Tag: Marie Kondo

The Art of Finding Time

As someone living with MS, I am acutely aware of the preciousness of time. The condition makes my life expectancy shorter and the time in good health – shorter still. Added to this is the fact that extreme fatigue gives me little more than twelve hours a day to enjoy in some level of wakefulness.

Mary’s grandfather clock
Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

That said, I’ve worked out a way to maximise those hours and I am happy to say my life is as full and enjoyable as that of my more able-bodied peers. It has taken a lot of thinking and experimentation to reach this point, but has all been worth it. So, if you are feeling time poor or that the day doesn’t contain enough hours, or like me, your time is naturally limited, here are my suggestions to make the most of what you have.

Marie Kondo your life

Being organised a la Marie Kondo method is a wonderful way to tidy your home. More importantly, it is an excellent way to save time. We waste so much of it just looking for stuff. Having a specific place for things will save minutes and meltdowns.

Where did I put those keys? Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

A place for everything and everything in its place is not a new concept, but nowadays we have so much, we desperately need to organise it. Using her methods for folding and storing clothes has made my life infinitely easier. I know at a glance what I have and can quickly assemble an outfit (which I do the night before). These small actions soon add up and it certainly takes the stress out of the morning.

Saving time and energy

For those of us with chronic conditions, in which fatigue features, time and energy are symbiotically entwined. For all my tasks, I need to assess the time it will take and the energy it will require. Breaking jobs into component parts allows me to do more than if I try to do it all in one go. Overdoing anything invariably results in more hours lying on the sofa staring at the sky – not very proficient.

This applies to everything I do (boring, right?) For example, my OMS lifestyle includes healthy eating and more time preparing and cooking food. Whereas in the past, I would wander around the kitchen and back and forth to the fridge, I am now more like TV chefs – laying everything out before I begin. Rice is put in water to soak; soups and stews boiled and then left off the heat to cook themselves; meals are planned hours in advance and assembled in their component parts.

And this method works equally well for all of us. It opens up time to set the table, take the kids to their clubs or catch up on emails. But unlike multi-tasking, we do tasks sequentially and remove the fluster of spinning too many plates at once.

Extreme efficiency

These rules apply outside the home too. Twenty minutes driving is about my limit, so trips need to be ultra efficient. Planning to do things en-route is the obvious solution. Taking the dog to the park, collecting a friend and going to the post office can easily be combined – saving both time and fuel.

Shopping with a list and ensuring that essentials are always in the cupboard prevents numerous trips to the supermarket for missed items. If you don’t have an obscure ingredient, find an alternative. In the time it would take to go and buy it, you could have made the dish.

Tick tock Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Our world is full of labour-saving devices and I’m all for taking advantage of them. However, they are also costly. It is worth taking a moment to calculate how much work is required to pay for them and not only the time they save. Ready meals look great but are expensive. What they save in time will cost you earning time to pay for. Tumble driers only need to be stuffed with wet clothing rather than hanging them outside or near the radiator. Unfortunately, they also destroy the fabric of you clothing, requiring you to buy more. Unless money is not an issue, such calculations are worth making.

Time wasters

I think we all know what they are: mobile phones, televisions, Instagram and the internet. We all use them and enjoy them, however, it is too easy to take that pleasure and fritter away our precious hours. In the UK in 2024, people spent between 3-5 hours on their smartphones and of course, more still on television/streaming services. Checking settings for your screen time each week is probably a good idea. Most of us severely underestimate. By establishing what is a reasonable time for your lifestyle, you will free up hours for either more personal communications or to explore your interests.

Time is in your hands Image: Bianca Castillo on Unsplash

The internet is set up with one intention only: to get you online and to keep you there. The longer you scroll, the more information they have access to and the more they can pinpoint their advertising. By making you dissatisfied with your own life, they can offer ways to make it better – ways that cost you time and money.

Early to bed

‘Early to bed and early to rise’ promises to make us ‘healthy, wealthy and wise.’ Though not always true (ask any farmer) it certainly gives us the best of the day.

Recently, I read about the Five O’clock Club. If I remember correctly, you rise at five and spend 2o minutes exercising, 20 minutes meditating/journaling and 20 minutes reading improving works. Sounds brilliant, but leveraging me out of bed before 9am is virtually impossible (though I do go to bed early).

The glorious dawn Image: Simon Wilkes on Unsplash

Getting up as early as you can is a great habit to develop. The benefits are innumerable. Our bodies are designed to correspond to natural light and the more we align ourselves with the rhythms of the day, the better we feel. I doubt that I’ll even get by on less than twelve hours’ sleep a day, but I’m working on it.

