#i take a konmari approach to using my old stuff

[discountalien-pancake]

This may be my most controversial sewing onion 🧅, but I think it’s okay to cut into old textile yardage or salvage usable pieces from decaying textiles to give them new life.

In my stash I have tons of vintage and antique laces, some in better condition than others. I painstakingly wash and repair them as needed. And then I put them away? What is the point of having these beautiful textiles that will never again see the light of day? Just to keep them in a box forever? Preciously tucked away to be studied by nebulous “future generations”?

These textiles were made for the express purpose of being made into garments and other goods. It doesn’t make sense to me to hide these things in storage out of fear of damaging them. They were made to be used! Not to exist in some pure, untouched, unaltered state.

If I had made this lace a hundred years ago, and I found out that a hundred years later someone found it so beautiful that they spent hours carefully preserving the usable pieces of it to make something new and beautiful and enjoyed my work every single time they wore it, I would be overjoyed.

I’m not encouraging anyone to cut up their antiques. That is a personal decision and one you should make for yourself after considering what you want most out of the items in your care. But I personally believe that the textiles in my care deserve to live outside the confines of a box, even if it means they die a little faster.

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/lifestyle/the-joy-of-the-junk-drawer/

The joy of the junk drawer

Sure, you can embrace Marie Kondo. But how long before the clutter inevitably creeps back? (Trisha Krauss/The New York Times)

Ronda Kaysen

(Right at Home)

It was a Tuesday night, a work night, a school night, that kind of night, and my husband was dutifully folding an undershirt into a neat origami square. “Does this look right?” he asked, holding up the painfully pretty white bundle as soothing music from a YouTube demonstration video filled the room.

I nodded. I couldn’t do much more than that, because I was confronted with all the socks that I own, sitting in a hill on my bed, waiting for me to sort them. How could I possibly own so many socks when it always seems like I’m almost out of socks?

As you’ve probably gathered, my husband and I have been binge watching the Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, in which the Japanese organising guru cheerfully helps families bring order to their woefully cluttered homes. If you are one of the few people who have missed this frenzy (where have you been all winter?), Kondo is the author of the best-selling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, whose KonMari housekeeping philosophy comes down to a simple axiom: If an item sparks joy, keep it. If not, thank it for its service and let it go.

Viewers watch as families spend exhausting weeks sorting through every item in their homes, facing down the sheer volume of their belongings and the marital strife all that stuff often causes. The end results are modest (in some episodes, it’s not clear that the participants parted with much at all.) Yet the goal is surprisingly ambitious: Give every item a place to call home and you can organize the junk drawer out of existence.

Could you even imagine? Open any drawer, like this one at my desk where I am currently seated, and you are likely to find a motley assortment of objects. In this case: lip balm, a hair band, nine pens, three sample bottles of random lotions, a pair of old eyeglasses and some cables that don’t appear to belong to anything in particular. Oh, and a molded imprint of my infant daughter’s foot, which would be really sweet except that she’s now 8. So why is it still in the drawer?

As much as I am mesmerised by the prospect of a tidy life and a rightful place for that foot imprint, I can’t shake the feeling that even if I wrangle order out of this drawer, or my sock drawer, or all the drawers in my home, the space will refill again. Maybe not in a week, but soon enough the clutter will creep back in and chaos will return.

Anyone who’s moved from a small apartment to a larger one, or better yet, from an apartment to a house, has experienced that feeling of expansive space. So many closets! So much room to spread out! And yet, somewhere in the recesses of your mind, you know that eventually every nook and cranny will be filled. The stuff will come from somewhere — gifts, impulse purchases, office freebies — and take up residence in those empty drawers.

But why?

“Acquiring things actually feels good,” said Travis L Osborne, a psychologist who treats hoarding and obsessive-compulsive disorder and is the director of the Anxiety Center at the Evidence Based Treatment Centers of Seattle. “You get a little dopamine burst in your brain when you go shopping, so that behavior is reinforcing, you want to do more of it.” Because we accumulate objects in dribs and drabs over time without really paying much attention, “we can just sort of fill up space,” he said.

For some people — roughly two and a half and five per cent of the US population — the need to hold onto stuff rises to the level of hoarding, a diagnosable mental disorder. The rest of us fall somewhere along a continuum from purgers to savers, wondering what should stay and what should go. “The challenges and the thoughts that people struggle with about hoarding aren’t really different than the thoughts that the rest of us struggle with,” Osborne said.

We may not be a nation of hoarders, but we certainly like to collect. Even the act of clearing out can send us back to the store in search of bins, baskets and boxes to hold our freshly tidied items. What better way to celebrate an organised sock drawer than with a handy set of dividers to keep the sweat socks from pestering the dress socks? Once you make it to the Container Store, you might as well pick up a few mesh baskets for the home office and some nice wicker ones for the living room.

Rampant consumerism certainly plays a role in clutter, but it is not the only culprit. It’s also about the mold of my daughter’s footprint. Short of framing and hanging it (which is probably what I originally intended, but, well, who has time for that?) it’s not the sort of item that has a natural home. Without an alternative plan for where to put it, it ends up floating around the back of a drawer with all the other homeless objects. At best, it ends up in a clear plastic bin, tucked away in the attic until my daughter grows up and I can give her the entire bin of childhood memorabilia so she can figure out what to do with it.

And so emerges the problem with organising on a whim. That enormous discard pile is satisfying, but without a strategy for all the stuff that has yet to even enter your home, you’ll just be doing this again next winter. “We fail because we don’t approach organising in a conscious way,” said Regina Leeds, a home organiser in Los Angeles and author of One Year to an Organized Life.

Instead, we should approach the overall task methodically and thoughtfully, and not just in arbitrary bursts. Leeds makes master lists for her clients with categories and subcategories of possessions, a daunting task. “Categories make you powerful. They tell you what you have, what you don’t have, and what you need,” she said. “They can spark creativity.”

Perhaps, with my creativity sparked, I could have a home without a junk drawer

[andrewdburton]

Mindful shopping: Learning to be deliberate about the things we buy and own

The older I get, the less I want or need. The older I get, the less I like to spend money. And when I have to buy something, I try to practice mindful shopping.

When I was younger, I wanted (and/or needed) all sorts of things. I wanted new clothes. I wanted tech gadgets. I wanted books. I was convinced that I needed a fast computer to be happy, not to mention a big house and lots of furniture. None of my shopping was mindful. It was mindless.

Now, at age fifty, buying things seems more like a hassle than a reward.

For one, buying something means I have to spend money — money that I'd rather keep for more important things, such as retirement. Or travel. Or beer. (Best of all: Travel and beer!)

Plus, there's the entire shopping process. It's a chore. If I need to buy a chainsaw, for instance (which I actually did this week), I have to research the best option. Then I have to find the best price. Then I have to order it or, worse, take time out of my day to go pick it up in person.

Then, after I buy a new thing, I have to store it. I have to dispose of the packaging, then add whatever I bought to my collection of Stuff. It becomes clutter in my life. (This is true whether the thing is actually clutter or not.)

I use my laptop computer all day every day, for instance, yet it still acts as mental (and physical) clutter. It's always here in the living room, sitting next to my recliner. I see it whenever I walk by. It's always on my mind.

I know I sound like an aging curmudgeon, but all of this is true. The older I get, the less Stuff I want — and the more I want to get rid of the Stuff I already own.

Now, I don't want to pretend that I don't buy things. I do. There's no question that I do. I even spend frivolously if I'm not diligent. But I'm far less likely to buy things than I used to. And when I do buy things, I tend to be purposeful about my purchases. I try to be a mindful shopper.

Let's use the chainsaw as an example.

Mindful Shopping in Practice

In the olden days — like, 2009 — I would have driven to Home Depot and bought a chainsaw the moment I thought I needed one. It wouldn't have even been a question. (In fact, I did this very thing in 2004.) Today, I deliberate over purchases like this for weeks, even when I know I need a tool.

Kim and I currently own an acre of mostly-wooded land just outside of Portland, Oregon. We have lots of trees, and those trees have lots of limbs. I don't think we're supposed to go hacking away at the trees on the forested part of our property, but there are still plenty of woody problems inside the yard.

For example, in March I took out a cedar tree so that I could replace it with a small orchard. This might have taken a few minutes with a chainsaw, but I spent an hour chopping away with a hatchet and a pruning saw. When I was finished, I was left with an ugly stump. (This stump joined several other stumps left over from the previous owners.)

“That stump looks terrible,” Kim told me. “You need to get rid of it. And you should get rid of the other stumps too.”

“I know,” I said. “But I don't have the tools to do it.”

“Why don't you just buy a chainsaw?” she asked. “We'd use it all of the time.”

I knew she was right. I'm constantly climbing ladders to chop down limbs. Every year, we take out two or three small trees that have taken root in inconvenient locations. A chainsaw would be handy.

We could certainly rent a chainsaw when we need it. We often rent equipment. Generally, though, we only rent tools if they're things we don't anticipate needing again for many years. We rented a lawn aerator last year, for example. And after we accumulated a couple of projects that needed it, we rented a chop saw. We may rent a pressure washer in the near future.

It doesn't really make sense to rent a chainsaw, though. It's something I'll use several times each year. Usually when I find myself wanting one, I'm in the middle of a larger project. I don't want to make an hour-long round-trip to the hardware store to rent another tool. It'd break my flow. Plus, over the long term, the cost will add up.

So, owning a chainsaw makes sense. I ordered one from Amazon and it arrived yesterday. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. It was a hassle. And now it's yet another thing I have to store. But at least I was mindful about the purchase.

The Onus of Ownership

It's not just that I don't want to buy stuff. More and more, I don't want to own things.

I know I have to own some things. I have to own clothes, for instance. I have to own tools. I have to own furniture. I have to own my computer. It's nice to own some art and some books.

But so many of the things I own sit unused for weeks or months or years on end. It seems silly.

Two years ago, in a moment of weakness, I bought a Nintendo Switch. “This'll be fun!” I thought to myself when I bought it. And it was fun for a few hours. Now, though, it rests ignored in the TV room. The last time I used it was in November. I should sell it (or give it to somebody's children).

Meanwhile, books have become a burden in my life. I never thought I'd say that. You see, I love books — and I always have.

Ten years ago, in my first active campaign against clutter, I purged most of my 3000+ books. Still, I have too many. They're everywhere, and I don't like it. It's no longer fun. Gone are the days when I'd simply order whatever book I wanted off Amazon. Nowadays, I usually dread getting new books.

It used to be that I found owning things comforting. I'm not joking. It made me feel good to know that I had all sorts of books and tools and furniture and clothes. I don't feel that way anymore.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the things I own, I remember our tour of the U.S. by RV. We carried very little with us on that trip. It was liberating. When we stopped to overwinter in Savannah, Georgia, Kim and I rented a condo for six months. All we had in that condo was what we'd had in the RV. Having so little felt amazing.

