feature personal stories & interviews with people to find how clothes affect mood & personality [ SUBSCRIBE ]
The time keeps moving, allowing everything to change.
He is now is different from whom he will be.
Will the time helps him to realize his own changes?
At the beginning of January, I finally moved to another empty room at my house. It has much better lighting and circulation. Since I have to move out, I decided to renovate and declutter my bedroom.
2019 Resolution: Fixing Myself Up
Time flies, and it’s March already! What is your resolution in 2019? Do you still strive to achieve it?
As I described in “Another White to Begin an End,” I resolve to start fresh. Of course, everything begins with ourselves. The funny thing is, after having full determination to try improving myself and reorganizing life, many good things started to happen.
READ: Another White to Begin an End
Gradually, people who brought negative influences in my life started to drift away, and I was drawn into positive people. The opportunities to do good started coming.
I’m grateful to have an opportunity to join the collaboration program between the Singapore International Foundation and Bandung Philharmonic to help the refugees from Afghanistan express their emotions in creative ways by composing music.
PHOTO BY: SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION
All the things which happened to me seemed to be naturally filtered to help me become better. I was compelled to create a positive and conducive environment for myself. The closest setting I could fix was my own bedroom, and I decided to reorganize it.
When was the last time you declutter your bedroom?
Having so many responsibilities like jobs, family, school, etc., often make us feel too exhausted. We feel more hesitant to spare our precious time to tidying or declutter our house.
PHOTO FROM #iwearmystories TO LEARN TO STOP JUDGING OTHERS
My bedroom filled with so many things. It was quite dark due to the lack of sunlight. The grey walls just made it even gloomier. All those factors made me feel stifled whenever I spent time in the bedroom.
Then I remembered about the KonMari Method and decided to read “Spark Joy by Marie Kondo” to find inspiration on how to organize stuff effectively. Before I bought it, I read its reviews in GoodReads.
The KonMari Method by Marie Kondo
The Konmari Method has become popular and been used as a guideline in tidying up houses.
Initially, I thought the KonMari Method was merely a tidying up method. However, after reading the book, it turns out that the KonMari Method is a form of mental construction within our mind to live a life with an appreciation for things that spark the joy within. This method was proposed by Marie Kondo, an expert consultant in the area of house organizing and tidying up.
Marie Kondo wants us to appreciate the things we have and emphasizes on quality more than quantity. Tidying up reduces excessive and unnecessary things, thus making our lives simple and stress-free.
The KonMari Method is not the same as the philosophy of Minimalism. The Konmari Method implores us to get rid of unnecessary things, or things that do not make us happy for us to live a happier life. On the other hand, a minimalist philosophy aims to reduce all distracting stuff to be more focused in life.
Pros and Cons of the KonMari Method
I was tidying up my bedroom while reading the KonMari Method e-book to learn about the effective way to tidy up a bedroom. This method has created many pros and cons. One of the things that make book lovers disagree with the KonMari Method is Marie Kondo’s suggestion against keeping books because she believes the books will not be re-read.
This twit about Marie Kondo’s thoughts on books made me laugh:
My hot take on Marie Kondo that no one asked for: I bought her book that told me to get rid of books which do not spark joy, so I got rid of her book.
— sara krauser hinkle (@sarawithoutan_h) January 7, 2019
Marie Kondo also urges us to hold our clothes in our embrace to find out if those clothes give us joy. Such things are criticized by many, and I do not follow those pieces of advice.
Aside from pro and cons, the KonMari Method inspires people to learn to live sufficiently and to prioritize self-happiness. Many reviews show how the KonMari Method has changed their lives; even one of the person I interviewed for #iwearmystories also uses the method.
Everything needs time
Perhaps it is not that we do not have time, but we are reluctant to spare time.
Tidying up requires commitment and is very time consuming, especially for people with so many belongings, like myself. There are many things to do, starting from renovations such as painting the wall, replacing the curtains, fixing the ceilings, getting rid of unnecessary items, to rearranging the entire furniture.
Marie Kondo recommends doing direct and thorough clean up. I did not follow this advice due to my busy schedule and my own capacity.
She also emphasizes on focusing. I feel bored if I keep focusing on tidying up, so I did it while watching TV. Surely Marie Kondo would not agree with what I did. However, everyone has his or her way, and I feel happier if I clean up while watching TV.
