It's a minimalist Monday edition of optimal living daily episode 11:37 how the aspiring minimalist can modify the cone Mari method by Jen Smith of modern frugality.com. And I'm just a moloch. Happy Monday. I happy Martin Luther King jr. Day a holiday here in the states and welcome back to Optimal living daily or the oold podcast where I read to you from some of the best blogs. I can find and get permission from Mostly covering personal development and minimalism on this show today covering minimalism. And the trendy topic of the month cone Mari, which is the method that Marie kondo teaches for tidying up. She has a special on Netflix where she helps families tidy up their houses. It's an interesting watch. She's huge in Japan speaking of ohayo-gozaimasu. Konnichiwa. Konbanwa to all the listeners in Japan. I've learned a few Japanese phrases as you can see or hear I should say I can't really speak it yet or understand it. Really let's go see what body mass. Anyway today features a brand new author for the I'll tell you more about Jen after the post is so for now. Let's get right to it and start optimizing your life. how the aspiring minimalist can modify the cone Mari method by Jen Smith of modern frugality.com Have you been sitting in your house? Wondering where all this stuff came from? If you're like me it didn't come all at once it crept up slowly over years a new apartment brought new furniture new marriage brought knickknacks and kitchen gadgets and new jobs and events brought logo tee is I swore I was only going to wear around the house. Did you know that the average home size in America has increased by over a thousand square feet since 1973 and the average family size has decreased. You have so much more room for activities yet. We still feel trapped in homes that seemed to shrink every time we come back from Target. If you feel this way, then you're probably ready to embrace a more minimalist lifestyle. There are many rows to minimalism and the first step is figuring out which way is right for you. I personally like the cone Mari method by Marie kondo with a few modifications made along the way. She's not a minimalist per se but that's kind of why I like her. What is the calamari method? I was introduced to the calamari method to decluttering when I read Murray's book The life-changing magic of tidying up. I thought I was pretty minimalist already and blamed most of the clutter in the house on my quasi order husband, but even for someone who doesn't love to shop or accumulate Marie showed me there were still items in my closets and drawers. I was personally holding onto for the wrong reasons. She recommends a category by category declutter versus room by room you Start with the first item group on the list take all of that particular item out from every room in the house. Put it all in a pile then decide what stays and goes there are rules to follow that will help speed up the process and keep it going her method is definitely a rip the Band-Aid off kind of approach other great minimalist offer insight to doing things slowly and easily, but Marie kondo says you should drag the process out any longer than you have to I'm an all-or-nothing person. So this sounded great to me, but mom also really busy. Busy, so I took the essence of the cone Mari method and modified it for my needs. If you're a visual person. I made a free printable schedule called weekend kohn-ma retighten guide because everything is more fun as a printable challenge, right? She recommends doing everything in a weekend, but I was happy to see in her new Netflix series that she allowed people six weeks to complete the process. It's much more reasonable and I hope it'll get more people on board with our program. How do I make the calamari method work for me? While in the fibers of each episodes narrative, but not clearly stated in her Netflix series are her rules for tithing Murray's first rule to decluttering, which he calls tithing is to commit yourself. This is aided by the second rule to imagine you were ideal life is basically visualizing your wife or wanting a more minimalist life that can be less time cleaning more calming place to come home to or for the ability to downsize your home or third rule is to finish discarding. First if you love organizing and planning raising my hand right now, then it can be tempting to organize between every group guilty. But because I wasn't able to do everything in a weekend and it didn't want to live in a tornado all week. I opted to organize between groups. I don't know if Marie would approve but it worked best for me. Next is to tidy by category not location and to follow the right order she breaks up the home into five categories of items clothing books papers. Miscellaneous and mementos. The point is to find the hidden things where they shouldn't be and to keep similar items close together. So they're easier to find I love this concept because it starts with the end in mind. If I keep all my papers in one place in one room. They'll never have to search the entire house again looking for one bill or receipt. I try to follow this rule, but it's hard to remember all the places. I kept things. I felt it was more important to get the job done then scour every inch of my house to make sure I got everything on the checklist. Done is better than perfect. The order is important because it starts with the easiest and ends with the hardest Murray says if you try to start with mementos, you'll never get past them. And the last rule to Aid in your Tiding up is to ask yourself. If