Time to Tidy

What do I spend money on? The older I get, the more my spending is aligned with my values. I deliberately practice mindful shopping and mindful spending.

For me, that means I spend a lot on travel, both for work and for pleasure. Between October 2018 to October 2019, I will have made four trips to Europe (three for fun and one for work) and four domestic trips (all for work). That doesn't count local excursions by car.

At home, my biggest expense — by far — remains our food budget. Even though we're dining out much less frequently in 2019, I still spend more on food (and drink) than any other category.

I don't mind spending money on travel and food for a couple of reasons.

First, these are things I value. They enrich my life.

Second, they don't create clutter. They're not possessions.

Nobody would ever mistake me for a minimalist, but I definitely crave a simpler lifestyle than the one I have now. For me, that means having fewer things around me.

And if I want to own fewer things, I have to get rid of some of the Stuff I already own.

When I returned from France two weeks ago, I was a cleaning machine. This often happens when I get back from a long trip. After spending days or weeks living with little, I'm eager to make my living space as minimal as possible.

This time, I started with the bathroom. I emptied all of my drawers and cupboards, then methodically trashed anything I don't use regularly. I threw out old shaving cream and bottles of stale cologne. I tossed dozens of old sticky notes on which I'd scrawled my weight and bodyfat. When I put the room back together, I felt a sense of relief.

I want to do the same in the bedroom — but I'm scared. Purging old toothpaste isn't a costly decision. Thinning a wardrobe, however, means getting rid of clothing that cost real money at one point in the past. Sometimes, the recent past. (Yes, I realize I'm succumbing to the sunk-cost fallacy. But just because I understand this intellectually doesn't mean I can overcome the problem in practice.)

It may be time for me to remind myself of the KonMari method, to re-read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I need outside encouragement that yes, I can do this — and that it'll all be for the best in the long term.

A Man with a Plan

Yesterday as I was driving to work at the box factory, I thought about what I'd own in an ideal world. Where would I live? What would I do? What would my life look like?

“I'm happy with the house,” I thought, “and I'm happy with Kim and the animals.” The basic infrastructure of my life is fine. I have a good partner, and we've deliberately selected a small house with a large outdoor living area. This is all great.

“But if I could buy everything from scratch, I'd own much less,” I thought. “I wouldn't have nearly as many clothes. I wouldn't own so many books. We wouldn't have crap in the storage shed at the bottom of the hill. We'd use that space as a tool shed instead.”

Driving home yesterday afternoon, I thought some more about this idea. What are some actual steps I can take to move from my current state of clutter and chaos to something more closely resembling this (hypothetical) ideal existence? I came up with a few ideas:

Implement a moratorium on buying. This shouldn't be difficult. It's merely formalizing a behavior I've already adopted. I'm ready to press “pause” on purchases for a few weeks or months until I've taken the next steps. This goes beyond mindful shopping to no shopping — at least for a little while.

Make a list (or several) of the things I want (or need) to own. Most of the time when I tackle projects like this, I do the reverse. I start with what I have and subtract. This is challenging. It quickly leads to decision fatigue. This time, I think it'd be interesting (and fun) to take an additive approach, to make lists of the items I'd own in my ideal life and work from there. What would my wardrobe look life? What books would be on my shelves? What tools would I have for the yard?

Go from space to space, ruthlessly purging the things I no longer need or want. I want to go full Marie Kondo on my life, being rational and realistic. If my aim is to create a capsule wardrobe filled with quality clothes, I need to get rid of a lot of crap. If books bother me so much, I need to thin my collection. I need to ask myself questions like: Am I really ever going to listen to my 100+ record albums again? (I don't even own a record player! Mine was destroyed by a “melting” pumpkin five years ago. For real.)

Be methodical and patient. Don't try to do this all at once. It's not possible to accomplish all of this in one day. Or one weekend. It is possible, however, to take fifteen minutes to sort the clutter in one kitchen drawer. Or, if I have an hour in the afternoon, I can pick through my photography gear to figure out which lenses I still use. (Do I use any of them? Or has my phone completely replaced my SLR?) If I'm diligent, I can probably process most of the house in a month.

This project excites me. It feels like doing this will clear both physical and mental baggage. I don't want to pretend like I think this will instantly make me a happier person — it won't — but I'm certain it'll bring a certain level of peace and calm to my life.

Kim gets a similar sense of serenity when the house itself is clean. For the first time together, we hired a housekeeper this week. For the past few days, Kim has been smiling and happy and she says it's because she loves walking from clean room to clean room.

The post Mindful shopping: Learning to be deliberate about the things we buy and own appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/mindful-shopping/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[hellofastestnewsfan]

For Martin Law, Marie Kondo’s tidying regimen was life-changing, until it wasn’t. Law, a 32-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Cambridge, went through with most of Kondo’s popular tidying method two years ago. “I managed to get rid of a great deal of items that I previously had found difficult to let go of,” he told me, including about half of his clothing.

After Law’s big cleanout, though, the stuff gradually crept back in. His kitchen gained a series of useful but not vital devices: a new cookie cutter, a larger whisk, a machine for making peanut butter. The accumulations of the past two years have added up. “The house is probably no better than it was—perhaps marginally better, but in reality probably no better,” he says. His commitment to having very little has, he confesses, petered out.

“If you adopt this approach—the KonMari Method—you’ll never revert to clutter again,” wrote Marie Kondo in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, published in the United States in the fall of 2014. Millions of people have bought her book, and many of those millions have since learned whether her promise holds for them as they systematically purge their homes of items that do not bring them happiness, or “spark joy,” as Kondo famously puts it.

I recently checked in with more than a dozen people who did their first KonMari-style cleanouts in 2015, 2016, or 2017. They were generally enthusiastic (even Martin Law) about the way Kondo’s book made them reconsider their relationship to material things, although many of them lamented the onslaught of new stuff that must always be kept at bay.

[Read: Marie Kondo and the privilege of clutter]

That process has come more easily to some than to others. “My house has never gone back to the way it was before I started doing this three years ago,” says KK Holland, a 37-year-old who lives in Santa Barbara, California. Yes, clutter occasionally mounts, but she works to keep it in check. “I remove items that no longer spark joy on an ongoing basis, and I am a pretty fierce guard of what comes into my house,” she told me.

At the end of 2017, she and her husband had a baby girl. “I’m happy to report our KonMari survived an infant,” Holland says. She insists that nothing makes her uniquely good at vanquishing clutter, but that Kondo’s approach has staying power because it prompts people to fundamentally revisit why they own what they own.

Most people I talked to, though, carved out exceptions to or ignored certain recommendations in the process outlined in the book. A couple of them kept more books than they thought Kondo would want them to. And two women—one in Massachusetts, the other in Hanover, Germany—independently told me they thought it was too onerous to remove everything from their handbags each day upon returning home, as Kondo prescribes.

And for some people, the project of going through every last thing they own, one by one, was too much to handle. Mike Fu, a 33-year-old Brooklynite, estimates that he made it through about three-quarters of the KonMari method three or four years ago. “I probably chickened out at the point where it was going through all the papers and non-clothing or -book objects,” he told me. Fu says he was at one point enticed by minimalist “lifestyle porn,” such as an image of a “sparsely decorated all-white living room with an iMac,” but he’s since come to terms with having a bit of clutter. And he and his partner are planning to give the KonMari method another try, “at our own glacial pace.”

Jasmine Bager, who’s 35 and lives in New York City, also tried a KonMari cleanout but decided it wasn’t for her. After she piled up all her clothing for a Kondo-style review a few years ago, she found the prospect of carrying through with the project too exhausting and avoided the pile, shifting it back and forth between her chair and her bed. She later came up with her own decluttering system, which she says works for her: Every day, when she leaves her apartment, she forces herself to take three items with her to get rid of.

There is some flexibility to Bager’s rule (a bag of garbage counts toward the quota, and she doesn’t follow it if she’s in a real hurry), but she has been sticking with it for more than a year. In the course of what she calls her “little game with the city,” she’s been leaving behind various objects—a magazine, a key chain, a book, shoes—around town, unlabeled, with an expectation that someone who needs them will claim them. Once, months after abandoning a headband she’d made herself, she was pleased to see a stranger wearing it at a subway stop near her apartment.

Whether or not they followed the instructions in Kondo’s book, Bager and the others I talked to for this story discarded a significant amount of stuff. Some thought about it in terms of volume—a Jeep Grand Cherokee’s worth of objects, or enough furniture to fill a two-bedroom apartment. One woman estimated that she and her husband chucked 60 to 70 percent of their belongings.

Even with all this throwing out, people have had very few regrets. Most told me they now don’t miss a thing, even stuff that they hesitated to discard. Some recalled isolated instances of (usually fleeting) second-guessing. Velma Gentzsch, a 40-year-old in St. Louis who KonMari-ed in 2017, says she wishes she still had the pair of brown leather boots she parted with. “I loved them, but they were half a size too big … [but] it’s not a huge deal,” she says.

Christina Refford, whose fourth KonMari-versary is this year, remembers twice going to her bookshelf—once for a stack of cooking magazines, once for Susan Faludi’s Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women—only to realize that she’d tossed out what she was looking for. She wasn’t too bothered. “Almost anything I would’ve gotten rid of can be found somewhere else,” Refford says.

The most missed item in all these purges was a special-edition pack of Pepsi bottles, each emblazoned with a cartoon alligator, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the University of Florida’s football program. The bereaved: Imani Clenance, a 34-year-old graduate of the university who lives in New York City. “Every now and then I think about those, like, Hmm, those might’ve been kind of cool to keep … But if I really wanted them, I could probably find them somewhere on eBay,” Clenance says. (I looked—she could.)

Marie Kondo writes that when doing a cleanout, “starting with mementos spells certain failure,” for they are plentiful, meaningful, and often irreplaceable. Kondo recommends tackling this difficult category last because it’s so hard, and indeed it’s one that the people I talked to struggled with. Many of them still haven’t finished it.

Lisa Shininger, who’s 40 and lives in Dayton, Ohio, told me about a beloved, ragged old T-shirt that she agonized over when she KonMari-ed in 2016. It carried so many memories for her that discarding it would feel like discarding them too. After rescuing it from her get-rid-of pile a few times, she ultimately let it go, and now she reports that she doesn’t miss it.

“If something didn’t make it in a move, or somebody else got rid of it by accident and I didn’t know about it—those kinds of things I regretted not having anymore,” Shininger says. “But I found that [wasn’t the case] when I myself made the deliberate choice [to get rid of it].” She particularly appreciates Kondo’s suggestion that people thank their stuff as they bid it goodbye—she thinks that helps prevent regret.

