KonMari

Listen to your house, it’s got a lot to say.

Michaela Murphy7 Comments

 

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The passivity of waiting for the ‘right’ house to come on the market has, quite frankly, been doing my head in, so I quickly realised I’d feel a whole lot better if we were taking positive action in other areas. Thus over the last week or so, we’ve been doing a second KonMari pass through the house and its contents, and all the ‘non-joy-sparkers’ are leaving the building.  It’s amazing just how much has left the house despite us having maintained our KM mindset pretty well over the last couple of years.  Having a small child means there are lots of things that get out grown so that’s been one source of discards (I find the Little Chap’s things the hardest to part with).  Also just revisiting the things that made the cut the first time round and realising we’ve not used them, or they didn’t ‘spark joy’ after all has meant a further cull of certain categories.  It’s felt GOOD!

It’s no secret that for us the KonMari method, just as the title of the book asserts, has been ‘life-changing’.  The simple act of tuning in to decipher whether an object sparks joy or not, has been illuminating and transformative.  BUT just the other day a friend and blogger steered me in the direction of another great touchstone.  She recently invited me to join a Facebook group created for readers of the book ‘Goodbye, Things’ by Fumio Sasaki.  A Japanese minimalist, he takes minimalism to a whole new level (too far for me personally) but my friend Maria posted a quote from the book, which I’ve not been able to stop thinking about…

“Things don’t just sit there. They send us silent messages. And the more the item has been neglected, the stronger its message will be.”

Ever since reading this I’ve found myself really listening to what our things / our house is saying and do you know what, Fumio’s bloody right.  If you actually stop to ‘listen’ there is a cacophony going on.  To give you an idea, here are just some of the messages I’ve been hearing:

Small composting bin in the kitchen: “Thanks for changing my bag but don’t just ignore that bit of onion skin stuck to some gak in the bottom, or that bit of bean-juice mould developing on the underside of my lid, that just lazy and a bit gross even if no-one else will see.  Give me a wash and stick me in the sunshine to dry.  You’ll feel much better if you do that.”

Our mop: “Yes I looked like a good design when you bought me but the reality is I flip over every time you mop with even a modicum of enthusiasm which drives you mad and makes you less inclined to mop the floor.   Buy a better mop, the floor needs more mop time.”

Orange enamel coffee pot: “I’m a joy sparker.  My orangeyness makes you feel happy and reminds you of birthday teas where your lovely mum served coffee from me.  You’ve also discovered I look good holding a bunch of daffs.  I’m a keeper.”

Black rubber pad from the bottom of my laptop: “All I needed was a small blob of superglue and I’d be back where I belong, rather than on your bedside table mumbling away EVERY TIME you looked in my direction.  And see! Don’t you feel so much better now you’ve glued me back on and I’ve stopped nagging?  It took less than a minute but I bugged you for way more than that over the weeks.  You won’t leave it so long next time will you?!”

A chair I inherited from my mum: “You’re really only keeping me because your mum loved me, but we both know you don’t love me enough to take care of my prolapsed undercarriage nor dress me up in anything fancier than the dull green velvet(ish) fabric I’ve been wearing for the last 40 years.  I also know your head has been turned by the Ikea Benarp chair in Skiftebo orange. Go get her, with my blessing. And hey, perhaps your brother will want me??  But, seriously it’s okay if he doesn’t.  I’ll be fine. Really.  No I will. Don’t feel bad about getting rid of something your mum loved. Sob.”

Assortment of vitamins and supplement bottles: “We just wanted to thank you for corralling us all into a plastic box the other day.  We will now stop haranguing you each time you open the cupboard now that we’re not strewn all over the place.  You won’t hear a further peep from us.  Peace out.”

So you get the drift.  It’s not about setting unrealistic expectations of ourselves to live in show homes (hahahahahaha ROFLs x a trazillion), the messages I’ve described come from my own standards, not anyone else’s.  They want the best for me.  It’s that same voice that tells me to go to the gym, it really has my best intentions at heart even if I don’t always want to hear it.  What I’ve found without fail, is once I’ve heard the message and taken care of the item, it quietens down completely and there’s a greater sense of peace.  I highly recommend it.  It’s also fine to hear the message but decide you don’t want to take care of it right now; by listening and deciding it becomes a conscious choice rather than an avoidance, which again brings its own sense of peace.

So have a listen, and find out what your house is saying to you.  I’d love to hear.

Gliding

Michaela Murphy4 Comments

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Vince and I like to GLIDE.  We plan ahead and we don’t like to live life by the skin of our teeth; for some that’s exciting, for us it’s stressful.

One of the things we’ve identified that helps with the glide is to automate as much of our lives as possible.  This creates a structure around certain areas which in turn facilitates flexibility in others.

