Story and Photos by Anneka Stone
Throwing out things is never easy for me.
Since young, I’ve had a habit of growing attachments to inanimate objects, which has led to a lot of unnecessary crying over the years.
My room is small and filled to the brim with all kinds of things, some of them not even belonging to me. But with a heavy heart — as well as with my mother’s approval — I decided to try to clear out my room a bit.
I first started with my makeup shelf, which, because of my tendency to buy and never throw things out, has become disorganised and messy. It doesn’t help that when I am rushing to go to school in the morning, I set my sights on what I need, and the rest is collateral damage.
The infamous makeup shelf
I decided to take the advice of organising and decluttering my makeup from Bobby Berk, an interior designer. He is best known for being in charge of interior design on the world-famous Netflix reboot of ‘Queer Eye’, a reality show where they find people in need of help and give them a lifestyle makeover.
In an article on Bobby’s website titled ‘4 (Totally Free) Tips To Get Clutter Under Control’, one tip given by him was to embrace efficiency. That way, you have an easier time keeping clutter at bay.
An example of embracing efficiency is to keep everyday items close at hand so that you avoid making a mess trying to find them. To quote from the article, “the more often you use something, the more easily accessible it should be”. I found that logic easy for me to wrap my mind around.
I dumped all my makeup on the floor and began sorting. As I started evaluating how frequently I was using each product, I realised that some of them were old and had been barely used in quite a while, which led me to throw them out.
With my two storage boxes, I categorised and sorted my makeup and tools, but with a slight twist.
In the box with makeup products, I put those that I used the most in the compartments that would be facing the outside of the shelf. This way, I could easily access them, just like Bobby suggested.
A little tidying goes a long way!
The next thing I decided to tackle was the upper section of my closet, which had no organisation. It consisted of a mix of clothes I had bought, as well as ones no longer wanted by my sisters.
For decluttering the closet, I listened to the world-famous Marie Kondo. The Japanese consultant has made a career out of tidying up with her KonMari method, from multiple bestselling books to a Netflix show, to her own line of products.
Marie’s popular ideology of “sparking joy” is a simple but effective one. Although the KonMari method is meant to be strictly applied to your entire space in order to be the most effective, I feel that her ideologies are flexible enough to where they can be applied to everyday life.
In the steps of the KonMari method, choosing what to keep is more important than choosing what to get rid of — this is what distinguishes the method from other techniques.
After emptying my closet, I realised that this decluttering was long overdue — the large pile of clothes confirmed to me that, for someone who wasn’t big on fashion, I had way too much.
I applied Marie’s detailed steps to each piece of clothing I held. I was to ask myself if it sparked joy — if it did, I would keep it! However, if I didn’t, I would have to let it go with gratitude.
This method actually proved to be useful. I realised that quite a few of my clothes brought me distress, with bad memories and negative emotions attached to them.
These clothes were simply not sparking joy.
After hours of going through the pile, I came out of it feeling much better than I did before. It was nice to declutter my closet, something that I had always found so cluttered and overflowing with clothes.
The clothes I (finally) was getting rid of… 23 pieces, to be exact!
The clothes that I didn’t want also found a new life — I managed to give a few shirts to my mother and sister, while the rest of the clothes are to be sent to an orphanage in Southeast Asia.
Coming out of this, I realised that it is good to detox my space, for it does help for a clearer mind. Getting rid of things that no longer serve their purpose to me was a purging that was long overdue.
Overall, I had not cleared much out, but I am still satisfied with what I had done that day.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll do another decluttering session soon, and it’ll be with no reluctance!