One particularly diligent KonMari practitioner, a 62-year-old retired child psychologist living in Washington, D.C., mentioned a strategy that helped her with this stubborn class of belongings. (She asked me not to publish her name because she didn’t want her clients’ families reading about her personal life.) She took pictures of the art her children had made in school and some trinkets she’d received from her grandparents. “I enjoy looking at the pictures,” she said, “but do not miss the actual objects.”

Another devotee, Ian Bate, shared his own secret to success. “I was surprisingly ruthless about [mementos], partly because I have an advantage: I’m old.” Bate is 70, an age at which he says it’s become clear which memories matter most to him and, more practically, “who might or might not like [my stuff] after I’m gone.”

“A dramatic reorganization of the home causes correspondingly dramatic changes in lifestyle and perspective,” Kondo writes. “It is life transforming. I mean it.” Language like this makes her book veer into self-help territory, but based on the experiences of the people I talked to, Kondo wasn’t overpromising. Whether a matter of causation or just correlation, many of the people I spoke to also said that their cleanouts coincided with pivotal moments in their lives.

One had just broken up with a longtime boyfriend when she did hers two years ago, and is planning another with her new partner now that they have moved in together. One found that his cleanout finally unburdened him of keepsakes he’d inherited when his parents died almost a decade earlier. One KonMari-ed, and then made long-procrastinated headway on getting her finances in order. And one finally went on the six-month backpacking trip she’d been thinking about for a long time, once she didn’t feel weighed down by her stuff.

“I wish I had encountered the book when I was 30,” Bate told me. He reflected on his career as a “good American consumer” and concluded that the majority of what he’d bought over the course of his life wouldn’t meet his new KonMari-calibrated standard. “If I had done it back when I was 30,” he says, “I just would have saved myself a lot of hassle by not buying and having to dispose of endless piles of crap.”

from The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2TP6ylY

[samuelfields]

KonMari Your Lifestyle And Finances: Marie Kondo Will Save You Time And Money

If you’ve ever been curious about what Sam’s wife Sydney is like, well you’re about to get a peek into her, oops I mean my, personality and – gasp! – my drawers.

I’m a lighthearted, patient (most days), happy homebody who has to know where everything is in the house and on my computer. But staying organized can be really hard, especially with a toddler in the house, and if you’re going at it wrong.

The exciting news is there’s a refreshing new way to organize known as KonMari. I’m sure some of you have heard about it or are already addicted to it like me.

Since I’m also a personal finance fan, I’m going to share why it’s beneficial to KonMari your lifestyle and finances.

The Six Rules Of The KonMari Method

Before I reveal my own recent adventure in organizing, I’ll give you the rundown on KonMari.

What is it? KonMari is a method of organization created by Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant and author who has a new hit show on Netflix, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.

I stopped watching reality TV shows seven years ago, but had to make an exception for this show. It’s addicting in a good way and has inspired me to make some refreshing changes.

The organizer in me that’s been away on leave ever since we had a baby has re-emerged thanks to this show. I had so much fun watching all of season 1 that I admittedly started watching it over again.

I also really enjoy Marie’s personality and mannerisms. I’ve traveled to Japan over a dozen times or so to visit family and friends, and the aura Marie gives off reminds me of my second “home.”

The way she speaks Japanese is very eloquent, polite, and respectful – something we could use more of in American language and culture imo.

KonMari isn’t just about tidying up one’s house either. It’s a lifestyle improvement technique built upon six key rules.

Rule 1: Commit yourself to tidying up. Without a sincere commitment to getting organized, you’ll either never get started, quit too soon, or only stay organized temporarily. Identify why you want to get organized and hold yourself accountable.

Some example reasons from the show include a couple moving into a new home together for the first time, a family wanting to get their house in order before committing to having a third child, and a widow looking to start a new chapter after her spouse passed away.

Rule 2: Imagine your ideal lifestyle. A clear vision of the results you want is a crucial motivator. I love how Marie takes a few minutes to greet each home she visits. She encourages each family to sit with her and silently talk to their house, as if in prayer.

Have you ever taken a few minutes to thank your house for protecting you and for all the memories you’ve had there? Envision the changes you want and take a moment to give thanks.

Sam and I spend so much time in our house every day working and as full-time parents with our son. We owe so much to our home – thank you dear house!

Rule 3: Finish discarding first. The meaning of this rule is to move forward with purpose. If you clean up your house’s visible areas by just stuffing everything into closets or storage, that isn’t truly effective.

Why? Without going through your items one by one and only keeping the things that you truly want in your future, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to stay organized. Things will inevitably get chaotic again.

Discard items first, then work on properly arranging and storing the remaining things you wish to keep.

Rule 4: Tidy by category, not by location. Traditional organizing is typically done room by room, one closet at a time, one drawer at a time. I’ve always decluttered and organized this way.

The KonMari method, however, is all about tidying by category (ex. clothes, books). The benefit of this approach is seeing just how much you have of each category all at once. Gather each category from all the nooks and crannies in your house and put everything in one big pile.

This shock factor can be quite a big wake up call, especially if you’ve developed a habit of scattering things around. If you love clothes, you might have a dresser and closet full in your bedroom, the guest bedroom, the basement, garage, etc. Making one big mountain of clothes shocks you to how much you actually have and probably don’t need.

The downside of decluttering by category is things will get super messy before they get better. Call it temporary increased chaos, but it’s worth it.

Rule 5: Follow the right order. Marie recommends tackling your tidiness goals in a specific order: clothes, books, papers, komono (miscellaneous items) and lastly, sentimental items.

Clothes tend to be the easiest to go through for most people, sentimental items the hardest. Tackling categories from least to most emotional creates momentum and a higher chance of completion.

Rule 6: Ask yourself if it sparks joy. This is my favorite rule. It’s made a huge difference in my ability to let go of things, clothes especially.

How do you know if something sparks joy? Sift through your pile of clothes and find something that you love. Hold it or put it on and capture how it makes you feel. Chances are it makes you smile and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Next, find something you don’t want to keep and compare the difference in your emotional response. If you get stuck, you can always come back to an item later or have a maybe pile.

Additional guidelines. Marie recommends saying thank you to each item we choose to dispose. How sweet! This brings a sense of peace and gratitude to the process.

After you’ve finished discarding items in a category, store them so your items are more easily visible. This is best done using boxes of various sizes and improved folding techniques.

For example, most of us who take the time to put folded clothes in drawers do so horizontally, ie one item on top of another in a stack. But, Marie Kondo folds most items vertically! Pick up a stack of shirts and turn it 90 degrees. Voila – vertical!

To help items fit best, Marie typically recommends folding in thirds instead of in half. You can see an example of my t-shirt drawer before and after below.

Lifestyle Benefits of KonMari

Completing the KonMari process takes a lot of time, but I think it’s worth the effort. The more I practice and progress, the more I appreciate KonMari as a lifestyle improvement. Here are some of the benefits.

Have a renewed appreciation for your home

Realize how much you’ve accumulated over the years

Feel more gratitude towards your belongings

Learn to let go of items that can better serve someone else

Create more useable and open space

Less stress and frustration

Find things faster

Ways KonMari Can Help Your Finances

The KonMari method of organizing has a lot of principles that can be applied to your finances. Here’s my financial spin on the six rules.

Rule 1: Commit yourself to financial independence. Growing wealth doesn’t happen by itself. You have to be proactive if you want to become and stay financially responsible.

Rule 2: Imagine your ideal retirement. Retirement planning is too underrated in our country. Visualize what you want your retirement to look like, don’t fall for retirement myths, and make a detailed roadmap that will lead you there.

Rule 3: Get out of debt. The sooner you can get out of debt and earn more than you spend, the better. So many more opportunities open up when you’re debt free. Sam’s slogan says it perfectly: Financial Freedom, Sooner Rather Than Later.

Rule 4: Don’t forget to zoom out. Regularly look at your overall financial health using a bird’s eye view to avoid missing things. It’s fine to use multiple accounts for different purposes if you actively monitor all your assets. Keep your overall portfolio allocation in line with your risk tolerance.

Rule 5: Earn, save, then enjoy. Order matters if you want to avoid debt and financial stress. Earn your money, save/invest part of what you earn after expenses, and enjoy some or all of the rest.

Rule 6: Identify positive reasons for growing your wealth. Identify specific reasons why money matters to you and how you want to spend it in the future. The clearer your visions and goals, the more motivated you’ll feel.

More finance benefits. The KonMari method can also help you save money by curtailing unnecessary spending. Think about exactly where you would put something before you buy it. No space? Don’t buy it. Your drawers and closet space become a lot more valuable after you’ve gone through the work to get them organized.

You’ll also avoid accidentally buying something you already have. Here are two silly examples. I bought twice as much maple syrup and olive oil because I thought we were running low. The bottles I’d already purchased were buried behind a bunch of stuff.

Sam recently made a dupe goof too. He bought a new basketball last month because he thought he didn’t have one.

Low and behold when we were cleaning out the garage he found one he’d barely used collecting dust in an old laundry basket buried below some bags and our son’s old car seat.

Organizing Is Addicting

I’ve always been know as the obsessively organized one amongst my closest friends and colleagues. But when full-time parenting took over my life, my ability to stay organized went out the window.

I frequently felt frazzled and frustrated. Our house also looked like it had been turned upside down most of the time, which often drove Sam and me crazy.

But this year, I finally feel like I’m back. Our son is starting to play more independently giving me more breathing room, I’ve been able to do more part-time work late at night, and I feel happy and more balanced. Bit by bit our house is returning to order.

Prepare For Big Changes With KonMari

I’m also highly motivated to give our house a complete KonMari makeover because we’re expecting big changes on the horizon. As many of you know, we might move to a bigger house this year or relocate to Hawaii.

Even though a bigger house could easily accommodate everything we have, packing up any size house is a royal PITA and the less we have to bring, the better.

I’m also amazed at how quickly our son outgrows things especially his clothes. Since we’re keeping all of his things for a few more years just in case we have another baby, our storage space is continually diminishing.

Clearing out space is so satisfying. I highly recommend you give it a try!

Before And After Examples Of KonMari

The worst room in our house has always been the kitchen. As one of the center spaces in our house, a messy kitchen is frustrating. The three of us spend so much time in and out of the kitchen throughout the entire day, 7 days a week.

It’s the last place we want to be chaotic, yet it’s constantly getting bombarded with stuff: papers, toys, cough drops, food, delivery boxes, our son’s clothes, and other random stuff. The good news is KonMari is helping!

Here’s a before and after pic of our countertops.

The countertops went from disarray and cluttered to manageable and orderly.

Next is an after shot of one of our kitchen drawers. I forgot to take a before pic, but you can trust me that it was a disaster. I repurposed some empty iPhone boxes.

