make sure I got everything on the checklist.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Done is better than perfect.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: The order is important because it starts with the easiest and ends with the hardest.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Marie says if you try to start with mementos, you'll never get past them.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And the last rule to aid in your tidying up is to ask yourself if the item sparks joy.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of what she's famous for, right?

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: It's also my least favorite part of the Konamari method.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Marie talks to her items and equates them to the source of joy in the room.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: That's where the minimalist and Marie's paths diverge.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: The purpose for my decluttering isn't for the sake of having a decluttered and joyful home.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a byproduct of wanting a simpler, more fulfilling home in life.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to admit it sounds a lot weirder in the book than it does watching it on TV,

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00]: but the principle for me remains the same.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to only keep things I like and use frequently,

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: but I don't want to trick myself into thinking that they are the sources of my home's joy.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But I did find one other phrase she used to be really valuable when getting rid of something difficult.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Marie thanks the item for whatever it brought in the moment or season it came into the house.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: She is the example of a skirt that's barely worn and fits fine, but never gets worn.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: She bought it because she thought she wanted to dress a certain way,

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: but over the years couldn't bring herself to like it as much as she wanted to.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: She thanked the skirt for teaching her more about her true style

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and acknowledged the sunk cost as the price she had to pay to learn that lesson.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Marie's was a skirt, mine was a dress,

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: a beautiful sequin party dress that I idolized but wore only once and couldn't bear to part with.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: B, but just wasn't.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I thanked that dress in my head and let it go.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Ready to get started with the KonMari method?

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I highly recommend the book and the Netflix series to learn more about the logistics of her decluttering method

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and take comfort in the knowing that you can declutter using the KonMari method too

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: no matter how much time or space you have available.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_00]: This method is best for people who are ready to rip the band-aid off, so to speak,

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: but can really be modified for anyone who sees value in it.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_00]: You just listened to the post titled,

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: How the Aspiring Minimalist Can Modify the KonMari Method

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: by Jen Smith of ModernFrugality.com

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you to Jen.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: The KonMari method was really popular a few years back.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: There was even a Netflix special where Marie Kondo helps people declutter.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably still around if you look for Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I can see the value in breaking it down by category instead of by room.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: It might sound more difficult at first, but I think it saves more time long term.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: If we remove all the clothes, for instance, from everywhere in the house,

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: dump it in a pile, and then go through it,

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: it's going to be way easier to see what duplicates we have and make decisions all at once

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: compared to picking and choosing in one room,

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: then finding more clothes a month later when we're decluttering in another room,

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: deciding again just on those,

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and then maybe more clothes pop up in yet another room.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually very obvious this way,

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: but most of us probably don't think to do that when we start decluttering

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: because we tend to like tackling one space at a time.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So something to think about as we start the week,

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: hopefully with some decluttering and organizing.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Wishing you a great start to your week if you're listening in real time.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being here,

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and thank you if you've ever shared this show with someone.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll see you tomorrow as usual,

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: where your optimal life awaits.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Vorирован.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.