Nesting: The process of finding everything in your house is a gigantic mess and an increased desire to throw everything out the window because it is all absurdly unfit for a little baby!
New year is always a good time to clean up your act, and this year, expecting a baby in June I had already started nesting in December, though not as serious as I should.
After running into this amazon bestseller (it’s the number one book on amazon!!) and quickly devouring the first week of the year, I started following the instructions there to really declutter my home…
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
I should warn you – if you go through this, it is absurdly time-consuming! But it’s also very addictive and once you start you can’t stop which is a big plus when you live in a gigantic home filled with more stuff that you could possibly need…
I always blame my problem in all the storage space available in this house… Why throw out when there’s space to store!!! You might need someday, you never know… LOL. The lies we tell ourselves…
The basic premise of the book is PICKING UP each item in your hand and asking yourself: “Does this give me joy?”. This sounds a bit strange, I know. But it works!!! It’s amazing how much stuff in my closet I kept for other reasons… Because it’s almost new or a gift or I will use one day…etc. When you put all this aside, and just ask yourself that simple question you can really filter and keep only the stuff you will actually use.
She also recommends removing all things from your closet or wherever, after bringing all items together and then going through each item. It took me two weeks for my closet but I removed 5 garbage bags!! And things, when organized by category are much more organized, for example, all CDs in one place, DVDs in one place, makeup in one place etc…
Here’s the order I gathered from the book on how to go through your house:
- Clothes *gather all in ONE place, remove all from shelf
- * Personal note: I did kids closet after mine
- * I also did my bathroom after closet
- Books * but all on the floor & gather by “General (books you read for pleasure) |Practical (references, cookbooks, etc.) | Visual (photograph collections, etc. | Magazines”… Ask: Does it give you pleasure when you touch?
- Sorting Papers: Discard everything (this is hard!!!) that is not: “currently in use, needed for a limited period of time, or must be kept indefinitely.”
- Miscellaneous:
- 1.“CDs, DVDs2. Skin care products3. Makeup4. Accessories
5. Valuables (passports, credit cards, etc.)
6. Electrical equipment and appliances (digital cameras, electric cords, anything that seems vaguely “electric”)
7. Household equipment (stationary and writing materials, sewing kits, etc.)
8. Household supplies (expendables like medicine, detergents, tissues, etc.)
9. Kitchen goods/food supplies (spatulas, pots, blenders, etc.)
10. Other (spare change, figurines, etc.)
- And lastly: Sentimental Items & Photos
After discarding, store. The basic rule, as I mentioned: “I have only two rules: store all items of the same type in the same place and don’t scatter storage space”
Even though she mentioned the whole process should take about 6 months, I feel like I am halfway done with my house… I haven’t gotten to the kitchen yet, which I think it will be a bit monster to tackle 🙁 .
I think being pregnant is definitely helping, because the nesting motivation is there.. and also I am being a bit tougher with my selection criteria! I am hoping to be completed within the next month 🙂
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Mother of three, web developer, web addict, web-everything. Love reading, writing, eating & traveling. I have recently found out success is completely unrelated to the amount of money in your bank account…
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