the item Sparks Joy. This is kind of what she's famous for right? It's also my least favorite part of the cone Mari method Maria talks to her items and equates them to the source of joy in the room. That's where the minimalist and Marie's paths diverge. Service for my decluttering isn't for the sake of having a decluttered in. Joyful home. It's a byproduct of wanting a simpler more fulfilling home in life. I have to admit it sounds a lot weirder in the book than it does watching it on TV, but the principal for me Remains the Same I want to only keep things I like and use frequently, but I don't want to trick myself into thinking that they are the sources of my homes Joy, but I did find one other phrase. She used to be really valuable when getting rid of something difficult Murray. Thanks the A item for whatever it brought in the moment or season it came into the house. She is example of a skirt that's barely worn and fits fine, but never gets worn. She bought it because she thought she wanted to dress a certain way. But over the years couldn't bring herself to like it as much as she wanted to she thanked the skirt for teaching her more about her true style and acknowledge these sunk cost as the price you had to pay to learn that lesson Murray's was a skirt. Mine was a dress a beautiful sequin party dress that I idolized by Only once and couldn't bear to part with it's a person I wanted to be but just wasn't I think that dress and my head and let it go ready to get started with a calamari method. I highly recommend the book and the Netflix series to learn more about the logistics of our decluttering method and take comfort in the knowing that you can declutter using the cone Mari method to no matter how much time or space you have available. This method is best for people who are ready to rip the Band-Aid off so to speak. Okay, but can really be modified for anyone who sees value in it. You just listen to The Post titled how the aspiring minimalist can modify the cone Mari method by Jen Smith of modern frugality.com. Tell you more about Jen in a sec along with a giveaway. She has for this post but first speaking of sparking Joy. Thank you to Joy bird. This is a rare case where Furniture actually does spark. Joy for me. I found out about this company a while ago before they were going to be a sponsor Joy bird believes. They should never settle when it comes to your home furnishings and that you should always have the Them to be boldly original which oily bird you get one-of-a-kind furniture made to your unique taste and they have a 365 day home trial. No joke. Skip the furniture store and bring the showroom right to your home. It's hassle free delivery. They'll even remove all the packing materials. Then you can sit on it sleep on it break it in. If you don't love your joy bird return it for a full refund check it out. They have hundreds of styles and options every color imaginable with free personal design. It's and I love that they have kid and pet friendly upholstery options. My couch is wrecked. Thanks to the dog. So I'm getting a pet. Friendly Joy bird see how Joy bird is revolutionizing online furniture shopping create the furniture that brings you Joy today at Joy bird.com old go to Joy bird.com oil D and receive an exclusive offer for 25% off your first order by using the code o LD. I'm pretty sure Marie kondo would approve since it really does spark Joy, hopefully. His post shed some light on the calamari crazed if you're not already familiar with it. Any other Jen has a cool freak on Mari weekend challenge guy that accompanies this post you can find it linked in. This episode's description along with Marie condos book Jen and her husband paid off 78 thousand dollars of debt and only 23 months. So she writes about how to pay off debt efficiently and how to stay motivated on the journey come by modern frugality.com to learn more and thank you Jenn for the permission to narrator articles. And I'll leave it at that. Hope your week is off to a great start. Thank you for being here and listening to me and for subscribing to the show. It really means a lot. I'll be back tomorrow. That's hasta Japanese. I know that weird to wear your optimal life awaits.
Jen Smith of Modern Frugality shares how the aspiring minimalist can modify the KonMari method. Episode 1137: How The Aspiring Minimalist Can Modify The KonMari Method by Jen Smith of Modern Frugality on Marie Kondo Jen Smith is a twenty-something on budget with an uber-frugal husband. Travis and her got married on October 3rd, 2015 with almost $78,000 of debt between them. With lots of frugality and side hustles, they paid it off in 23 months and have been debt free since August 31st, 2017. Growing up no one taught Jen about personal finance. There was never any talk about retirement, investing, or life insurance. When she went to college she had no clue how to pay for it so she took out loans a credit card to get by. Jen's goal is to prove to all the haters that living frugally isn't boing or just for privileged people. She wants to encourage you and help you along your journey in paying off debt and ditching the clutter that holds you back. The original post is located here: https://www.modernfrugality.com/modify-the-konmari-method/ Marie Kondo's book: https://amzn.to/2stYN8O Please Rate & Review the Show! Facebook Group and Join the Ol' Family to get your Free Gifts! See how Joybird is revolutionizing online furniture shopping. Go to joybird.com/OLD and receive an exclusive offer for 25% off your first order by using the code OLD. 