‘Anything that doesn’t spark joy or isn’t absolutely necessary should be touched, thanked and sent on it’s way‘ says Marie Kondo.

I’ve become quite obsessed with Marie Kondo and her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of De-cluttering and Organising.

I’ve spent the last six weeks, following her rules, tidying by category, she’s very strict about this, touching each item and asking myself does it spark joy? One of the first categories was shoes, after retrieving every pair I have from every corner of the flat I had a grand total of 63 pairs! Now armed with my ‘spark joy’ measure, twenty pairs were packed up for the charity shop.
So now having worked through all the categories, and frankly driven the Mechanic mad, I believe I’ve reduced the contents of our flat by 40%. books I thought would be tricky, but 3/4 have gone, and as a result two bookshelves too.
Some items I have given away, many, many bags of unwanted belongings have gone to the charity shop, a few for recycling, and finally a pile for eBay.
So far the eBay sales have covered the cost of our flights to Italy this May. So I’ve thanked those items for their kind service, and kissed them goodbye.