Speaking of time, I think that I have taken up enough of yours. I hope that you find some of these suggestions useful or have others to recommend. We all could do with a few more minutes in each day – if only for a nap.

Discovering that Spark of Joy

Some years ago, I received a copy of Marie Kondo’s wonderful, The Life -Changing Magic of Tidying. This was perhaps a comment on my rather laissez-faire approach to housework and intended as a prompt to improve my habits. If it was, it worked. I dutifully set about reading and taking notes. What initially seemed a sweet book on tidiness soon transformed into a very wise reflection on our relationship with possessions.

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.

Marie Kondo The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up

The essence of her magic is this: to let go of anything that no longer brings you joy and value that which does. Simple? In theory. In practice, it was going to take a bit of work.

First steps

My book, I discovered, is already a decade old and my initial tidying efforts seriously lapsed. Prompted by my son’s lovely girlfriend to take a look at Kondo’s Netflix series, I was inspired to try again.

Not everything had been lost: my wardrobe is still arranged by colour and my clothing drawers essentially orderly – though I think a little refolding may be required. The genius of Kondo’s folding method is that items are stored vertically rather than laid on top of each other. She’s even provided a handy video to show you how.

Letting go

With my renewed determination to ‘Marie Kondo’ my house, I was first obliged to do the most difficult part: letting go of all the things that I no longer needed. This goes against the grain for most of us, since what we possess acquires value purely because it is ours. We are not designed for abundance. We are programmed for adversity. Except, in prosperous countries at least, this no longer applies. Whatever we want is only a click away.

Kondo helps us overcome this reluctance with a rather brilliant formula. Rather than asking do we want/need something, she advises that we ask if it sparks joy. There is no room for fudging. If the answer is no, we should dispose of it thoughtfully – to a charity shop or friend or if beyond hope to the recycling or dump. Whatever its fate, we should also remember to thank the item for its service. We let it go with love and hope that the joy it once brought us will pass to another.

The world will thank you

Kondo’s system is especially helpful for those wanting to make little adjustments to the impact they have on the planet. At the heart of her method is a sincere wish that we do not always crave more but value what we have. Here are a few of the tips I remember and am frantically trying to implement!

  • Go around the house and collect all the things that go together and store in the same place.
  • Check what you have before you purchase anything new.
  • Take time to investigate all the drawers and cupboards in your home. You might be surprised and delighted by what turns up! Kondo would advocate emptying your whole house to do this properly, but I’m just focusing on one drawer at a time.
  • If the object isn’t of any use to you, find someone who might enjoy it.

Gratitude

Being thankful for our possessions is key to the Kondo method and what, I think, sets it apart from all those house organisation guides. In her book, she talks about emptying her handbag completely each day and thanking each and every item that comes out of it. When I first read it, I laughed. Really? She has clearly not encountered the horrors of mine. But on reflection, I realised that what she was doing was placing gratitude at the heart of her life. When she looks at her bus pass, she thinks of how it has helped her traverse the city; when she takes out her coin purse, how it has enabled her to purchase little essentials.

This is clearly not my handbag! Image: Leisara on Unsplash

I am very far from being that wise, but I am trying to review my attitude to things as existing purely for my own convenience to seeing them for what they are: objects that significantly improve my life. Cicero viewed gratitude as the greatest of all virtues and this seems a good place to start developing it.

Zen and the art of tidying

In Japanese Buddhism, all things are considered sentient – including plants and inanimate objects. Thus, all objects are accorded the respect and value we, in the West, would/should accord living things.

If we can acknowledge that everything – animate and inanimate – is interconnected and interdependent, we can come closer to understanding this view.

And if we take that to showing respect for all the material elements in our lives, we will gain a much healthier relationship with our possessions.

Tidy house, tidy mind

Kondo’s first book claims that adopting her method will be ‘life-changing’. This is a bold claim and, as one who is only working towards achieving tidiness, I cannot say that my life has been transformed … yet. What I can say is that it has made my life significantly easier in the areas where I have managed to adopt her ideas. It has given me the gift of more time, since I spend less searching for stuff. It has given me a greater appreciation for those things that I own and equally of those I have given away. It has proven to be a perfect opportunity for mindfulness. Sorting out my ribbon box below was the ideal antidote to a stressful week.

One has to start somewhere Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

The result not only let me see exactly what I had, but I rather enjoyed the look of it too – my own miniature haberdashery.

My inroads into a tidy home have only just begun, but it is something that I plan to pursue further. Whenever I complete a sorting project, I get immense satisfaction and my relationship to the objects subtly changes too. If I have kept them, I recognise the joy they have sparked within me; if not, I am grateful that they once did.

For some, Kondo’s methods will literally transform lives in often unexpected ways; for me, I’m just grateful that I can find things.