Marie Kondo has inspired millions of people worldwide to clean up their lives in more
ways than one with her KonMari Method of organization.
But there are many mistaken ideas about her out there, so here's what you can stop believing.
Though Kondo found success in the United States with her Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie
Kondo, her career actually started when she was just 19 years old as a tidying consultant
in her native Japan.
In fact, she became so popular that she eventually had a months-long client wait list.
It was then that she decided to write her first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying
Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, which became a New York Times bestseller.
Kondo's initial intention was for everyone in Japan to have access to the KonMari Method,
which she developed when she was only in high school.
But little did she know that the demand for her tidying business would quickly begin to
expand worldwide.
The stress of a mess seems to be a truly universal dilemma.
As Kondo told HelloGiggles in 2019,
"The issues people encounter through tidying are the same — no matter where you live."
You might assume that someone who has dedicated her life to keeping people's homes organized
would have nightmares about clutter.
But you might be wrong about that.
If you watch any episode of Tidying Up, you'll see pure joy spread across Kondo's face as
she steps into some of the messiest spaces.
In those moments, she sees her passion for tidying completely transform someone's life,
and that brings her joy.
After all, her philosophy is all about keeping items that "spark joy" in their owner.
"Ah!"
"She looks excited."
"I'm so excited because I love mess."
Kondo suggests beginning the organization process by first taking everything out of
the closet, off the shelf, or out of whichever space is being tidied up.
This allows people to become aware of just exactly how much they possess.
She also suggests organizing your home category by category, not room by room, since most
people scatter things around their home.
After seeing some of the extremely detailed ways that Kondo suggests folding clothes or
organizing a sock drawer, you might be excited to see it firsthand in her own house.
But alas, Kondo has never let a reporter into her home.
Though the famous tidying consultant's face is on Netflix and her name is plastered across
bestsellers, she enjoys privacy with her husband and two small children, who spark the most
joy for her.
Even though the series propelled her fame even further, Kondo believes she lives a very
simple life.
She focuses on the things that are important to her, just like how her KonMari Method guides
others to do.
It also might surprise you to learn that her house isn't always perfectly tidy.
After all, maintaining a clean household with children can seem impossible, and Kondo knows
this well.
After the birth of her second daughter, she posted to Instagram about how motherhood changed
her perceptions of organization.
She wrote,
"I've let go of whatever standard of perfection I used to hold myself and others to.
I still regularly tidy and clean and teach my daughters those skills, too, to the best
of my ability.
But in terms of worrying about the small things, I've no longer the time or energy to pay them
mind, and I've accepted that!"
Hiring a professional tidying consultant might sound like a great option if your idea of
a fun Sunday afternoon doesn't involve reorganizing the house.
But you might be surprised to learn that when you hire Marie Kondo, she's not the one who
will be doing the actual tidying.
Instead, she will teach the client her KonMari Method and guide them through the rules.
And then it's up to the clients to implement these rules themselves so that they become
familiar enough to use them in their own day-to-day life.
As Kondo told HelloGiggles,
"The KonMari Method isn't meant to make your home tidy for a short amount of time."
“What's important about my method is that you'll be doing all the hard work, Jimmy.
Actually, I never enforce anybody to throw anything away."
"Great!
Well, our work here is done."
According to Kondo, it's important to designate a space in the home for each belonging, which
a lot of people don't do.
She noted to Wisdom 2.0 that your house might look organized on the surface, but if you
have just one item that you don't have a designated location for, that item could make its way
all over your house and attract clutter.
And a cluttered house creates a cluttered mind.
Famous people often pin their life's passions down to something that inspired them when
they were a kid.
In Marie Kondo's case, one might assume that her love for organization stemmed from the
tidiness of her childhood home, but this wasn't exactly the case.
When she was young, there were no windows in her bedroom, so she would cut out photos
from magazines and tape them up on her walls as inspiration, visualizing the type of environment
she dreamed of eventually living in.
In 2018, she told Wisdom 2.0,
"What's important for the KonMari Method is to identify which kind of state of environment
makes you the most happy, the most creative."
