Tidy your home, Upgrade your life!™
Check out the recent Redfin article we were featured in: Organizing Mistakes: 27 Slip-Ups to Avoid During Your Next Project | Redfin Organizing is difficult and can be a stressful, time-consuming project. It’s also an essential skill that can increase your physical and emotional health. …
If you want to tidy up, you must take action. Have you heard this adage: How do you eat an elephant? The answer is: one bite at a time.
I want you to imagine your Tidying Festival–where you mindfully tidy your whole home in a short span of time–as the elephant. You will never succeed in eating an “elephant” unless you take the first bite.
I once saw a client who had read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up years ago. She loved the book, and believed in the Method. She joined KonMari®-themed groups on Facebook and told her friends about the book. Then, she tidied her home… in her head. Thoughts without action got her nowhere. Years went by.
And. She. Never. Got. Started.
I asked her why she didn’t take action to tidy, and her answer surprised me: the simple idea of actually pulling ALL HER CLOTHES out of her closet was OVERWHELMING. I get it. If you’ve seen Marie’s first Netflix show, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, you get it too. On the episode featuring Ron and Wendy Akiyama, Marie Kondo instructs Wendy to pile all the clothes on the bed, and it reaches almost to the ceiling! Click here for a look at “Mt. Wendy” if you haven’t seen it. Marie gently announces without batting an eye, “I’m going to be honest with you. This is the biggest pile I’ve seen of all my clients.” See below for a not-as-large pile I tackled with another one of my clients.
Taking all of your clothes out and making a big pile may be the “ideal” way to dive into the tidying process, but it doesn’t make sense for everyone. It makes for great reality TV, however leaving a client’s home with a mountain of clothes still untidy doesn’t make a great reality. Most of the families on Tidying Up with Marie Kondo received assistance with their tidying assignments from a Certified KonMari Consultant after Marie left. Truly, tidying is much easier with an organizing expert to assist you. Watch my client successfully tidy her space with some rock-solid guidance and support in the following video.
What do you think? Is the big pile overwhelming? Let me just say that the big pile is not for everyone. In fact, in the years since these photos were taken, I have learned to take care in organizing items into subcategories as we get them out of the closet. It really does help the process go more smoothly and is usually very easy to do. Here are a few situations where taking small bites might be a good fit for you:
Any of these reasons or more may be the source of your inertia. Know that you’re not alone if you have trouble starting things. One of author Gretchen Rubin’s secrets of adulthood is: “Nothing is more exhausting than the task that is never started.” You’ve got that right! Just looking at or thinking about your messy closet is weighing you down more than you realize.
Please stop exhausting yourself and take action to tidy up. Whatever the reason for your lack of motion on tidying up, an outside force like a Certified KonMari Consultant may be the impetus you need to get the ball rolling. I help you let go of the weight of your belongings with gratitude and joy. Tidying is healing, and I urge you not to postpone your tidying any longer. It is time to let go. I mean, just look at the change below! It feels so good to do this!
If you resolved sometime in the past to get your house in order, and here you are now, still staring at that “elephant” (or closet) and feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead, then now is the time to contact us to help you take action to tidy up. Tidy Upgrade offers an initial session where we get your closet neat and tidy. Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. Once you get your momentum going, the next bite may be easier. Don’t wait to clear space for joy. Just start. Take action to tidy today!
Here I share with you some simple steps to cleanse your home so you can purify your own home with mindful intention. Home Cleansing is especially relevant before moving out, but after completing your tidying event or at year-end are other great times to cleanse your space. I was surprised how fitting this ritual felt to perform and witness! It truly did leave a clear and refreshed feeling, similar to the feeling of tidying your space.
This morning when I opened my e-mail, I was greeted by this heartwarming testimonial. Tidying your home with a KonMari Consultant really does make a difference! Sparking joy isn’t always about increasing happiness. It’s about gratitude and love… for yourself, others, and your belongings.
“Lisa… We are so grateful for your help over here especially now that we are spending so much time here! [due to the coronavirus] …
Love,
Nicole
PS – I toyed with finding a more reserved closing for my letter, but I do feel so much love for you and this work that ‘sincerely’ couldn’t possibly be sufficient.”
Did you know that National Closet Clean Out Week begins the third Sunday of March? It is always a great time to clean out your closet, so don’t wait to give yourself the joy of a tidy closet and a tidy home. Let’s jump into …
In 2017, just after I made my first blog post, joy left my life–only briefly, but it’s a story that I have been keeping inside for almost two years. Completing the KonMari Method™ in my home helped me grow in many virtues, including gratitude and courage. It is with that bravery that I begin to tell the story.
