The Intentional Sort - origins.

Some people are just naturally tidy - but I'm not one of them. My earliest awareness of organizing as a kid was helping my friend's mom put away groceries when I was over at their house one day. I was stuffing cans and boxes anywhere I could find an empty spot in their pantry, pleased that I was helping, only to look up to see the shocked expressions on both my friend and her mom's faces. Then they proceeded to explain their pantry organizing system and I was blown away - that was not the way things were done in my home. Our home was clean but definitely not organized.

Over the years I've tried to create organizing systems that worked for me. My husband and I designed and built our home in 2001 with LOTS of storage space thinking that would solve all the organizing issues. Though it gave our family of six more places to hide stuff, it never addressed the core problem - we simply did not know what to keep and what to get rid of - and the clutter just kept expanding year after year.

In 2015 I stumbled upon Marie Kondo's first book "The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up" while looking for my next Audible read. Again, I was blown away. Organizing by item category and not by room with the promise of finally being organized once and for all was really motivating. And being given permission to only keep the items that "sparked joy" and discarding the rest was liberating. It truly was "life changing" for me as I began to work through the categories.

In September 2019 I attended Marie Kondo's KonMari consultant training in Los Angeles, CA which also sparked a lot of joy for me. One of the prereqs for the training was to complete all five categories in the KonMari method in your own home and submit photos. This gave me the push to finally complete my tidying marathon and the energy in our home now feels amazing - I feel truly blessed to be surrounded by just the things that I love and bring me joy.

Now I get the honor of helping others through their tidying marathons as a KonMari consultant trainee. I wish I would have had someone to walk along my journey with me - it would have been a much faster route! One of my clients is my own dad and we are organizing the home I grew up in. We are finally finding a home for everything in that house - and it feels like I've come full circle in my organizing quest.

#konmarimethod #konmariconsultants #joyfullife #organization