And here’s a before and after pic of my t-shirt drawer.

Even though I folded my shirts in the before pic, the difference is night and day. I like the KonMari folding technique so much better.

A Few More Tips On KonMari

Get your family on board. You’ll need each other’s support.

Don’t expect to finish in a week. It’s time-consuming but worth it.

Bend the rules a little if you need to. I won’t tell anyone.

You don’t have to become a minimalist, unless you want to.

Anticipate and push through setbacks. Everyone has them.

Stay committed for the long term so your hard work isn’t wasted.

Reuse take-out containers, shoe box lids, jewelry boxes, etc for storing items neatly in drawers.

Dislike folding? Put on spa music and approach it like meditation.

Organizing and folding are great skills for kids. Our son now eagerly asks me to help fold his socks and he’s not even 2 years old yet!

Call ahead and check for overcapacity before dropping off donations. KonMari is popular now and people are donating like crazy.

Don’t forget to grab a tax receipt when you drop off donations.

Take pictures of your before and after progress!

If you want to learn more about the KonMari method, Marie Kondo wrote these two books all about it:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)

Regards,

Sydney

Readers, what’s the messiest room in your house? Have you tried to KonMari your lifestyle and finances?

The post KonMari Your Lifestyle And Finances: Marie Kondo Will Save You Time And Money appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from Finance https://www.financialsamurai.com/konmari-your-lifestyle-and-finances-marie-kondo-save-time-money/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[mcjoelcain]

KonMari Your Lifestyle And Finances: Marie Kondo Will Save You Time And Money

If you’ve ever been curious about what Sam’s wife Sydney is like, well you’re about to get a peek into her, oops I mean my, personality and – gasp! – my drawers.

I’m a lighthearted, patient (most days), happy homebody who has to know where everything is in the house and on my computer. But staying organized can be really hard, especially with a toddler in the house, and if you’re going at it wrong.

The exciting news is there’s a refreshing new way to organize known as KonMari. I’m sure some of you have heard about it or are already addicted to it like me.

Since I’m also a personal finance fan, I’m going to share why it’s beneficial to KonMari your lifestyle and finances.

The Six Rules Of The KonMari Method

Before I reveal my own recent adventure in organizing, I’ll give you the rundown on KonMari.

What is it? KonMari is a method of organization created by Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant and author who has a new hit show on Netflix, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.

I stopped watching reality TV shows seven years ago, but had to make an exception for this show. It’s addicting in a good way and has inspired me to make some refreshing changes.

The organizer in me that’s been away on leave ever since we had a baby has re-emerged thanks to this show. I had so much fun watching all of season 1 that I admittedly started watching it over again.

I also really enjoy Marie’s personality and mannerisms. I’ve traveled to Japan over a dozen times or so to visit family and friends, and the aura Marie gives off reminds me of my second “home.”

The way she speaks Japanese is very eloquent, polite, and respectful – something we could use more of in American language and culture imo.

KonMari isn’t just about tidying up one’s house either. It’s a lifestyle improvement technique built upon six key rules.

Rule 1: Commit yourself to tidying up. Without a sincere commitment to getting organized, you’ll either never get started, quit too soon, or only stay organized temporarily. Identify why you want to get organized and hold yourself accountable.

Some example reasons from the show include a couple moving into a new home together for the first time, a family wanting to get their house in order before committing to having a third child, and a widow looking to start a new chapter after her spouse passed away.

Rule 2: Imagine your ideal lifestyle. A clear vision of the results you want is a crucial motivator. I love how Marie takes a few minutes to greet each home she visits. She encourages each family to sit with her and silently talk to their house, as if in prayer.

Have you ever taken a few minutes to thank your house for protecting you and for all the memories you’ve had there? Envision the changes you want and take a moment to give thanks.

Sam and I spend so much time in our house every day working and as full-time parents with our son. We owe so much to our home – thank you dear house!

Rule 3: Finish discarding first. The meaning of this rule is to move forward with purpose. If you clean up your house’s visible areas by just stuffing everything into closets or storage, that isn’t truly effective.

Why? Without going through your items one by one and only keeping the things that you truly want in your future, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to stay organized. Things will inevitably get chaotic again.

Discard items first, then work on properly arranging and storing the remaining things you wish to keep.

Rule 4: Tidy by category, not by location. Traditional organizing is typically done room by room, one closet at a time, one drawer at a time. I’ve always decluttered and organized this way.

The KonMari method, however, is all about tidying by category (ex. clothes, books). The benefit of this approach is seeing just how much you have of each category all at once. Gather each category from all the nooks and crannies in your house and put everything in one big pile.

This shock factor can be quite a big wake up call, especially if you’ve developed a habit of scattering things around. If you love clothes, you might have a dresser and closet full in your bedroom, the guest bedroom, the basement, garage, etc. Making one big mountain of clothes shocks you to how much you actually have and probably don’t need.

The downside of decluttering by category is things will get super messy before they get better. Call it temporary increased chaos, but it’s worth it.

Rule 5: Follow the right order. Marie recommends tackling your tidiness goals in a specific order: clothes, books, papers, komono (miscellaneous items) and lastly, sentimental items.

Clothes tend to be the easiest to go through for most people, sentimental items the hardest. Tackling categories from least to most emotional creates momentum and a higher chance of completion.

Rule 6: Ask yourself if it sparks joy. This is my favorite rule. It’s made a huge difference in my ability to let go of things, clothes especially.

How do you know if something sparks joy? Sift through your pile of clothes and find something that you love. Hold it or put it on and capture how it makes you feel. Chances are it makes you smile and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Next, find something you don’t want to keep and compare the difference in your emotional response. If you get stuck, you can always come back to an item later or have a maybe pile.

Additional guidelines. Marie recommends saying thank you to each item we choose to dispose. How sweet! This brings a sense of peace and gratitude to the process.

After you’ve finished discarding items in a category, store them so your items are more easily visible. This is best done using boxes of various sizes and improved folding techniques.

For example, most of us who take the time to put folded clothes in drawers do so horizontally, ie one item on top of another in a stack. But, Marie Kondo folds most items vertically! Pick up a stack of shirts and turn it 90 degrees. Voila – vertical!

To help items fit best, Marie typically recommends folding in thirds instead of in half. You can see an example of my t-shirt drawer before and after below.

Lifestyle Benefits of KonMari

Completing the KonMari process takes a lot of time, but I think it’s worth the effort. The more I practice and progress, the more I appreciate KonMari as a lifestyle improvement. Here are some of the benefits.

Have a renewed appreciation for your home

Realize how much you’ve accumulated over the years

Feel more gratitude towards your belongings

Learn to let go of items that can better serve someone else

Create more useable and open space

Less stress and frustration

Find things faster

Ways KonMari Can Help Your Finances

The KonMari method of organizing has a lot of principles that can be applied to your finances. Here’s my financial spin on the six rules.

Rule 1: Commit yourself to financial independence. Growing wealth doesn’t happen by itself. You have to be proactive if you want to become and stay financially responsible.

Rule 2: Imagine your ideal retirement. Retirement planning is too underrated in our country. Visualize what you want your retirement to look like, don’t fall for retirement myths, and make a detailed roadmap that will lead you there.

Rule 3: Get out of debt. The sooner you can get out of debt and earn more than you spend, the better. So many more opportunities open up when you’re debt free. Sam’s slogan says it perfectly: Financial Freedom, Sooner Rather Than Later.

Rule 4: Don’t forget to zoom out. Regularly look at your overall financial health using a bird’s eye view to avoid missing things. It’s fine to use multiple accounts for different purposes if you actively monitor all your assets. Keep your overall portfolio allocation in line with your risk tolerance.

Rule 5: Earn, save, then enjoy. Order matters if you want to avoid debt and financial stress. Earn your money, save/invest part of what you earn after expenses, and enjoy some or all of the rest.

Rule 6: Identify positive reasons for growing your wealth. Identify specific reasons why money matters to you and how you want to spend it in the future. The clearer your visions and goals, the more motivated you’ll feel.

More finance benefits. The KonMari method can also help you save money by curtailing unnecessary spending. Think about exactly where you would put something before you buy it. No space? Don’t buy it. Your drawers and closet space become a lot more valuable after you’ve gone through the work to get them organized.

You’ll also avoid accidentally buying something you already have. Here are two silly examples. I bought twice as much maple syrup and olive oil because I thought we were running low. The bottles I’d already purchased were buried behind a bunch of stuff.

Sam recently made a dupe goof too. He bought a new basketball last month because he thought he didn’t have one.

Low and behold when we were cleaning out the garage he found one he’d barely used collecting dust in an old laundry basket buried below some bags and our son’s old car seat.

Organizing Is Addicting

I’ve always been know as the obsessively organized one amongst my closest friends and colleagues. But when full-time parenting took over my life, my ability to stay organized went out the window.

I frequently felt frazzled and frustrated. Our house also looked like it had been turned upside down most of the time, which often drove Sam and me crazy.

But this year, I finally feel like I’m back. Our son is starting to play more independently giving me more breathing room, I’ve been able to do more part-time work late at night, and I feel happy and more balanced. Bit by bit our house is returning to order.

Prepare For Big Changes With KonMari

I’m also highly motivated to give our house a complete KonMari makeover because we’re expecting big changes on the horizon. As many of you know, we might move to a bigger house this year or relocate to Hawaii.

Even though a bigger house could easily accommodate everything we have, packing up any size house is a royal PITA and the less we have to bring, the better.

I’m also amazed at how quickly our son outgrows things especially his clothes. Since we’re keeping all of his things for a few more years just in case we have another baby, our storage space is continually diminishing.

Clearing out space is so satisfying. I highly recommend you give it a try!

Before And After Examples Of KonMari

The worst room in our house has always been the kitchen. As one of the center spaces in our house, a messy kitchen is frustrating. The three of us spend so much time in and out of the kitchen throughout the entire day, 7 days a week.

It’s the last place we want to be chaotic, yet it’s constantly getting bombarded with stuff: papers, toys, cough drops, food, delivery boxes, our son’s clothes, and other random stuff. The good news is KonMari is helping!

Here’s a before and after pic of our countertops.

The countertops went from disarray and cluttered to manageable and orderly.

Next is an after shot of one of our kitchen drawers. I forgot to take a before pic, but you can trust me that it was a disaster. I repurposed some empty iPhone boxes.

And here’s a before and after pic of my t-shirt drawer.

Even though I folded my shirts in the before pic, the difference is night and day. I like the KonMari folding technique so much better.

A Few More Tips On KonMari

Get your family on board. You’ll need each other’s support.

Don’t expect to finish in a week. It’s time-consuming but worth it.

Bend the rules a little if you need to. I won’t tell anyone.

