Last night, Tim and I tackled his ever-increasing board games collection using the KonMari Method to see which games truly sparked joy, and which did not.
How many games did Tim purge from his collection? My dad bet it would be three, my sister bet it would be only a couple.
Watch the video to find out the answer!
KonMari Method: Hobbies
Hobbies are leisurely pursuits which we are passionate about. Thus, it can be tremendously difficult to declutter items collected in the name of our hobbies. At least, that is what Tim and I both found out when it was time to declutter our hobbies. I have a crafts room and Tim has a board games room. Initially, we each dealt with decluttering and re-organizing our hobbies on our own. Neither of us was able to purge very much because pretty much everything sparked joy!
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.
Sparking Joy
It took hours and hours to go through all 300+ board games, but at the end of the night, Tim had picked out only the games which definitely sparked joy, and organised them all to best effect on one side of the unit, with all of the games which potentially sparked joy organised on the other side. All other games, which did not meet his now raised standards, were removed from the room and later donated, given as gifts, traded or sold.
Now, Tim is proud of his collection of board games: they all spark joy and are displayed to best advantage. Games he has yet to play will be kept or discarded immediately once they have been played. The board games room is finally clutter-free, and sparks joy!
Interested in Board Games?
Visit our shop to see a selection of Tim’s joy sparking recommendations!
I made a little website to help applying the KonMari method to your board games collection: https://boardgamesquad.com/bggtidy/ It’s not the same tactile process, but it also makes it a lot easier.