How to declutter your house (part two-clothes)

Career spacer - 2 Jul 17

You have to start with your clothes. Don’t ask me why, Konmari says so. Something to do with them not being personal.

I started in a half hearted way, picking through, pulling out the stuff that hadn’t seen the light of day for years, or was trashed or was never going to fit me again (maternity clothes, hurray!)

Bags were filled and taken to the charity shop, or mostly, textile recycling (as a student I worked in a charity shop and it was always a total ball-ache when people bought in trash- you could always tell the quality of items by the bags they were brought in- black bag=rubbish, Coast bag- you have a new window display)

Then I read THE BOOK and realised I’d been doing it all wrong. I shouldn’t have been picking through choosing what to chuck, I should have been choosing what to keep.

Well that should be easy I thought, as I’ve got rid of most of the dross right? Wrong. Once I piled all my clothes together, they still looked like this.

Which is too much. Too much for me anyway. I’m not working and I never stay up past 9 o’clock so I was only actually wearing a fraction of it, and mostly having to wade through it all to realise I actually just want jeans and a T-shirt.

So, earnestly I began, holding each item, asking myself if it sparked joy, and discarding if not.

Some things were easy, but others, where I’d spent a lot of money, I found hard. Konmari says we hold on to stuff either because we are tied to the past or scared of the future, these clothes were a bit of both. Tied to the past of being able to wear a strapless corset top, and scared of the future, where a last minute Wimbledon invitation would see me without a cream striped jacket. In the end, most of it went, and I’ve been back a few times since, culling the last few bits I was unsure of.

Once you’ve finished discarding, Konmari has some interesting (crazy) ways of storing clothes, including folding things vertically and arranging from dark to light.

This was my first attempt at vertical folding, it’s a lot neater now.

It even works on husbands’ clothes!!

It’s 6 months on now, and it’s been great, it’s much easier picking out what to wear, as the only things I own are things I like. It’s much easier to see where I have a gap so need to buy something new. The only thing I’m still struggling with is that the folding takes more effort than my previous method (get husband to throw all clothes in the vicinity of the wardrobe) so I have to cajole myself into taking the time to put it away properly. Overall though, a winner. This is what my wardrobe looks like today…

So, what are you waiting for? Oh yeah, it’s too hot, there’s tennis on, you have a life, I know I know….

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Hi I'm Anna, I left my career of 10 years to pursue my dreams of sitting on the sofa a bit more. I have two beautiful little girls aged 3 and 1. Blogging at careerspacer.com

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