For us gliding is about figuring out which actions bring us closer to a sense of peace and ease, and which take us further away.

Some of the positive actions we’ve integrated into our days are:

Positive Actions: ‘Fully Integrated’ (these are actions we’ve been doing for a year+):

Positive Actions: ‘Work in Progress’ (these are things that don’t yet feel fully integrated but are well on the way):

Positive Actions: Next on the list:

  • Diarise a block of time each week for taking care of admin, ‘to-do’ list items, chores (approx 3hrs).

To back track a little, I noticed a big dip in my energy and motivation levels towards the end of March this year following a relay race of family colds.  For a good 2-3 months after that I continued to feel sluggish and let some of my established positive actions slide.  It didn’t feel good.  I needed to take responsibility for my energy levels and not just self-medicate with sugar and mindless trawls through Facebook.  As a result I’ve been taking the Ayurvedic supplement ‘Ashwagandha‘ which certainly helped reignite my spark.  The effects are super subtle but I noticed a welcome brightness and clarity of thought much later into the evening than I had without it.  After a few weeks of taking the tablets, alongside daily yoga I admitted to my reluctant self that I needed to introduce some cardio <insert fountainous crying emoji here>.

You see, I’ve always told the story that ‘I have a poor relationship with exercise because I never really saw my (naturally slim) parents exercise and I was terrible at sport’, but when I thought about it I was actually able to identify several pockets of time in my post-school life where I have had a good relationship with exercise. I needed to ‘flip the script’ and start telling a different story.  I’ve since joined our local gym and have committed to an hour three times a week. My energy levels have continued to increase along with my productivity, and motivation to ‘get shit done’.

One of the prompts in my Daily Greatness Journal is ‘What is going well and why?’ Consistently the ‘why’ is: ‘X is going well because I’ve made it a priority and I’ve psychologically committed to doing it’.  It really does come down to that.

I’ve mentioned here before that a great trick for me is to schedule these positive actions into my diary ahead of time, so for example I have decided I will go to the gym Monday, Thursday and Saturday mornings first thing.  By making this decision in advance I’ve helped remove that internal negotiation each morning of, ‘shall I go to the gym today?  I’m feeling a bit tired, I could go tomorrow and then I’ll work REALLY, EXTRA, WONDER WOMAN-LY hard because of course I’ll feel less tired tomorrow…’  Without that pre-commitment I’d be extremely susceptible to talking myself out of it, kicking that can down the road.  Instead I’ve identified those slots in my week, and consider them set in stone.  The night before I also write it in my schedule for the next day to further commit.  When I wake up it feels like a done deal, I just get up and go with no shilly-shallying. It really seems to be working for me.

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One thing I’m trying to square is just how long it takes to fit in all the good practices into my day.  Much of it means time away from the Little Chap.  1hr of exercise + 20 minutes meditation + 5 minutes diary writing + 10 minutes YNAB update + 20 minutes on laundry – that’s around 2hrs a day.  For a while I was feeling like I must ‘get through’ those tasks so I can get on with my day but slowly I’m realising those things are my day, that they deserve the time required and that actually the positive effect will benefit the Little Chap.  I have more physical energy for play, meditation is making us calmer and more patient, I’m demonstrating the life skill of setting positive goals and tracking them in a journal, he’ll grow up knowing how to manage his finances, and in the meantime we won’t be overly stressed about money, he’ll see the benefit of keeping on top of things like laundry to avoid that clothes mountain overwhelm.  Of course some of these things can also be done when he’s in bed!  A major revelation to me was looking at how long I could spend on Facebook, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.  I’m sure across the whole day it could easily have been an hour.  That’s THIRTY HOURS A MONTH!  What could you achieve if you had THIRTY HOURS A MONTH to play with? Our introduction of a daily meditation practice was a no-brainer swap.  Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to prioritise new things and invest in the glide.

When we consider implementing a positive action we usually have to accept an initial sense of loss.  If we want to lose weight we will mourn those times of over-indulging , if we want to fit in exercise we may have to forfeit that delicious extra time in bed, sorting out our finances may mean we have to forego holidays, new clothes, meals out.

Of course ALLL the positive actions don’t magically weave a protective bubble around us and things do go wrong from time to time.  Just recently our car, fridge freezer, a wall of shelves and our loo all broke in the same week.  In the past we’d have felt like the Universe was against us but because we have our YNAB budget we had already, month by month, set aside money in several emergency funds to cover these things.  Of course we’d rather not have had to spend all that money but as it had already been given that specific job it really didn’t sting that much to get repairs and replacements sorted.

Before we make a mental commitment to introduce positive changes, all we can picture is that no-man’s land of restriction but without the benefits those positive actions will ultimately give us.  That looks like a sucky place to be, zero fun.  Emotionally we can be extremely resistant to taking up residence there even if we know it’s only for a while; this is where I’ve found it helpful to ‘fake it ’til I make it’, over-ride emotion by getting practical and make a concrete plan, put things in diaries, walk confidently past our whining doubtful selves clinging on to the takeaway menu like it was a jackpot lottery ticket.

