TIDYING YOUR SPACE

I recently bought a book entitled "the life-changing magic of tidying up.  The Japanese art of decluttering and organizing".  It is written by Marie Kondo and has been translated from Japanese.  Along with the introduction the book has five chapters.  The author's premise is that you don't have keep tidying your house every day.  Tidying can be done once and the tasks that you need to continue for the rest of your life are those of choosing what to keep and what to discard and caring for the things you decide to keep.  Furthermore, by tidying once, you will be able to put your house in order and have the time and passion to pursue what brings you joy into your life.  The author says that when you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order too.  You have to first start by discarding what you really don't need and then organizing your space.

You might be wondering why I bought this book and if I am a messy untidy person.  I think I am tidy and try to not collect too many piles of papers or books at home.  But it is all relative based on who I am comparing myself to.  I am also conscious of not trying to saving everything.  What caught my attention when looking at this book at the bookstore was chapter 3 on tidying by category.  I started to read the pages on how to fold clothes and store socks.  I was intrigued.  The author feels that the inside of your drawers should be organized so that the each item can be seen at a glance, just like seeing the spines of your books when they are lined up on your bookcase.  Clothes in your drawer should be stored standing and it is not the folding that creates wrinkles but the amount of pressure applied that causes wrinkling. The goal is to fold each piece of clothing into a smooth, simple rectangle.  Every piece of clothing has its own sweet spot in terms of the number of folds.  I love tee shirts and have written about tee shirts in a previous post  how many tee shirts should you own?   I have several drawers of tee shirts and the tee shirts are separated by whether they are short sleeve or long sleeve and colours.  The tee shirts are all nicely folded but are stacked, and are not stored in the drawers standing up.  You can bet already that I will be rearranging my tee shirt drawers.

Chapter 3 also contains information on storing socks.  Besides tee shirts,  I also love socks.  I store my socks in the drawer by rolling them up and fold the tops back to form a flat ball.  The author write that socks should not be balled-up.  Storing them in the drawer is a time for them to rest.  Your socks are essentially on holiday.  When you wear your socks they endure pressure and friction.  If you store your socks balled-up, the fabric is stretched, the elastic is pulled and they never get the chance to relax.  This make perfect sense to me.  The socks are folded like clothing and are stored with the socks on their edge.  I spent 45 minutes today unwrapping my socks and storing them folded on their edge.  I also separated the socks based on winter and summers weight and whether they were fine socks intended to wear with dress shoes.  I realized doing this that I have a lot of socks, likely too many socks.  And I like every pair of them.  

The book contains other interesting information from arranging clothes in your closet, to arranging books on your book case, to designating a spot for each of your items, to appreciating your belongings, and to learning that you can do without.  Since I have been reading the book in a non sequential manner, I will start to read it from beginning to end.  It is not a big book both in size and page numbers so it should not take me long to read it.