KonMari Update: Finished. Sort of. Not Really.

I meant to write this update before 2015 ended but I procrastinated badly that last week of December and am just now catching up with everything. What I didn’t procrastinate with was Kondoing the things.

When I last updated you, we had these things left:

– Knick Knacks
– Art (you know, that stuff some people hang on walls but we generally just store in closets. sigh)
– Seasonal decor
– Sentimental things

We also had some things that we needed the children to go through and planned to have them help us out with that during the holidays: the nutcracker collection, the videos and the board games.

Where are we now? Done. Sort of.

We went through all of the knick knacks and art and made some sizable donations to Goodwill right before the kids came for the holidays. We still have a few more things to donate and we have some art and large framed mirrors and such that we’re holding onto until after we choose a new home. It’s possible that even if they bring us joy, they may not fit in our new home… we’ll review right before we move and purge again, if necessary.

We went through the seasonal items and I thought that would be harder than it was. I don’t know if it was TW’s mood or what but she found less joy than I expected her to find and it was a piece of cake to get through that stuff. (We cut down Christmas by 2 rubbermaid tubs and a cardboard box!)

We went through ALL of the sentimental things, once. We did a quick “no joy” pass on all of the things we’ve saved and there are three bins in the office that we need to go through once more to see if everything sparks joy. We also put all of the photos in one big box (except for what’s already in albums) and we need to go through those (and the albums.) Michelle belle helped me go through a shoebox and two small albums while she was here and that was kind of fun to do with her.

As for the things we thought the kids were going to Kondo? We went from four HUGE boxes of nutcrackers to two. I’d like to have gotten down further than that but…whatever. It’s not my stuff, though we’ll probably be storing those boxes for the oldest youngest child until we die.

Four of the five kids went through the games and only a small number sparked joy. I would like the fifth child to weigh in but if she doesn’t make her way over here soon, I’m probably going to just bite the bullet and discard the bulk of this stuff.

The videos that the kids originally struggled to let go of, (while I was trying to Facebook them photos asking “Joy or no joy.”), were suddenly much easier for them to discard and they agreed that I should just let it all go. I’m not sure I can do that, but it makes it easier to discard the bulk of it without worrying that they’ll be unhappy about what didn’t bring me joy. So, I need to go through the cabinet and just get that done. I think I’ll actually do that as soon as I finish typing this post.

I also realized that there are some things in one of the sideboards that we never went through because they were art or sentimental or knick knacks but since they were out of sight, I forgot about them. I’ll convince TW that we should do those tomorrow.

So really, we’re very close to being finished with this (oh, except of course for Elly’s room which we’re still working on, one small batch at a time when she’s here every week or two.) It feels good but TW said the other day that we’ve done so much but it still feels like there’s more to do. I feel that way too, and expected it. It was always sort of my plan to do another pass through all of the things as we pack up to move — and then really think about our possessions again once they’re being unpacked in our new home. I do expect we’ll let more go over the next six months or so. Not a lot, but just looking around while I type, I feel like there are some things here that don’t really bring joy… I like them, but joy… probably not.