Week 5 – Komono (Miscellaneous)
Marie describes “Komono” (Miscellaneous) as the biggest category in her tidying regime, and that is no joke at our house. Christian and I are blessed/cursed with interest in a lot of different hobbies, so that means we have a lot of things to support those activities. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I certainly didn’t expect to get through everything on the agenda in Week 5 (equipment, supplies, electronics, bath and beauty, tools, and digital files), but I really did expect to make a lot more headway than I did.
Divide and Conquer
In the KonMari Method, you’re supposed to take all (yes, all) miscellaneous items out at the same time and sort them into their sub-categories. Again, I understand the purpose is a shock-and-awe campaign of helping you understand just how much stuff you have to make it easier to discard. However, we have so much stuff and so little space in our house that there was no realistic way to do this step as directed. Consequently, I decided to tackle one sub-category at a time, and accepted that I would get through as many as I could over the course of the week.
Image credit: [1]
I knew I was going into a busy and tiring week at work, with important meetings and/or press events happening every day, and I anticipated (correctly) that I wouldn’t have much time or energy in the evenings to do much tidying. Therefore, I figured I’d give myself a big head start on Sunday and tackle something that had been bothering me since I moved in (and had been bothering Christian for years before that): the bathroom closet.
Our bathroom closet looks deceptively small. It is 10 inches wide in the door jamb, but it is over two feet deep to the back wall. The resulting space is not very useful, as it is hard to reach, let alone see, what’s in there. Each shelf conatined piles of toiletries and first aid supplies, with no level of organization. It bothered us both, but we knew it would take a significant effort to sort through everything, which is why it has been left untouched for years.
On Sunday, after I finished writing my Week 4 recap, I emptied everything from the closet, which alone took an entire hour. Christian has been working on Sundays because of the pandemic, which is fortunate, because the mountain of toiletries blocked any movement through the living room. I had until he got home to sort, discard, and store everything, and it took me just about that long: five hours.
Alternatives to Trashing
Shockingly, there wasn’t much to be thrown away. Almost everything in the closet was still useful – there was just a lot of it: soaps, shampoos, razors, toothbrushes, dental floss, band-aids, gauze, q-tips, ace bandages, etc. The good news is that we will never have to go shopping for any of these things ever again. The bad news is that we have to hold onto all of it until we use it… or do we?
I refuse to throw perfectly useful items in the garbage, but we also don’t need them. One of the things I intend to do with a lot of the unopened single-serving toiletries we have is put them into the care packages I assemble for homeless people (almost) every year.[2] If handing out care packages in a pandemic isn’t your thing, or if it doesn’t work for you logistically (i.e. I have less opportunity now that my job is outside the city), there are some places that accept donations of personal care items. The same friends who mentioned Repurposed [3] in response to my clothing post also recommended North Hills Community Outreach [4] for all of my extra toiletries.
I was also hesitant to get rid of things without giving Christian an opportunity to look through everything himself, since the closet contained things that were his, mine, and ours. Marie is pretty clear that you should not be tidying other peoples’ things – again, this is all about making your own decisions about what you want in your life. Tidying someone else’s things robs them of their agency (and is probably a good way to build some resentment.)
By the time Christian returned home from work, I had organized everything by sub-sub-category (soaps and skin care; shampoo and conditioner; hair styling products; basic first aid; serious first aid – yes we need that too; medication and vitamins; dental care; and feminine products), and placed it all into sturdy cloth boxes I had gleefully purchased at IKEA in anticipation of this project. I explained to him where everything was sorted, noting the excessive redundancies of certain items. I asked if he wanted to look through it and get rid of anything. After having had a long day himself, he (understandably) said, “No, it looks good.”
Everything is back in the closet now. It’s not really taking up any less space, but it causes significantly less anxiety whenever I open the door. Plus, everything is so much easier to access since it just requires sliding the boxes out when we need anything. As for the amount of stuff, I’m hoping the supplies will start to thin out with donations and use – especially now that we know what all is in there.
Stalling Out
After my six-hour kickoff to Miscellaneous, I was hoping to get a few of the smaller sub-subcategories sorted, despite my busy week, but that did not happen. As I mentioned earlier, my work week was exhausting, and by the time I was done for the day – every day – all I could do was collapse on the couch. I made several good-faith attempts to decide what to tackle next, particularly some of the smaller categories that I might be able to finish up over the course of one or two nights. Unfortunately, decision fatigue got the better of me, and I couldn’t even pick what to do next.
I never believed I would get through all my miscellaneous items in one week. (Generally, people who undertake a full-scale KonMari tidying regimen spend about six months going through everything in their homes.) However, I did expect to get through more than just one category. I think that part of the reason why I was so efficient in the first few weeks was because Marie’s process and categories were so specific. Miscellaneous is much more self-directed, which it has to be, since everyone has different things in their homes.
But here’s what I came to realize this week: when I’m training for a marathon, I spend hours at a time running on a familiar route. I know where I’m headed, so all I need to worry about is putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again, whether I want to or not – all I need to do is keep moving. Sometimes, moving forward along a set path is all you have the energy to do, and just adding in the element of decision-making is too much to handle. Since I didn’t go into this week with a clear plan of attack, I stalled out whenever I started to consider what I should tidy next, rather than simply moving on to the next item on a list.
To that end, I have since made a list of all of my Miscellaneous items so I can keep pushing toward my goals, no matter how many weeks it takes to achieve them. I know that this coming week (Week 6) is supposed to be Sentimental Items, but I am also tempted to put that on hold and keep going with Miscellaneous so I don’t stall out entirely (which feels like a legitimate risk after six days with no tidying progress). I figure that even if I do continue with my Miscellaneous list next week, a lot of it will count toward Sentimental Items anyway…
Image credit: [5]
Miscellaneous sub-categories:
- Bath
Toiletries- Towels & linens
- Kitchen
- Dishes, glasses, & tupperware
- Utensils & equipment
- Appliances
- Catering & party supplies
- Electronics
- Cords & devices
- DVDs & CDs
- Housewares
- Tablecloths & napkins
- Vases & candles
- Blankets & throw pillows
- Misc. decorations
- Christmas
- Wrapping paper, ribbons, & bags
- Holiday decorations
- Boxes & cookie tins
- Hobbies
- Sewing & costuming
- Calligraphy
- Instruments & sheet music
- Brewing
- Running
- Gardening
- Winter sports
- Cycling (most of this is Christian’s)
- Tools (most of these are Christian’s)
- Other??
If you’re following along at home, what have you done to prevent stalling out? I’d love to hear any tips you’ve got!
Thanks for reading!
[1] https://konmari.com/konmari-marie-kondo-tidy-challenge-week-five/
[2] https://radicalmoderate.online/care-packages-for-homeless-people/
[4] https://www.nhco.org/wish-list
[5] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/after-all-why-not-why-shouldnt-i-keep-it/photos
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