Is the Magic of Tidying Up going to Change My Life?

I just finished reading “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and I think it was quite a read. It has inspired the most motivation to de-clutter, de-junk and otherwise clean up then any of the other half dozen ‘simplify, organize, declutter’ books I have read in the last half dozen years or so. In the past, I would start to read, get inspired, go on a cleaning binge, finish the book and then stall out. This book has taken hold a bit better, although there are some gaping holes in the logic there. I do feel lighter and more energetic then I have since removing about 5 garbage bags of ‘stuff’ from my house and also emptying several surfaces of there accumulation of ‘things’ that move into empty flat surfaces in this house, from mantle, to desk, dresser and even floor. It has inspired a real purge of unloved and unused items that found their way into my home and many of which have now left.

The logic holes in this book were succinctly captured in a meme: I read the book and removed everything I held that didn’t spark joy and the only thing I removed was all the veggies and a bill. I have many items that don’t spark joy, for example, the mouse traps I had to dig out last night. But removing 2 mice was a needed step that was surely a joy to my house. So I think I must keep things that spark joy for my house, like the vacuum and the mop. Though unless someone has ‘too many’ cleaning supplies, I don’t suppose they count as personal clutter the way clothes and other such does.

Also, maybe all storage can be in 1 location for a small house, but with 2 small kids and a 2 story house, some things must be kept on the right floor and possibly up out of reach of little fingers. I am working on reducing the number of places I store ‘my’ stuff versus  household stuff, but I am not sure how few I can really pare down to. I am, however, going to stop storing my things in my kids closets.

The books also doesn’t seem to take into account consumables such as food, medicine and soap. I am reducing and consolidating but that has mostly been done.

But I have yet to truly tackle my beads (or yarn or fabric or paint or creative stuff). I am not sure what is holding me back from this step. I think I don’t really want to let any of it go. My plan is to pull out beads and challenge myself to make things with them. Then they can have their chance to spark joy (or not) and I can rein in my collection to what I love to work with most.