I’m busy clearing a sparkly path for joy

IAM on a mission to reorganise the whole house, to get rid of what is no longer needed, from clothes to residual attachments for long-gone electrical items, and to organise what remains. I’ve always quite liked tidying but this latest urge feels like it goes beyond cleaning, it’s about clearing paths for new beginnings and none of them can happen until the clearout is done.

Deep cleaning like this requires both that you take everything out of every storage place and an amount of time that I don’t always have. Which is why for a good two weeks I shared my bed with all my clothes and shoes. But I’m getting there, and, a bit late to the party, I’m getting there with my new Japanese cleaning sensation from Netflix, Marie Kondo.

Her folding ideas are a revelation, if I do say so myself, my knicker drawer is a work of folded underwear art. What I’ve found most useful however is her idea of whether things spark joy. It’s especially useful for anything you’re undecided about. If you can argue lots of benefits to keeping something but it doesn’t spark joy, it’s adios. (MK also recommends you thank items before you dispatch them but I’ve adapted that to gleeful flinging over the banisters.)

The concept of whether a T-shirt makes you happy possibly sounds daft to some people, but it makes total sense to me and the act of checking in with how I feel about little things has extended to how I feel about everything. It’s an inspiration to fix other things that don’t make me feel good, which is in itself a procrastination buster. I feel happier, more positive and like good things are coming. As soon as I work out what to do with the 85 bags in the porch.