Kondoizing

Sometimes finding topics for a blog post is difficult. When I have such trouble, I only need to look at my wife for a topic. Such is the case with this weeks post. My spouse has started watching shows featuring Marie Kondo on Netflix. Marie provides tips on organizing, and may be the only person on earth who loves organizing more than my wife. My wife really loves to organize and organizing puts a smile on her face. I came home from a walk recently and she was grinning ear to ear, and I knew to ask if she had been organizing. She started watching the television show in the past week or so, but had already been well accustomed to many of the methods Marie Kondo uses. I refer to it as Kondoizing, my wife says there is an actual term Konmari, to describe the methods Marie Kondo uses. I prefer my term, Kondoizing.

She wants me to see and understand the effort she puts into Kondoizing our household. I am not sure that is necessary as I do appreciate most of her organizing, but whatever brings her joy--as the saying goes, expressed by one man on the show, "Happy wife, happy life." Marie Kondo has two shows on Netflix, "Tidying Up" and "Sparking Joy." I have watched a few of the former, including one last night where a woman lost her husband to colon cancer and did not know what to do with his clothes, books, etc. Due to the loss of her husband she received a dispensation from the exacting Konmari method (to me Kondoizing) to deal with the husband's effects still in the bedroom closet, and dresser. Marie had to explain through her interpreter why she allowed the variation. Does it really matter if you do books first (Marie), over the clothes of her deceased husband the woman wanted to do? Marie caved in this instance. She is very exacting in her approach to not just organizing, but in what order stuff should be organized. 

A few years ago, but perhaps more, my wife started Kondoizing some of my dresser drawers. Let me state that I did not ask her to, she did this herself, and she did not even ask. The two main drawers are the t-shirt drawer, and the drawer which holds shorts in the summer, and mainly pants in the winter. The thing about Kondoizing is that the clothes are folded differently than what I grew up doing. I still struggle with the folding of pants. The problem I have with clothes on edge is that you cannot just put a shirt, as an example, on top and push down to get the drawer back in.  You have to stuff the shirt between other shirts. My wife would say my problem is in the use of verb form of stuff. I don't simply nicely place the item in, I stuff it in. Sometimes, for me, that gets messy. Every now and then, perhaps once a year or more, the wife goes along and reorders those two drawers. She recently redid the drawers as an education method for one of my siblings.

My then un-Kondoized drawer,

My sister wants to make room in a spare bedroom for her crafts. My wife suggested she read Marie Kondo to get an idea of organizing. My wife told her how little space is used for her clothes now that she has Kondoized her clothes. My wife got rid of her dresser. To help educate my sister, my wife was going to send a photo of my drawer. Well, first she had to take a before photo and then Kondoize it and take an after photo. I am not up to the Kondoizing standards when it comes to putting away my clothes.  I am not sure how long it takes for me to devolve the Kondoizing standards, of folding and clothes on edge. I think it is a process that goes on over time.

After my wife fully Kondoized the drawer

Marie Kondo asks people to lay all their clothes on the bed, and then the person is to go through item by item and ask themselves if the item sparks joy. My wife says you get the feeling if it sparks joy. I think you should ask a piece of clothing if it sparks joy before you buy it. As a prior post noted, the world is flooded with discarded clothes. If the piece of clothing does not spark joy, you are to thank the piece of clothing for its use and then move on. Now, I don't know about you, but one reason I think my drawers may now stay Kondoized longer than usual is that my wife thins out my clothes. She will take an old t-shirt and throw it out, or for some other use. Most of the time, I think, she asks, or to put it in a different way she insists. I think there are times when she gets rid of some my clothes without my knowledge. She would redo 85% of my clothes, if she had the chance. Just like Marie Barone did to Frank's clothes on an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond." I have clothes passed on from her brother, and hand-me ups from my kids. Now, if she discards some of my clothes without me knowing, I have no way of thanking that piece of clothes for its service for the greater good. In this sense, she fails to abide by the Kondo method.

My Kondoized t-shirt drawer

Recently, while watching one of the Kondo Netflix shows with my wife, I realized part of the process is to place clothes by color--and Marie Kondo suggests light colors to the right, dark colors to the left. I remembered this by thinking light is right. Yet, my wife, the rebel, puts her dark colored clothes to the right and the light colored clothes to the left. Would Marie chastise her for being out of synch with the process or simply smile and say, through her interpreter, "Whatever sparks joy"? Given how exacting Marie Kondo is, I have to say I don't think she would like someone playing with her rules of order and operation. At one time my wife had arranged my sock and t-short drawer by color. I don't think one needs to ask if they stay that way. When I put clothes away I just go where they fit best, or where it looks like there may be some room. I am not sure if the rebel nature of my wife is from her red hair. 

Kondoizing can go beyond the bedroom closet. In the kitchen, as with jewelry and other smaller items, Ms Kondo recommends use of small boxes in which to place like items. In our kitchen utensil drawer my wife has been doing this for a long time. It is like a silverware holder for other items. I know for certain that I place some of the items--into the wrong box. I did not know she had the boxes grouped until recently, I just threw the item in a box that looked like it had room for the item. One of my children and his spouse Kondoized their spice drawer the other day. She sometimes organizes too well.  

For years when we got our Christmas decorations out we packed away non-Christmas items in a box that held the now displayed Christmas decorations. Well, this past December, Antoinette Marie Kondo decided to store some of our kitchen, and half bath, towels with so far unused kitchen and half-bath towels, and not pack them in a box that held the Christmas decorations. After putting away all of the Christmas decorations I wondered what happened to the other towels, the kitchen and half-bath towel drawers lacked the usual amount of towels. At first, she could not find them. Why, because she changed her method of 30+ years. She did look with the other towels, but she did not notice them because they were so well folded that they looked brand new. If I had done the folding that would not have occurred. This could be a a downside of Kondoizing. 

My wife insists that Kondoizing saves space, and she points to my drawers as examples. One benefit of her method is rotation--remove from the front and replace in the back. I have (had) a tendency to pull out from the top or front and replace so that way I tended to wear the same t-shirts, or use the same kitchen towels, as two examples. Now, I have to wait and see if I will get upstairs someday to face all my clothes on the bed and I need to see what does and does not spark joy.  And, remembering to thank those that don't for their service.

Photos by Toni Hovel, Jan 2022