Attempt 2

Much to my surprise, months after our initial attempts to KonMari our hobbies, Tim announced one evening that he wanted to go through all of his board games again. And this time I helped out, and filmed the whole process.

Following Marie Kondo’s instructions in The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, we emptied every shelf, cupboard and drawer of games, and piled them up around the room according to size (to make it easier to organise them at the end).

Marie Kondo says that you must only declutter your own personal belongings, so I was present merely as moral support, and to help move things around as instructed by Tim. But each and every decision was down to Tim because all of the board games were his.

Interestingly, because I was helping, and filming the process, Tim began to talk through his thought processes as he handled each game, deciding whether or not it sparked joy, or in the case of as yet unplayed games, whether they potentially sparked joy. And I think because he was actually saying out loud how he felt about each game, this is the reason he was able to make good decisions and let go of those games which he felt did not really meet the criteria for sparking joy.