It’s hard to admit that I wasn’t always a tidy person. I finished my tidying shortly before the seminar took place. My mind no longer felt cluttered. I was at peace. I was happy. I finally managed to get my life together just in time to unexpectedly confront the greatest challenge of my life.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
My house was tidy. My suitcase was packed into the minivan, along with my husband and children, for a long weekend in Chicago where I would attend the KonMari Consultant training seminar. I was 29 weeks pregnant with a little girl who we were looking forward to welcoming in July 2017.
We were halfway to Chicago when the phone rang. It was my OB-GYN. He was calling with a diagnosis. It was the moment that joy left my life.
“The test results are consistent with a diagnosis of Trisomy 18, or Edward’s Syndrome. Your baby has three copies of her 18th chromosome instead of the usual two.” He informed us that this condition is considered “incompatible with life.” Our daughter would be medically unstable and severely disabled. I could hardly catch my breath after the devastating blow. Continuing, he imparted some very grim statistics, including a 50% chance of stillbirth. And if she was born alive, the odds that she would celebrate a first birthday were a scant 10%. Yes, there are children alive and thriving with Trisomy 18, but the odds were not stacked in our favor.
I was crushed. All the excitement about the KonMari training seminar, all the joy about my tidy house, my expected baby, my plan to become a KonMari Consultant drained away. Filled with grief over the diagnosis, tears poured from my eyes. I cried for hours, the rest of the way to Chicago. I cried out to God, asking why He would do this. Why would He take my baby? It was the darkest moment of my life.
But there was little time to dwell on my personal agony. A KonMari Consultant was hosting a party for the seminar attendees. I put myself together as much as I could, and stepped into the beginning of my new life as a KonMari Consultant trainee. It’s hard to tell that I’m 29 weeks pregnant and that I have spent the whole day crying. I felt grateful for the diversion.
Friday, April 28, 2017
I walked into the KonMari Consultant training seminar in a haze. In the room, filled with eager Consultant hopefuls, positive energy radiated and joy and excitement were palpable. I put on a smile. We were reminded to be present and to focus on the here and now. It was the exact message I needed to help me mentally attend the training, my mind busily occupied with all the new and exciting information from the seminar.
KonMari Consultant training is like what you might imagine it to be. Marie Kondo’s “Spark Joy” philosophy had overcome everyone in the room. Many of us were in the process of starting our own businesses as tidying consultants to spread this message of joy to others. There was warmth and love in every enthusiastic face. In the midst of my newfound grief, I found myself serendipitously placed in what I feel was one of the happiest places on earth. The hand of God led me by design to this place at this time. I could not have orchestrated it more carefully.
At one point during that first day, all the attendees took out an item of clothing that they found difficult to fold. I had packed a sleeper for a newborn baby, a garment that my unborn child would never wear. Despite my inner turmoil, I would need to know how to fold it, so I swallowed my fear of the attention it would bring and put it in front of me on the table. Everyone was stumped. The seminar presenter came around and showed us what to do. Fold in half, fold the sleeves over, fold in half, fold in half again. And there it stood—a tiny, perfectly packaged baby outfit. She asked me to fold it for the whole seminar to see. Flustered, I folded it with the snaps showing, so not as beautifully, but well enough that it would stand.
In the evening I returned to the hotel room and again fell to pieces, overwhelmed by grief and shock. My baby was dying. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Again, I returned to the seminar, the grave magnitude of my reality hung heavy on my eyelids. I bathed in the positive energy. I focused on the training. I met new friends. Joy filled the entire room!
At the end of the day, back at the hotel room, I typed in my daughter’s diagnosis and found a website for a non-profit called Prenatal Partners for Life. I started reading the stories of other families who had children with Trisomy 18. Yes, many of them had buried their child, but they were all grateful for the gift that the child was in their life.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
I awoke at 2:00 AM Sunday morning. A new feeling had come to me, replacing the grief that I felt when the diagnosis came. It was a familiar skill that I had honed during my KonMari tidying marathon: Gratitude.
I suddenly felt incredibly strong and well-prepared to confront this challenge like I had confronted my possessions while tidying up, with gratitude. So there I was awake in the middle of the night, overwhelmed with gratitude. I felt:
Later that day, face to face with Marie Kondo, I shared with her my gratitude for the gifts she had given me, tangible and intangible. Through the pages of her books, she taught me how to tidy and cleared the path for joy in my life at a time when I needed it most.
And now, I am grateful to share my journey with you.
Gratitude is the heart of the KonMari Method™, and the message I wish to impart to every one of my clients. Gratitude is the language that will inspire the world. Joy won’t make you grateful, but gratitude will make you joyful. I learned through KonMari to focus on joy, which is not always happiness, but rather, love. When you are grateful every day for what you have, your heart will fill with love.
With gratitude, from my heart to yours,
Lisa