You don’t have to become a minimalist, unless you want to.

Anticipate and push through setbacks. Everyone has them.

Stay committed for the long term so your hard work isn’t wasted.

Reuse take-out containers, shoe box lids, jewelry boxes, etc for storing items neatly in drawers.

Dislike folding? Put on spa music and approach it like meditation.

Organizing and folding are great skills for kids. Our son now eagerly asks me to help fold his socks and he’s not even 2 years old yet!

Call ahead and check for overcapacity before dropping off donations. KonMari is popular now and people are donating like crazy.

Don’t forget to grab a tax receipt when you drop off donations.

Take pictures of your before and after progress!

If you want to learn more about the KonMari method, Marie Kondo wrote these two books all about it:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)

Regards,

Sydney

Readers, what’s the messiest room in your house? Have you tried to KonMari your lifestyle and finances?

The post KonMari Your Lifestyle And Finances: Marie Kondo Will Save You Time And Money appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from Money https://www.financialsamurai.com/konmari-your-lifestyle-and-finances-marie-kondo-save-time-money/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[ronaldmrashid]

KonMari Your Lifestyle And Finances: Marie Kondo Will Save You Time And Money

If you’ve ever been curious about what Sam’s wife Sydney is like, well you’re about to get a peek into her, oops I mean my, personality and – gasp! – my drawers.

I’m a lighthearted, patient (most days), happy homebody who has to know where everything is in the house and on my computer. But staying organized can be really hard, especially with a toddler in the house, and if you’re going at it wrong.

The exciting news is there’s a refreshing new way to organize known as KonMari. I’m sure some of you have heard about it or are already addicted to it like me.

Since I’m also a personal finance fan, I’m going to share why it’s beneficial to KonMari your lifestyle and finances.

The Six Rules Of The KonMari Method

Before I reveal my own recent adventure in organizing, I’ll give you the rundown on KonMari.

What is it? KonMari is a method of organization created by Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant and author who has a new hit show on Netflix, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.

I stopped watching reality TV shows seven years ago, but had to make an exception for this show. It’s addicting in a good way and has inspired me to make some refreshing changes.

The organizer in me that’s been away on leave ever since we had a baby has reemerged thanks to this show. I had so much fun watching all of season 1 that I admittedly started watching it over again.

I also really enjoy Marie’s personality and mannerisms. I’ve traveled to Japan over a dozen times or so to visit family and friends, and the aura Marie gives off reminds me of my second “home.”

The way she speaks Japanese is very eloquent, polite, and respectful – something we could use more of in American language and culture imo.

KonMari isn’t just about tidying up one’s house either. It’s a lifestyle improvement technique built upon six key rules.

Rule 1: Commit yourself to tidying up. Without a sincere commitment to getting organized, you’ll either never get started, quit too soon, or only stay organized temporarily. Identify why you want to get organized and hold yourself accountable.

Some example reasons from the show include a couple moving into a new home together for the first time, a family wanting to get their house in order before committing to having a third child, and a widow looking to start a new chapter after her spouse passed away.

Rule 2: Imagine your ideal lifestyle. A clear vision of the results you want is an crucial motivator. I love how Marie takes a few minutes to greet each home she visits. She encourages each family to sit with her and silently talk to their house, as if in prayer.

Have you ever taken a few minutes to thank your house for protecting you and for all the memories you’ve had there? Envision the changes you want and take a moment to give thanks.

Sam and I spend so much time in our house every day working and as full-time parents with our son. We owe so much to our home – thank you dear house!

Rule 3: Finish discarding first. The meaning of this rule is to move forward with purpose. If you clean up your house’s visible areas by just stuffing everything into closets or storage, that isn’t truly effective.

Why? Without going through your items one by one and only keeping the things that you truly want in your future, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to stay organized. Things will inevitably get chaotic again.

Discard items first, then work on properly arranging and storing the remaining things you wish to keep.

Rule 4: Tidy by category, not by location. Traditional organizing is typically done room by room, one closet at a time, one drawer at a time. I’ve always decluttered and organized this way.

The KonMari method, however, is all about tidying by category (ex. clothes, books). The benefit of this approach is seeing just how much you have of each category all at once. Gather each category from all the nooks and crannies in your house and put everything in one big pile.

This shock factor can be quite a big wake up call, especially if you’ve developed a habit of scattering things around. If you love clothes, you might have a dresser and closet full in your bedroom, the guest bedroom, the basement, garage, etc. Making one big mountain of clothes shocks you to how much you actually have and probably don’t need.

The downside of decluttering by category is things will get super messy before they get better. Call it temporary increased chaos, but it’s worth it.

Rule 5: Follow the right order. Marie recommends tackling your tidiness goals in a specific order: clothes, books, papers, komono (miscellaneous items) and lastly, sentimental items.

Clothes tend to be the easiest to go through for most people, sentimental items the hardest. Tackling categories from least to most emotional creates momentum and a higher chance of completion.

Rule 6: Ask yourself if it sparks joy. This is my favorite rule. It’s made a huge difference in my ability to let go of things, clothes especially.

How do you know if something sparks joy? Sift through your pile of clothes and find something that you love. Hold it or put it on and capture how it makes you feel. Chances are it makes you smile and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Next, find something you don’t want to keep and compare the difference in your emotional response. If you get stuck, you can always come back to an item later or have a maybe pile.

Additional guidelines. Marie recommends saying thank you to each item we choose to dispose. How sweet! This brings a sense of peace and gratitude to the process.

After you’ve finished discarding items in a category, store them so your items are more easily visible. This is best done using boxes of various sizes and improved folding techniques.

For example, most of us who take the time to put folded clothes in drawers do so horizontally, ie one item on top of another in a stack. But, Marie Kondo folds most items vertically! Pick up a stack of shirts and turn it 90 degrees. Voila – vertical!

To help items fit best, Marie typically recommends folding in thirds instead of in half. You can see an example of my t-shirt drawer before and after below.

Lifestyle Benefits of KonMari

Completing the KonMari process takes a lot of time, but I think it’s worth the effort. The more I practice and progress, the more I appreciate KonMari as a lifestyle improvement. Here are some of the benefits.

Have a renewed appreciation for your home

Realize how much you’ve accumulated over the years

Feel more gratitude towards your belongings

Learn to let go of items that can better serve someone else

Create more useable and open space

Less stress and frustration

Find things faster

Ways KonMari Can Help Your Finances

The KonMari method of organizing has a lot of principles that can be applied to your finances. Here’s my financial spin on the six rules.

Rule 1: Commit yourself to financial independence. Growing wealth doesn’t happen by itself. You have to be proactive if you want to become and stay financially responsible.

Rule 2: Imagine your ideal retirement. Retirement planning is too underrated in our country. Visualize what you want your retirement to look like, don’t fall for retirement myths, and make a detailed roadmap that will lead you there.

Rule 3: Get out of debt. The sooner you can get out of debt and earn more than you spend, the better. So many more opportunities open up when you’re debt free. Sam’s slogan says it perfectly: Financial Freedom, Sooner Rather Than Later.

Rule 4: Don’t forget to zoom out. Regularly look at your overall financial health using a bird’s eye view to avoid missing things. It’s fine to use multiple accounts for different purposes if you actively monitor all your assets. Keep your overall portfolio allocation in line with your risk tolerance.

Rule 5: Earn, save, then enjoy. Order matters if you want to avoid debt and financial stress. Earn your money, save/invest part of what you earn after expenses, and enjoy some or all of the rest.

Rule 6: Identify positive reasons for growing your wealth. Identify specific reasons why money matters to you and how you want to spend it in the future. The clearer your visions and goals, the more motivated you’ll feel.

More finance benefits. The KonMari method can also help you save money by curtailing unnecessary spending. Think about exactly where you would put something before you buy it. No space? Don’t buy it. Your drawers and closet space become a lot more valuable after you’ve gone through the work to get them organized.

You’ll also avoid accidentally buying something you already have. Here are two silly examples. I bought twice as much maple syrup and olive oil because I thought we were running low. The bottles I’d already purchased were buried behind a bunch of stuff.

Sam recently made a dupe goof too. He bought a new basketball last month because he thought he didn’t have one.

Low and behold when we were cleaning out the garage he found one he’d barely used collecting dust in an old laundry basket buried below some bags and our son’s old car seat.

Organizing Is Addicting

I’ve always been know as the obsessively organized one amongst my closest friends and colleagues. But when full-time parenting took over my life, my ability to stay organized went out the window.

I frequently felt frazzled and frustrated. Our house also looked like it had been turned upside down most of the time, which often drove Sam and me crazy.

But this year, I finally feel like I’m back. Our son is starting to play more independently giving me more breathing room, I’ve been able to do more part-time work late at night, and I feel happy and more balanced. Bit by bit our house is returning to order.

Prepare For Big Changes With KonMari

I’m also highly motivated to give our house a complete KonMari makeover because we’re expecting big changes on the horizon. As many of you know, we might move to a bigger house this year or relocate to Hawaii.

Even though a bigger house could easily accommodate everything we have, packing up any size house is a royal PITA and the less we have to bring, the better.

I’m also amazed at how quickly our son outgrows things especially his clothes. Since we’re keeping all of his things for a few more years just in case we have another baby, our storage space is continually diminishing.

Clearing out space is so satisfying. I highly recommend you give it a try!

Before And After Examples Of KonMari

The worst room in our house has always been the kitchen. As one of the center spaces in our house, a messy kitchen is frustrating. The three of us spend so much time in and out of the kitchen throughout the entire day, 7 days a week.

It’s the last place we want to be chaotic, yet it’s constantly getting bombarded with stuff: papers, toys, cough drops, food, delivery boxes, our son’s clothes, and other random stuff. The good news is KonMari is helping!

Here’s a before and after pic of our countertops.

The countertops went from disarray and cluttered to manageable and orderly.

Next is an after shot of one of our kitchen drawers. I forgot to take a before pic, but you can trust me that it was a disaster. I repurposed some empty iPhone boxes.

And here’s a before and after pic of my t-shirt drawer.

Even though I folded my shirts in the before pic, the difference is night and day. I like the KonMari folding technique so much better.

A Few More Tips On KonMari

Get your family on board. You’ll need each others support.

Don’t expect to finish in a week. It’s time consuming but worth it.

Bend the rules a little if you need to. I won’t tell anyone.

You don’t have to become a minimalist, unless you want to.

Anticipate and push through setbacks. Everyone has them.

Stay committed for the long term so your hard work isn’t wasted.

Reuse take-out containers, shoe box lids, jewelry boxes, etc for storing items neatly in drawers.

Dislike folding? Put on spa music and approach it like meditation.

Organizing and folding are great skills for kids. Our son now eagerly asks me to help fold his socks and he’s not even 2 years old yet!

