Wednesday KatMari

[rachelmanija]

This has really been a breakthrough for me. I have previously never in my life been able to do any sustained organizing that did not involve some favorite hobby. Marie Kondo's show, at least, is basically about being a therapist for people's relationship with their possessions and their living space; once I realized that and started considering mine in those terms, all of a sudden tidying became my own personal therapy and thus an enjoyable and doable task, rather than something I inevitably got bored or frustrated with, wandered off having accomplished not very much, and then procrastinated on trying again for weeks/months/years.

Also, she has some good practical tips. My big discovery is that putting stuff in transparent boxes makes it a million times easier to find things - I'm very "out of sight, out of mind" for a lot of stuff, so it will essentially not exist for me unless I can literally see it. I have been hitting the Daiso (Japanese dollar store) for boxes. I realize that this is one of those things that's easy and tempting to shame people with: "How did you get this old before learning something any normal person figures out at age five?" But in fact I did not figure it out until age 45, due to watching that show.

I am currently working on the kitchen. Alas, I AGAIN forgot to take proper "before" photos. You can extrapolate what it probably looked like by the fact that yesterday I unearthed a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese that expired in 2011, which is probably also the last time I ate it.





Alex and Erin help me sort stuff from a drawer I had forgotten existed for literally years.



Erin helps me sort packaged food. I did not notice the Hello Kitty crackers till after I took the photo.

My kitchen has two of these cabinets/counters, one on each side. Here's what they both looked like "before:"



And after:



Erin approves my progress! (I feel like I need to note that I do eat stuff other than packaged snacks. It's just that the healthy stuff is mostly in the refrigerator.)





I put things I use daily or near-daily, plus non-refrigerated perishables on the counter, so I will see and eat them rather than having them go bad because I forgot they existed.



Please no negativity in comments. If you don't like this topic, please scroll or blacklist the decluttering tag.

Comments

[pameladean]

Hey, I'm WAY older than you are and had not yet figured out this business about transparent containers except, curiously, in the case of dry goods like flour and sugar and rice.

Alex has lovely markings and good Lord, I believe I have remarked on this before, but Erin is enormous! Go her!

I have not forgotten that you suggested I take photos of my bookcases. I cannot get images into comments, but I should be able to do a post. I will mention now that it is hard to get far enough away from many of them to do a good photo and also that they are extremely pre-decluttering, and littered with quite a lot of weird stuff. Well, the hardcover shelves are. The paperback ones are made to precisely fit mass-market paperbacks (*cue hollow laughter*, this was well before the whole distribution system collapsed) and you could put a pen down there, or a bookmark or an energy bar, but not much else. Well, she says, looking, a stapler, a ruler, a small prescription bottle. Yikes.

P.

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, Erin is huge (and Alex is quite small). Erin likes me to carry her around and she's quite a workout. The vet suggested putting her on a diet but she seems perfectly proportioned, just a big solid cat.

My (also MMP-sized - well, some of them) bedroom bookshelves have multiple prescription bottles, plus multiple other forms of strange non-book items.

[pameladean]

I keep forgetting that Erin is big unless a particular photo emphasizes it, so I think her proportions are just fine. Vets tend to get squirrelly about absolute poundage without always considering the length, etc. of the cat. I am cracking up at the notion of a cat-carrying workout, but really what could be better?

I am relieved that you too put non-book items on your bookshelves. I suspect most living spaces just don't have enough flat surfaces available, so we make do. Or else the flat surfaces aren't as conveniently located as the bookshelves.

P.