Make deals with yourself on the really tough days:  don’t even think about getting on the treadmill, just focus on getting into your gym kit. Once you’re in your gym kit you might as well drive to the gym.  Once you’re at the gym you might as well do a few belligerent minutes on the treadmill. Before you know it you’ve done your hour and the virtue just drips off you (yesiree that’s glowy virtue I’m wiping off the machines after I’ve used them).  Keep showing up to the task, find your inner grit, accept you’re not gonna love it at first but trust that eventually you will (well you’ll love the after-effects at the very least).

Before you know it you’ll no longer be faking it,  you’ll feel that glide and then YOU’RE OFF…

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Header pic: Copyright: <a href=’https://www.123rf.com/profile_anagram1′>anagram1 / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Clock pic: Copyright: <a href=’https://www.123rf.com/profile_james63′>james63 / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

No Man’s Land pic: courtesy of: http://tomtunguz.com/

The On-going Magic of Tidying Up

Michaela Murphy3 Comments

A fellow KonMari-er requested I turn a recent Facebook post into a proper blog post so here it is Maria..!

A couple of days ago I walked into the craft room and found this:

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Instead of feeling a little shocked to find the bookalanche, I was more disturbed by the volume of stuff that had been spewed forth.

This time last year we completed a year-long KonMari (KM) de-clutter of the whole house so I didn’t think clutter was too much of an issue here at Chez Murphy but it appears I was wrong.  It’s amazing how seeing ones possessions from a different angle (in this case in an unceremonious heap on the floor) can jump-start a fresh engagement with your things. Stuff on shelves has a tendency to become invisible after a while but when it shifts physical position you can see it again (this is why Marie Kondo invites us to gather all items belonging to the same category into a pile; changing location shakes them up a bit). And thus I saw the contents of my shelves with fresh eyes. ALLLLL of it.

This unexpected event prompted a revisit of my books ‘category’ and I let go of quite a stack that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to discard before.

All my old diaries written from age nine and into my mid-twenties had been on the top shelf (the one that seemingly tipped the balance!) and even though I have very mixed feelings about them – so much angsty content and FAR too much detail –  I’m not ready to get rid of them, not yet anyway.  Not least because they could contain more lucrative ideas like this beaut from 1996 which could lead to untold riches:

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One thing I realised is I don’t want them on view, and whilst looking online for some sort of vintage trunk to stash them in, I suddenly remembered my dad’s old boarding school tuck box which I’d had restored earlier in the year. This is part of the KM magic; when you need a solution, the perfect one often presents itself from what you already have, and just to add to the magic, the box is the perfect size to house them all snugly together AND it’s lockable!  The shame will be contained.

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In amongst the strewn items I also found three VHS tapes that’d escaped the KM cull, titled: ‘Village Show 1983’, ‘Village Show 1984’ and ‘Family’.  They’d obviously made it through Round #1 of KM but what struck me upon seeing them again was how dormant and pointless they were in their current state.  I don’t have a VHS player, hell we don’t even have a TV, so today I’ve packaged them up ready to be converted to DVD.  It’s not that expensive and then at least they can be viewed.  I remember at the time feeling I ‘should’ keep them as there are lots of people still living in and around our village who were either in the shows or who helped organise them and I’m pretty sure my dad was the only person who recorded them.  I felt a responsibility not to just toss the tapes as they have irreplaceable content and other people might be interested in them, but without converting them and sharing the footage with ‘local folk’, the tapes had a bit of a negative psychological weight to them just sitting on the shelf, unwatched.

I also came across several strips of black and white negatives from photo’s I’d taken at art college over 10 years ago.  It was just from an experimental roll and I never got round to processing any of the images as soon after taking them my lovely mum died and, well processing negatives was taken to a whole new level. I know why I kept them…partly it felt like an incomplete project but mostly it’s because there is one negative, unintentionally double-exposed,  where one half of the frame is of a tree and the other is the last photo taken of my mum before she died, plaster-of-paris’d arm held aloft.  The same realisation hit me…there was little point in holding on to them without ever processing them.  So to that end I’ve also parcelled them up ready to be scanned.

I already feel lighter for having tackled these dormant items, hopefully breathing some new life into them.

This is why I am an exuberant advocate for the KonMari method, the process continues to provide endless opportunity for insights, it’ll be a life long relationship for us.  It’s been a revelation to me to be conscious and mindful of what we own and what we bring into our home;  to carefully choose those items and to revisit and review from time to time.  And I can’t think of a much better yard stick than to ask ‘does it spark joy’?