Call ahead and check for overcapacity before dropping off donations. KonMari is popular now and people are donating like crazy.

Don’t forget to grab a tax receipt when you drop off donations.

Take pictures of your before and after progress!

If you want to learn more about the KonMari method, Marie Kondo wrote these two books all about it:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)

Regards,

Sydney

Readers, what’s the messiest room in your house? Have you tried to KonMari your lifestyle and finances?

The post KonMari Your Lifestyle And Finances: Marie Kondo Will Save You Time And Money appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/konmari-your-lifestyle-and-finances-marie-kondo-save-time-money/

[booksinbeds]

Hi, Marie Kondo here. Author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Upand host of the new Netflix show Tidying Up.

I know you guys are not used to listening to a small-framed Asian woman speak with authority, but I’m going to say this once and for all: You can keep all your fucking books, you ungrateful motherfuckers. All I wanted was to spark a little joy in your fucking miserable lives, which you’ve tried to make fulfilling by purchasing fucking stuff. But fuck me, I guess, for mentioning that I like to have only 30 books in my house.

See, the problem here is that some of you have interpreted my warm voice, bubbly attitude, and cheery disposition as a surefire sign that I will personally come to your home and build a bonfire out of your unread copies of those J. K. Rowling novels she wrote under a pseudonym that sounds like the name of a Hogwarts professor. Your ex-boyfriend gave you those for your anniversary three years ago. Had you ever mentioned wanting to read those books? Not really. But you did once tell your ex you were a Hufflepuff, so surely they must have some emotional value to you. What kind of fucking monster am I for suggesting you maybe consider donating those books to a local library or thrift shop? So yeah, go off. Enjoy the adventures of Cormoran Fucking Strike. Yeah, that’s the name of the main character. Buckle up, buddy.

The KonMari method is about decluttering and organizing based on categories and on what works for you. What brings you joy. When I said I personally liked having 30 books in my house, I meant it because that’s what I like. It was a fucking suggestion, not a threat. What do you think I’m going to do with your unread copies of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels? Yeah, you haven’t read those but you’ve heard the show is great. Have you watched that yet? Of course not, because there’s a literal mountain of books blocking your view of the TV! So what do you think I’m gonna do? Put them in a sack like some kind of decluttering Grinch? And then what, take them home? I already have all the books I want in my house, you absolute morons! It’s 30, but that’s a number for ME. You can have as many books as you fucking want!

I only wanted to make you happy. My advice was, “Get rid of the books that intimidate you and make you feel like your reading list is never ending.” They exist! Stop lying to yourselves. Don’t tell me you’ll start that David McCullough book on Harry Truman your dad sent you apropos of nothing. Did you know he’s from Independence, Missouri? It’s in the first five pages. Of course you don’t, because you haven’t read the book, so I’m sorry I suggested you get rid of the monolithic tome that’s been sitting on your kitchen counter—on your kitchen counter!—for two years!

I’m sorry you’re not used to my patient and gentle approach. Perhaps I should come to your home as they do on your American show Hoarders and shame the shit out of you for keeping all those New Yorkers you never read under the coffee table. You know what coffee tables are for? COFFEE, not unread David Remnick editorials. Oh, oh, you do read them? THE CARTOONS DON’T COUNT. If they bring you joy, follow them on Instagram.

Maybe one day life will present us with the opportunity where you’ll give me some advice. I don’t see how, seeing as I am already a very successful woman and you’re a fucking greedy nerd who gets sore at the thought of sharing an object you are not putting to use, i.e. your fucking books, with someone who might actually read them, but let’s pretend nonetheless. Maybe one day you’ll tell me, “Marie, going blonde did wonders for my self-esteem.” To which I’ll react by murdering every blonde person in my life because I refuse to understand how something that worked for you might maybe, perhaps work for me if I gave it a chance.

And while we’re talking about my extremely successful show, I’m done with all of your useless husbands who say things like “this girl is for real” when I ask them to get rid of their useless novelty t-shirts. Oh, I’m sorry. I am a published fucking author on the subject of decluttering. I am 34 years old and I have my own TV show about this. Of course I’m for fucking real, Vince. Ex-fucking-cuse me for suggesting your “Female Body Inspector” t-shirt may not be as precious as you think it is.

Joy,

Marie Fucking Kondo

[realselfblog]

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.?

Have you read the life changing magic of tidying up, or Spark Joy, books by Marie Kondo? Her new Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo debuted on January 1, and has enjoyed passionate early viewership by consumers in America who are among the world’s major hoarders.

If you opened any pop culture magazine or newspaper in the past week, you probably saw the results of a PR blitz promoting KonMari, the trademarked name for Marie’s clean-out method. As an example, the Wall Street Journal discussed the phenomenon in Ben Zimmer’s profile, “A Guru of Organizing Becomes A Verb” published this weekend in the Journal.

Marie is all about de-cluttering, organizing, and finding joy in our physical environments.

As a fan of Kondo-ing and Marie’s message of “sparking joy” with the items you live with, it leads me to ask: what lessons can KonMari have for U.S. healthcare?

Here are some of my favorite quotes of Marie’s that translate to health care…

”Tidying ought to be the act of restoring balance on people, possessions, and the home they live in.”

Consider how labyrinthine health care processes are, whether we look at patient “journeys” (a nice word for the Rube Goldbergian experience of being a sick patient in the U.S.) or physician workflows. What forms might “tidying up” these processes take?

“When we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.”

Through my years advising health care providers, both hospital settings and physicians’, I’ve observed that new devices brought into an institution are additive and too often do not replace old technologies. I think a lot about fax machines in this way: yet providers are still highly dependent on faxing, as I’ve learned from people in my Twitter feed who are quick to remind me this.

Many technologies may be comforting in the immediate term, but could also be preventing innovation at the edge. When is the right time to “jump the curve?” to the new world or workflow as my great mentor Ian Morrison asked in his book, The Second Curve.

Here, I would also add the challenge of data hoarding. There are people who believe that owning “all” the data is the end-game; these folks haven’t cottoned onto Open Source or cloud-sharing or network effects. Underneath this could be fear about securing data; but that, too, can be addressed. Globally, nearly one-half of people working in offices would rather get rid of their clothes than their digital files (39% in the U.S.). Read this insightful article on data hoarding to spot the opportunity for cleaning up and, I daresay, sharing and securing data.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a just-published article in Forbes about the importance of data-sharing to improve health care, presenting the persuasive case for The Chain of Survival in Healthcare. The piece is written by a consulting anesthesiologist with the National Health Service in the UK, @docsouthey.

”People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking.”

Marie raises a good point: I would translate this as, “health care stakeholders in the U.S. need cognitive therapy.” There is so much that can be done with the amazing human capital on the front lines of health care in America – the nurses, the physicians and the pharmacists who happen to be the most trusted professions in the country, Gallup tells us. Liberating people to work at their highest and best use can help us address clinician burnout and the Quadruple Aim, while supporting shared decision-making between patients and their clinicians.

This mind-shift can also help legacy health care look at workflows and journeys through patients’ eyes – patients as consumers and payors. These are the pivotal roles of user-centered designers and service designers.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  “There are three approaches we can take toward our possessions: face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die.”

This last quote is the change-or-else manifesto that the likes of Clay Christensen and Jeff Bezos challenge. Instead of “possessions,” I think about “business model” and “workflow.” They are inter-related.

Imagine a hospital closing beds and shifting workflow to virtual care via telehealth channels. For health care providers, telehealth and virtual care are converging with healthcare delivery the we used to compartmentalize “e-business.” Today, e-business is just stuff done via ecommerce or online or via cloud computing….just everyday business flows. At places like Mercy (Virtual) Healthcare, Kaiser-Permanente (which conducts over 50% of their visits virtually) and Intermountain Healthcare, telehealth is just a new normal in health care delivery.

Ultimately, a Holy Grail would be to “spark joy” in health care, per Marie Kondo’s vision. While health care in America isn’t universally joy-ful or joy-inducing, there are examples of health systems prioritizing the starring roles of patients and clinicians, and streamlining design to de-clutter experience for all.

 For further reading on how to “Kondo” your life, here are a few articles I’ve found useful and/or interesting:

How to de-clutter your computer, inside and out, from NBC News Better

How to KonMari your way to a happier digital life, PC Mag

The life-changing magic of tidying up your electronic life, Mother Nature News (MNN)

How to tidy your PC, Marie Kondo style, Techradar

Could Marie Kondo slow down fast fashion, Fortune

The post What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com

[maxihealth]

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.?

Have you read the life changing magic of tidying up, or Spark Joy, books by Marie Kondo? Her new Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo debuted on January 1, and has enjoyed passionate early viewership by consumers in America who are among the world’s major hoarders.

If you opened any pop culture magazine or newspaper in the past week, you probably saw the results of a PR blitz promoting KonMari, the trademarked name for Marie’s clean-out method. As an example, the Wall Street Journal discussed the phenomenon in Ben Zimmer’s profile, “A Guru of Organizing Becomes A Verb” published this weekend in the Journal.

Marie is all about de-cluttering, organizing, and finding joy in our physical environments.

As a fan of Kondo-ing and Marie’s message of “sparking joy” with the items you live with, it leads me to ask: what lessons can KonMari have for U.S. healthcare?

Here are some of my favorite quotes of Marie’s that translate to health care…

”Tidying ought to be the act of restoring balance on people, possessions, and the home they live in.”

Consider how labyrinthine health care processes are, whether we look at patient “journeys” (a nice word for the Rube Goldbergian experience of being a sick patient in the U.S.) or physician workflows. What forms might “tidying up” these processes take?

“When we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.”

Through my years advising health care providers, both hospital settings and physicians’, I’ve observed that new devices brought into an institution are additive and too often do not replace old technologies. I think a lot about fax machines in this way: yet providers are still highly dependent on faxing, as I’ve learned from people in my Twitter feed who are quick to remind me this.

Many technologies may be comforting in the immediate term, but could also be preventing innovation at the edge. When is the right time to “jump the curve?” to the new world or workflow as my great mentor Ian Morrison asked in his book, The Second Curve.

Here, I would also add the challenge of data hoarding. There are people who believe that owning “all” the data is the end-game; these folks haven’t cottoned onto Open Source or cloud-sharing or network effects. Underneath this could be fear about securing data; but that, too, can be addressed. Globally, nearly one-half of people working in offices would rather get rid of their clothes than their digital files (39% in the U.S.). Read this insightful article on data hoarding to spot the opportunity for cleaning up and, I daresay, sharing and securing data.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a just-published article in Forbes about the importance of data-sharing to improve health care, presenting the persuasive case for The Chain of Survival in Healthcare. The piece is written by a consulting anesthesiologist with the National Health Service in the UK, @docsouthey.

