If you haven’t heard or seen the words “tidying up”, “Marie Kondo” or “KonMari” then you must have been hiding under a rock for the past few weeks. On January 1st, Netflix released Marie Kondo’s show “Tidying Up.” She visits people’s homes and helps guide them in her method to tidying up. Now the internet is full of videos and articles about the method and people’s experiences.
Truth: I binged the series in the first week it was out. It’s only 8 episodes and less than an hour each so it’s easy to watch while making dinner or hanging out on the weekend. Like many people, it gave me the itch to clean out. While Douglas did some emotional cleaning up, I plan on doing some physical cleaning up in my house.
Full disclaimer, I haven’t read the book, just watched the show.
The KonMari method starts with clothes, but I started cleaning things up last week with the kitchen. For me it was the easiest to clean up and reorganize. Our kitchen has decent storage but not a ton of room for excess stuff. And I’m not a minimalist, nor do I want to be. I like having the vintage Pillsbury Dough Boy cookie jar on the counter.
I plan on working on my office space and some other smaller contained areas before I tackle things like the basement storage area and garage. Those are areas where things were just dumped when we moved in and haven’t fully been cleaned out or organized. I think that project will wait until Spring when I can move it all out into the driveway and start with a clean slate.
This is often how life goes. Good intentions, poor execution. Anne Helen Petersen in her article “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation” that has been all over my social feeds, discusses her “errand paralysis” and how it seemed to be a symptom of burnout. She goes on to say that burnout seems to be “the millennial condition”.
I think a lot of us feel like this, especially new parents. We have all these things we are trying to juggle including full-time jobs and a child. It has never been easy for parents and we are just the latest group to tackle the challenge.
And you want to talk about not being able to complete a task, I started reading the article a week ago and just finished it when writing this blog. Yep, I was halfway through when Ben woke up and needed to be fed. I never got back to it.
I know that I have a running to do list on my phone, on the fridge and in my head. My husband once could sense that something was bothering me and suggested I make a list. I think he regretted that suggestion immediately. When he came back to me a few minutes later, I had a page-long list of things that needed to be done. He had no idea that all these things were floating in my head. It’s a crazy place in there!
Last year, we did do a good job of tracking our expense to create a budget. We didn’t go so far as practicing minimalism in our budget, but we did find some room for extra savings. This year we will continue to adapt to life changes and budget challenges as they arise but feeling more comfortable about it.
There are plenty of people out there who have it more difficult or tackle more, but it is important to remember that most things are about perspective. After Christmas, I was talking with my mom and she was telling me how she was trying to find time to take down decorations. My retired grandmother was also saying she didn’t have the time.
I thought about how if she doesn’t think she has time and my mom doesn’t think she has time, then where does that leave me? Both my husband and I have full-time jobs with a long commute into the city. We are gone almost 12 hours a day and we have a dog and baby. What time do we have to do the little things?
Our lives have certainly changed with the addition of a baby. Rarely do we watch TV on weeknights or live. Evenings are now making dinner, feeding the dog and baby, washing bottles, making bottles and then whatever chores need to happen. One recent Saturday night, after dinner we reviewed drafts of our estate planning documents.
That’s the exciting life of Millennial parents. Saturday night tackling chores that didn’t happen any other day. So, as much as I would like to clean up and reorganize the whole house, I know it will be a long time before it happens. For now, I’m trying to focus on one small piece at a time.
I think so much of the KonMari philosophy seems to be getting rid of the distractions so that you can enjoy life and have that joy she talks about sparking. Yes, burnout is real, and yes, we should clean out from time to time, but don’t sacrifice what’s really important in life for a clean house.