The KonMari Method suggests to gather all items by category and place them in one area to form a huge pile. To simplify, I prepared a box which I initially used to sort the things, and then as a container for the items that I would throw away.
In total, this bedroom clean-up took more than two weeks. I had way too many things! Gathering, cleaning, reorganizing the books and Doraemon collections alone had taken so much time. Not to mention selecting and rearranging my music score sheets.
Since I was a kid, I had always been interested in many things. My hobbies have always been collecting Doraemon and reading books. Even with the presence of e-books, I still feel far more comfortable with a real book and can easily digest the content of a book when I hold the physical form of the book.
The KonMari Method suggests to clean up clothes first and foremost because we usually do not have an emotional attachment to clothes. However, I chose to spare extra time and save the best part for last; tidying up fashion items.
I was shocked when I realized that I had 80 pairs of shoes, mainly because, as I told in the Article, I have stopped doing retail therapy.
READ MORE: Guilty Healing: Retail Therapy
Folding and arranging items vertically
I do not like folding clothes and stacking them vertically because I would have to lift the entire stack of clothes to get to the one I want to take. Not only is it troublesome, but it also messes up the pile of clothes. For this reason, I designed wardrobes with long hanger bars.
Vertically stacking clothes urges us to choose the clothes on the topHanging clothes in hangers offer many advantages. It made it easy for me to retrieve whichever clothes I desire, see everything I have, without wrinkling my clothes.
“The best way to store is to fold and stand things vertically” —Marie Kondo
The most famous KonMari Method is how to fold clothes vertically. If folded correctly, all our clothes can vertically stand so we can arrange them horizontally like books.
After trying the organizing system of the KonMari Method, all my clothes can now fit in one wardrobe.
Tidying up based on categories
Aside from the vertical folding method, another interesting KonMari Method is its emphasis on organizing everything based on categories, not location. For example, when tidying up books, we need to combine all the books from every room in the house.
Dispose of all unnecessary things
We all have certain items we ‘love too much to throw away’ such as memorabilia that holds so many memories but never use.
One of the things that made my bedroom filled with stuff is my reluctance to throw away stuff. I was reluctant to get rid of unused clothes and kept thinking, “I will use this one day.” In the end, so many years later, I still had not used those things.
The key is, we need to force ourselves to throw away things we no longer need. This is not limited to physical stuff, but also all things, especially negative things. This includes staying away from people who love to hurt us, or accepting and letting go of painful memories.
In the end, I felt content by taking the essence of the book and applying things that I deemed suitable for me. I do not (or maybe have yet to) think that the KonMari method is 100% true for myself.
Most people have successfully managed to get rid of many things and made their space looks empty as they applied the KonMari Method.
Cleaning up the bedroom ~ Cleaning myself up
After months of cleaning up, I finally could enjoy a new atmosphere in the new year of 2019.
The KonMari Method not only has helped me purge all of my unuseful stuff but also reminds me to let go all of the negativities in my life. The total new look and arrangement of my bedroom give me motivation to consistently fix myself and reorganize my life.
Tidying up the bedroom is indeed one of the most effective ways of self-healing and this time, I could feel the effect in just 2.5 months. It is true that I thought a significant mood change after changing the color of my bedroom walls, especially after I got rid of the unnecessary items and reorganized my room entirely.
Fixing myself, lifestyle, mindset, and surrounding environments such as my bedroom have improved my quality of life. I now feel much healthier both physically and mentally.
Finding all the things, organizing pattern, and bedroom decoration have also helped me understand myself better and more profound. Besides, it also helped me sort my priorities, and to be more confident and have the heart to get rid of all unnecessary things.
Nearly everything in life takes practice. The same goes for tidying up. After so many years of trials and errors in finding the right method to organize or tidy up my bedroom, now I have started to feel like I have discovered the proper arrangement which suits my personalities and habits.
What do you think? Have you tried the KonMari method before? Please leave a comment below if you want to share your experience on decluttering your bedroom. Don’t forget to Subscribe to keep updated with my newest stories!
Time will continue to fly without taking any moment to fix him.
He will realize it when he takes some times to think…
WRITTEN BY:
I'm in the mood of wearing all-white outfits to embrace the new version of me in 2019. Find out how and why I style my look!
Follow Us on Instagram
Follow us on Instagram and add #iwearmystories to share your stories with us
WRITTEN BY:
Leave a Reply
Be the First to Comment!