”People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking.”

Marie raises a good point: I would translate this as, “health care stakeholders in the U.S. need cognitive therapy.” There is so much that can be done with the amazing human capital on the front lines of health care in America – the nurses, the physicians and the pharmacists who happen to be the most trusted professions in the country, Gallup tells us. Liberating people to work at their highest and best use can help us address clinician burnout and the Quadruple Aim, while supporting shared decision-making between patients and their clinicians.

This mind-shift can also help legacy health care look at workflows and journeys through patients’ eyes – patients as consumers and payors. These are the pivotal roles of user-centered designers and service designers.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  “There are three approaches we can take toward our possessions: face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die.”

This last quote is the change-or-else manifesto that the likes of Clay Christensen and Jeff Bezos challenge. Instead of “possessions,” I think about “business model” and “workflow.” They are inter-related.

Imagine a hospital closing beds and shifting workflow to virtual care via telehealth channels. For health care providers, telehealth and virtual care are converging with healthcare delivery the we used to compartmentalize “e-business.” Today, e-business is just stuff done via ecommerce or online or via cloud computing….just everyday business flows. At places like Mercy (Virtual) Healthcare, Kaiser-Permanente (which conducts over 50% of their visits virtually) and Intermountain Healthcare, telehealth is just a new normal in health care delivery.

Ultimately, a Holy Grail would be to “spark joy” in health care, per Marie Kondo’s vision. While health care in America isn’t universally joy-ful or joy-inducing, there are examples of health systems prioritizing the starring roles of patients and clinicians, and streamlining design to de-clutter experience for all.

 For further reading on how to “Kondo” your life, here are a few articles I’ve found useful and/or interesting:

How to de-clutter your computer, inside and out, from NBC News Better

How to KonMari your way to a happier digital life, PC Mag

The life-changing magic of tidying up your electronic life, Mother Nature News (MNN)

How to tidy your PC, Marie Kondo style, Techradar

Could Marie Kondo slow down fast fashion, Fortune

The post What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

[titheguerrero]

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.?

Have you read the life changing magic of tidying up, or Spark Joy, books by Marie Kondo? Her new Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo debuted on January 1, and has enjoyed passionate early viewership by consumers in America who are among the world’s major hoarders.

If you opened any pop culture magazine or newspaper in the past week, you probably saw the results of a PR blitz promoting KonMari, the trademarked name for Marie’s clean-out method. As an example, the Wall Street Journal discussed the phenomenon in Ben Zimmer’s profile, “A Guru of Organizing Becomes A Verb” published this weekend in the Journal.

Marie is all about de-cluttering, organizing, and finding joy in our physical environments.

As a fan of Kondo-ing and Marie’s message of “sparking joy” with the items you live with, it leads me to ask: what lessons can KonMari have for U.S. healthcare?

Here are some of my favorite quotes of Marie’s that translate to health care…

”Tidying ought to be the act of restoring balance on people, possessions, and the home they live in.”

Consider how labyrinthine health care processes are, whether we look at patient “journeys” (a nice word for the Rube Goldbergian experience of being a sick patient in the U.S.) or physician workflows. What forms might “tidying up” these processes take?

“When we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.”

Through my years advising health care providers, both hospital settings and physicians’, I’ve observed that new devices brought into an institution are additive and too often do not replace old technologies. I think a lot about fax machines in this way: yet providers are still highly dependent on faxing, as I’ve learned from people in my Twitter feed who are quick to remind me this.

Many technologies may be comforting in the immediate term, but could also be preventing innovation at the edge. When is the right time to “jump the curve?” to the new world or workflow as my great mentor Ian Morrison asked in his book, The Second Curve.

Here, I would also add the challenge of data hoarding. There are people who believe that owning “all” the data is the end-game; these folks haven’t cottoned onto Open Source or cloud-sharing or network effects. Underneath this could be fear about securing data; but that, too, can be addressed. Globally, nearly one-half of people working in offices would rather get rid of their clothes than their digital files (39% in the U.S.). Read this insightful article on data hoarding to spot the opportunity for cleaning up and, I daresay, sharing and securing data.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a just-published article in Forbes about the importance of data-sharing to improve health care, presenting the persuasive case for The Chain of Survival in Healthcare. The piece is written by a consulting anesthesiologist with the National Health Service in the UK, @docsouthey.

”People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking.”

Marie raises a good point: I would translate this as, “health care stakeholders in the U.S. need cognitive therapy.” There is so much that can be done with the amazing human capital on the front lines of health care in America – the nurses, the physicians and the pharmacists who happen to be the most trusted professions in the country, Gallup tells us. Liberating people to work at their highest and best use can help us address clinician burnout and the Quadruple Aim, while supporting shared decision-making between patients and their clinicians.

This mind-shift can also help legacy health care look at workflows and journeys through patients’ eyes – patients as consumers and payors. These are the pivotal roles of user-centered designers and service designers.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  “There are three approaches we can take toward our possessions: face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die.”

This last quote is the change-or-else manifesto that the likes of Clay Christensen and Jeff Bezos challenge. Instead of “possessions,” I think about “business model” and “workflow.” They are inter-related.

Imagine a hospital closing beds and shifting workflow to virtual care via telehealth channels. For health care providers, telehealth and virtual care are converging with healthcare delivery the we used to compartmentalize “e-business.” Today, e-business is just stuff done via ecommerce or online or via cloud computing….just everyday business flows. At places like Mercy (Virtual) Healthcare, Kaiser-Permanente (which conducts over 50% of their visits virtually) and Intermountain Healthcare, telehealth is just a new normal in health care delivery.

Ultimately, a Holy Grail would be to “spark joy” in health care, per Marie Kondo’s vision. While health care in America isn’t universally joy-ful or joy-inducing, there are examples of health systems prioritizing the starring roles of patients and clinicians, and streamlining design to de-clutter experience for all.

  For further reading on how to “Kondo” your life, here are a few articles I’ve found useful and/or interesting:

How to de-clutter your computer, inside and out, from NBC News Better

How to KonMari your way to a happier digital life, PC Mag

The life-changing magic of tidying up your electronic life, Mother Nature News (MNN)

How to tidy your PC, Marie Kondo style, Techradar

Could Marie Kondo slow down fast fashion, Fortune

The post What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Article source:Health Populi

[caveartfair]

How to Declutter Your Studio for Maximum Creativity, According to Marie Kondo

Detail from Betty Tompkins’s  New York studio. Photo by Emily Johnston for Artsy.

If you close your eyes and imagine an artist’s studio, chances are you will picture a messy room. Perhaps its walls are stacked with canvases, or its floor a tangle of wires and cables, with teetering piles of books, all covered in the rubble of plaster casts. There’s a certain mystique attached to messy artistic types, as if true creativity is only possible amid chaos.

However, Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, sees artmaking and organization not as opposites, but as kindred pursuits. “The depth of concentration and the respect for materials involved in creating artwork is similar to the focus and connection with belongings associated with tidying,” Kondo tells me via email. As an undisputed expert on tidying, she should know. The Tokyo-based organizing guru’s books have sold over 7 million copies, and her consultations currently have a six-month waiting list.

Kondo’s trademarked KonMari Method is based on Japanese philosophy and unsparing minimalism: Any object that does not “spark joy” should be discarded. The desired result is that we will be surrounded only by things that inspire and delight us.  

Because she believes that art and organizing can be simpatico, I asked Kondo to share her tips for how artists can better organize their studios. I also asked artists who work in a variety of media to weigh in on the challenges and rewards of what Kondo calls “the art of tidying.”

1. Understand what kind of environment most inspires you

Rachel Grobstein, Ajax, 2015. Courtesy of artist.

Rachel Grobstein, Eggs and Toast, 2015-16. Courtesy of artist.

Does a cluttered workspace spark new ideas or just make you anxious? “There have been instances where individuals who thought they thrived in a messy state actually prefered the comfort of tidiness once they had completed the KonMari Method,” Kondo says. “On other occasions, artists ended up uncovering many more things that sparked joy for them in the process of tidying, and enjoyed their scattered space more than ever.”

For many artists, a “scattered space,” one full of objects that are arranged according to some rationale, can serve as a vital source of inspiration. Rachel Grobstein, whose sculptures are constellations of tiny objects precisely rendered in gouache on cut-out paper, uses one wall of her studio as a sort of atlas or scrapbook. “It’s the place where I can put a Masonic beer koozie next to a tumbleweed, an image of Basquiat’s notebooks, and a pin given to me by my grandmother,” she explains. “The stuff I’ve collected serves multiple purposes: It presents a visual web of my interests, connects me with threads far away and long ago, and sparks new associations.”

Sometimes disorder can spark ideas, too. For artist Sophia Narrett, piles of clothing and even wads of used tissues have prompted ideas for her complex embroideries, which often tell stories about love and desire. “Clutter can be a good narrative clue,” she explains. “It has always accumulated for a reason.”

2. Treat tidying as an important project and give it your full attention

José Lourenço, Let's paint...!, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Things Organized Neatly.

“I recommend that artists dedicate a block of time to organizing their studios—perhaps an entire day—to tidy up all at once, rather than tidying little by little over many days,” Kondo says. In her experience, it’s important to reject the conventional wisdom that tidying should be approached piecemeal. “By tidying with concentration, the ability to decide which tools and materials spark joy will become clearer,” she notes. “It will be easier to take inventory of all the categories of items an artist owns in one sitting.”

Organization is important if for no other reason than that a disorganized studio can lead to a loss of income. As artist Jason Peters points out: “There should always be a certain amount of order in your space because art is a business.” Peters, who creates large-scale installations from mass-produced and found objects, notes that being an artist usually entails a considerable amount of multitasking, and a tidy studio can help when it comes to running things smoothly.

“These days artists have to wear many hats,” he says. “We not only have to consistently create work, but manage a web presence, network with galleries and collectors, and find new avenues to show work.”

3. Categorize your materials and tools, then divide and conquer

Detail from Genieve Figgis’s County Wicklow studio. Photo by Doreen Kilfeather for Artsy.

“Artists’ belongings could be roughly divided into two categories: ‘Materials,’ or things that can become part of the artwork, such as cloth, thread, buttons, and clay, and ‘Tools,’ such as needles, color palettes, and patterns,” Kondo says. “If artists have many things to tidy, they can create subcategories, for instance dividing ‘Tools’ into ‘Brushes’ and ‘Threads.’” She recommends that each category be tidied completely before moving on to the next.

Sophia Narrett categorizes her embroidery thread by color, which keeps the tangle-prone material relatively in check. “I use the lids from large plastic storage bins as palettes. One holds blues, one is for greens, another is reds, pinks and purples, the fourth is yellows and oranges, and the fifth is neutrals,” she says. “I’ll sort them when I begin a large piece, but as the piece develops the palettes get progressively wilder.”

