I am One with the Wind and Sky . . .

For those of you who might be on Ravelry, I'm doing a little destashing.  Now seems like a good time to continue letting go of stuff.  I spent a lot of time earlier this year doing just that - and there is still stuff I can let go of, so I'm looking at pretty much everything with a critical eye.  This time I will likely work on selling stuff rather than donating it all out of hand.

There are two books out now about decluttering that are all the rage.  They came up here on the blog earlier this year as I was struggling with what to let go, and my friend Paula, of The Knitting Pipeline, talked about them earlier this year on Episode 194 of her podcast (which is great, BTW).

I have them both on my Kindle app (so as not to bring more books into the house :-D).  The first one is called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing, by Marie Kondo.  I love this review of the book by Emily M. Keeler.

The other book is The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide - how to declutter, organize, and simplify your life, by Francine Jay.

I have not actually read either of them yet, I've only read about them, but this is an area in which I have great interest.  I don't think I'm a minimalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm very much about making my life more manageable.  For me, this translates to having less stuff..  I think that when you have too much stuff, you waste massive amounts of energy on it - worrying about it, insuring it, cleaning it, dusting it, trying to keep it organized, wondering if you should let it go, should you sell it, should you give it away, does a family member want it.  It's mind boggling and it's overwhelming and I have spent far too much energy this year in exactly these ways.

From what I've heard and read already about the KonMarie method, I have sort of instinctually done some of the major prep work in terms of identifying what should probably go.  Yay me!  I'm going to read both of these books - they are downloading from the cloud - and I'll return to this topic when I have.  If you've read them I'd love to hear your thoughts.

In the meantime, there's a destash going on and I pretty much never get tired of this song - it's fully empowering  :-)


Comments

Darth Knitter said…
I've enjoyed my journey this year on letting go of a lot of "stuff," and I have to say moving helped a lot with that. I know there's more I can let go of as well. As a fan of Project 333 and other minimalist living blogs, I've seen the Kondo book referenced a few times. I looked at it on Amazon, and although the total reviews are overwhelmingly positive, I found the negative reviews much more helpful which made me determine not to waste my money purchasing it or my time reading it. There's no magic - it's all common sense. :-)

Good luck with your continued simplification!
A :-) said…
Quite possibly true - still, sometimes it's good for me to hear something in a different way in a different voice :-) I'm going going to read them both - at least the KonMarie book is a pretty quick read.

I'm still really interested in Project 333 although I'm not sure I could do it well - I know you've been working with/exploring that one for awhile.
Ely said…
A friend of mine is using the Kondo method, and there's a whole thread in a Rav group I follow that was inspired by her book. One thing to remember was that this book began its life in Japan, in Japanese, and thus the cultural aspects and the nuances in the translation can be off putting for some people. I also think perhaps the PR was a little too good for this book, so when people dig in they're not so interested or inspired by the surrounding material.

I believe sometimes it takes a different voice to shake life up. I've recently been devouring podcasts and YT videos that have to do with creativity, and while logically everyone's message is essentially the same, and do I really need the time to explore something I can figure out on my own, the approaches are different which allows me to explore from various directions, and I find this refreshing and freeing.
A :-) said…
Ely - I dothink the cultural aspect will be of interest to me as I read it. I'm quite fascinated by most things Japanese. It's on my list of places to go :-) I, too, think that part of the creative process (at least for me) is looking at things through another lens, of hearing someone else's story and trying it on for size - it may suit me, it may not. Or maybe just a piece of it will suit me - I never know until I explore :-)

If you are looking at exploring your creativity, you might want to pick up a copy of "The Artist's Way," by Julia Cameron. It's tremendous, and I find that it's just as relevant now, as it was back when she published it. :-)

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