4. Keep only materials that spark joy and let go of the rest

Rachel Schmidhofer, wax owl, 2017. Courtesy of artist.

Rachel Schmidhofer, Rox, 2015. Courtesy of artist.

In The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Kondo suggests holding each object, asking yourself if it sparks joy, and discarding anything that doesn’t meet that standard. She specifies that “an artist might determine which materials spark joy by imagining how they would feel using them in future projects.”

For painter Rachel Schmidhofer, this question presents the biggest organizing challenge. “Which objects are actually generating ideas and which ones are an impediment to the physical and mental clarity I need to make the next thing?” she wonders. Schmidhofer’s still lifes and domestic scenes are deceptively calm—a goldfish lazing in a fishtank or crystals displayed in a specimen box—but their surfaces are often drippy or jittery, suggesting a tension between order and disarray. “I’ve started to view the inside of my studio as a reflection of the inside of my mind,” the artist says. “There’s definitely a relationship between clutter in my space, anxious thoughts in my brain, and scatteredness in my paintings.”

5. Always remember to thank your work

An essential element of Kondo’s method is showing appreciation for the objects we use and enjoy. “It’s a good practice to express gratitude toward artwork, whether out loud or in your heart by saying, ‘Thank you for making me happy,’” she tells me.

This appreciation for objects and the suggestion that they have an inner life is a familiar idea to many artists. Peters is sensitive to the sadness of neglected things and observes that “if you have objects that are not picked up and touched, you can almost sense their unhappiness at collecting dust.” Schmidhofer, on the other hand, wonders what our clutter is saying about us behind our backs: “Sometimes when I open someone’s refrigerator door it almost feels like I can hear the echo of the old, half-empty condiments chattering to each other. I love to think about what societies of objects might talk about when people aren’t listening.”

Kondo also suggests that artists might find it rewarding to send their work out into the world already imbued with feelings of gratitude. “The artist can send positive energy to the people who might buy or experience the artwork,” she says. “For example, whenever I find my book in the store, I always pat the front cover and say in my heart, ‘Please make the person who purchases you happy.’”

—Ariela Gittlen

from Artsy News

[realselfblog]

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.?

Have you read the life changing magic of tidying up, or Spark Joy, books by Marie Kondo? Her new Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo debuted on January 1, and has enjoyed passionate early viewership by consumers in America who are among the world’s major hoarders.

If you opened any pop culture magazine or newspaper in the past week, you probably saw the results of a PR blitz promoting KonMari, the trademarked name for Marie’s clean-out method. As an example, the Wall Street Journal discussed the phenomenon in Ben Zimmer’s profile, “A Guru of Organizing Becomes A Verb” published this weekend in the Journal.

Marie is all about de-cluttering, organizing, and finding joy in our physical environments.

As a fan of Kondo-ing and Marie’s message of “sparking joy” with the items you live with, it leads me to ask: what lessons can KonMari have for U.S. healthcare?

Here are some of my favorite quotes of Marie’s that translate to health care…

”Tidying ought to be the act of restoring balance on people, possessions, and the home they live in.”

Consider how labyrinthine health care processes are, whether we look at patient “journeys” (a nice word for the Rube Goldbergian experience of being a sick patient in the U.S.) or physician workflows. What forms might “tidying up” these processes take?

“When we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.”

Through my years advising health care providers, both hospital settings and physicians’, I’ve observed that new devices brought into an institution are additive and too often do not replace old technologies. I think a lot about fax machines in this way: yet providers are still highly dependent on faxing, as I’ve learned from people in my Twitter feed who are quick to remind me this.

Many technologies may be comforting in the immediate term, but could also be preventing innovation at the edge. When is the right time to “jump the curve?” to the new world or workflow as my great mentor Ian Morrison asked in his book, The Second Curve.

Here, I would also add the challenge of data hoarding. There are people who believe that owning “all” the data is the end-game; these folks haven’t cottoned onto Open Source or cloud-sharing or network effects. Underneath this could be fear about securing data; but that, too, can be addressed. Globally, nearly one-half of people working in offices would rather get rid of their clothes than their digital files (39% in the U.S.). Read this insightful article on data hoarding to spot the opportunity for cleaning up and, I daresay, sharing and securing data.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a just-published article in Forbes about the importance of data-sharing to improve health care, presenting the persuasive case for The Chain of Survival in Healthcare. The piece is written by a consulting anesthesiologist with the National Health Service in the UK, @docsouthey.

”People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking.”

Marie raises a good point: I would translate this as, “health care stakeholders in the U.S. need cognitive therapy.” There is so much that can be done with the amazing human capital on the front lines of health care in America – the nurses, the physicians and the pharmacists who happen to be the most trusted professions in the country, Gallup tells us. Liberating people to work at their highest and best use can help us address clinician burnout and the Quadruple Aim, while supporting shared decision-making between patients and their clinicians.

This mind-shift can also help legacy health care look at workflows and journeys through patients’ eyes – patients as consumers and payors. These are the pivotal roles of user-centered designers and service designers.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  “There are three approaches we can take toward our possessions: face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die.”

This last quote is the change-or-else manifesto that the likes of Clay Christensen and Jeff Bezos challenge. Instead of “possessions,” I think about “business model” and “workflow.” They are inter-related.

Imagine a hospital closing beds and shifting workflow to virtual care via telehealth channels. For health care providers, telehealth and virtual care are converging with healthcare delivery the we used to compartmentalize “e-business.” Today, e-business is just stuff done via ecommerce or online or via cloud computing….just everyday business flows. At places like Mercy (Virtual) Healthcare, Kaiser-Permanente (which conducts over 50% of their visits virtually) and Intermountain Healthcare, telehealth is just a new normal in health care delivery.

Ultimately, a Holy Grail would be to “spark joy” in health care, per Marie Kondo’s vision. While health care in America isn’t universally joy-ful or joy-inducing, there are examples of health systems prioritizing the starring roles of patients and clinicians, and streamlining design to de-clutter experience for all.

 For further reading on how to “Kondo” your life, here are a few articles I’ve found useful and/or interesting:

How to de-clutter your computer, inside and out, from NBC News Better

How to KonMari your way to a happier digital life, PC Mag

The life-changing magic of tidying up your electronic life, Mother Nature News (MNN)

How to tidy your PC, Marie Kondo style, Techradar

Could Marie Kondo slow down fast fashion, Fortune

The post What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com

[realselfblog]

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.?

Have you read the life changing magic of tidying up, or Spark Joy, books by Marie Kondo? Her new Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo debuted on January 1, and has enjoyed passionate early viewership by consumers in America who are among the world’s major hoarders.

If you opened any pop culture magazine or newspaper in the past week, you probably saw the results of a PR blitz promoting KonMari, the trademarked name for Marie’s clean-out method. As an example, the Wall Street Journal discussed the phenomenon in Ben Zimmer’s profile, “A Guru of Organizing Becomes A Verb” published this weekend in the Journal.

Marie is all about de-cluttering, organizing, and finding joy in our physical environments.

As a fan of Kondo-ing and Marie’s message of “sparking joy” with the items you live with, it leads me to ask: what lessons can KonMari have for U.S. healthcare?

Here are some of my favorite quotes of Marie’s that translate to health care…

”Tidying ought to be the act of restoring balance on people, possessions, and the home they live in.”

Consider how labyrinthine health care processes are, whether we look at patient “journeys” (a nice word for the Rube Goldbergian experience of being a sick patient in the U.S.) or physician workflows. What forms might “tidying up” these processes take?

“When we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.”

Through my years advising health care providers, both hospital settings and physicians’, I’ve observed that new devices brought into an institution are additive and too often do not replace old technologies. I think a lot about fax machines in this way: yet providers are still highly dependent on faxing, as I’ve learned from people in my Twitter feed who are quick to remind me this.

Many technologies may be comforting in the immediate term, but could also be preventing innovation at the edge. When is the right time to “jump the curve?” to the new world or workflow as my great mentor Ian Morrison asked in his book, The Second Curve.

Here, I would also add the challenge of data hoarding. There are people who believe that owning “all” the data is the end-game; these folks haven’t cottoned onto Open Source or cloud-sharing or network effects. Underneath this could be fear about securing data; but that, too, can be addressed. Globally, nearly one-half of people working in offices would rather get rid of their clothes than their digital files (39% in the U.S.). Read this insightful article on data hoarding to spot the opportunity for cleaning up and, I daresay, sharing and securing data.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a just-published article in Forbes about the importance of data-sharing to improve health care, presenting the persuasive case for The Chain of Survival in Healthcare. The piece is written by a consulting anesthesiologist with the National Health Service in the UK, @docsouthey.

”People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking.”

Marie raises a good point: I would translate this as, “health care stakeholders in the U.S. need cognitive therapy.” There is so much that can be done with the amazing human capital on the front lines of health care in America – the nurses, the physicians and the pharmacists who happen to be the most trusted professions in the country, Gallup tells us. Liberating people to work at their highest and best use can help us address clinician burnout and the Quadruple Aim, while supporting shared decision-making between patients and their clinicians.

This mind-shift can also help legacy health care look at workflows and journeys through patients’ eyes – patients as consumers and payors. These are the pivotal roles of user-centered designers and service designers.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  “There are three approaches we can take toward our possessions: face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die.”

This last quote is the change-or-else manifesto that the likes of Clay Christensen and Jeff Bezos challenge. Instead of “possessions,” I think about “business model” and “workflow.” They are inter-related.

Imagine a hospital closing beds and shifting workflow to virtual care via telehealth channels. For health care providers, telehealth and virtual care are converging with healthcare delivery the we used to compartmentalize “e-business.” Today, e-business is just stuff done via ecommerce or online or via cloud computing….just everyday business flows. At places like Mercy (Virtual) Healthcare, Kaiser-Permanente (which conducts over 50% of their visits virtually) and Intermountain Healthcare, telehealth is just a new normal in health care delivery.

Ultimately, a Holy Grail would be to “spark joy” in health care, per Marie Kondo’s vision. While health care in America isn’t universally joy-ful or joy-inducing, there are examples of health systems prioritizing the starring roles of patients and clinicians, and streamlining design to de-clutter experience for all.

 For further reading on how to “Kondo” your life, here are a few articles I’ve found useful and/or interesting:

How to de-clutter your computer, inside and out, from NBC News Better

How to KonMari your way to a happier digital life, PC Mag

The life-changing magic of tidying up your electronic life, Mother Nature News (MNN)

How to tidy your PC, Marie Kondo style, Techradar

Could Marie Kondo slow down fast fashion, Fortune

The post What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

What If Marie Kondo Reorganized Health Care in the U.S.? posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com