Kondo's method translates into tidying up in order to surround oneself with only the
things that are important to them.
She told HelloGiggles in 2019,
"Tidying for yourself is essential to hone your sensitivity to joy and decision-making
skills.
By doing so, you will understand what is important in your life.
These are realizations and decisions you must come to on your own."
The approach to Kondo's method involves tidying up by only keeping belongings that "spark
joy" to their owner.
But of course, there are lots of items that people must keep in their homes that don't
necessarily make them happy.
These might include a cabinet of cleaning supplies, the winter coat that warns of colder
weather coming, or a briefcase that is a stressful reminder of a hated job.
Kondo doesn't want people to throw these necessary items out.
Instead, she challenges clients to think about them in a different way.
When comedian Hasan Minhaj requested Kondo's help in tidying up his daughter's nursery,
he said that the baby monitor was one item that stressed him out as he worked in the
other room, even though it was a necessity.
So she offered him a rather apt reply, asking,
"But this does spark joy for you knowing that you can work peacefully and that your child
is safe, right?"
In general, the idea is to find a path in your decision-making that sparks joy even
if the individual items aren't always especially joyous themselves.
One rule that supposedly stemmed from Kondo's Netflix series was that a person should only
keep a maximum of 30 books to tidy up the shelves in their home.
Many people became outraged upon hearing this rule and went on social media to let their
feelings be known.
When IndieWire asked Kondo what she thought of all this, she replied,
"The question you should be asking is what do you think about books.
If the image of someone getting rid of books or having only a few books makes you angry,
that should tell you how passionate you are about books, what's clearly important in your
life."
Kondo believes that if books spark joy for people, then their owners should absolutely
keep them.
The main idea of the KonMari Method, after all, is to surround yourself with items that
make you happy.
The so-called 30-book rule can be traced back to a line that Kondo had previously expressed
to one specific client, in which she said,
"If the book inspires you, keep it.
If not, it goes out."
When cleaning up the house, a lot of people think they have to clean out the house.
But according to Kondo, that might not actually be the best perspective.
As she told The Guardian in 2018,
"A lot of people hit a roadblock because they feel they have to throw something away, but
that's not the point.
It’s about understanding what needs to go versus what’s important to you."
Sure, the KonMari Method includes discarding items that no longer spark joy, but that's
not the main idea.
Kondo clarified what the focus should be to CBC Radio,
"My method rather focuses not on what we discard [...] but rather on what we want to retain,
what we want to keep in life.
By doing so, by making these decisions, it helps you figure out your values in life."
Kondo wants her clients to remain focused on what they want to keep because those items
are a direct reflection of what they want to surround themselves with in life overall.
According to her, we should keep only things that speak to our heart.
And as she wrote in her book,
"As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don't, and what
you should and shouldn't do."
To figure out if an item sparks joy, Kondo always suggests physically touching it.
As she explained to Man Repeller in 2019,
"Sometimes you will experience impulsive, fleeting joy when you encounter an item; other
times it's more of an enduring, lifetime joy.
Both serve a purpose.
The important thing is to be aware of the difference."
Over time, a person will get better at determining which items are important to them and, in
turn, clearly recognize which belongings are necessary to keep in the long run.
But that doesn't mean that Kondo herself has always been able to tell the difference so
clearly.
When Man Repeller asked her if she's regretted discarding anything, she replied,
"I regret letting go of small kitchen scissors that my younger sister gave to me for my children’s
food.
I thought I would never use them, so I gave them away to another mother.
But now that my children are getting older, I sometimes think those scissors would come
in handy and be much easier to use than a knife!
The lesson here is that if you’re not sure how an item is supposed to function, it’s
important to research it first before letting it go."
Clearing off shelves to make them look pretty and ridding the house of clutter might sound
synonymous with a minimalist design concept.
However, it's important to keep in mind that the type of space that gives people joy is
different for each person.
As Marie Kondo told Man Repeller,
"Minimal living may spark joy for one person, but not for another.
The KonMari Method does not require minimal living."
In other words, tidying up doesn't have to mean downsizing.
According to Kondo, the goal of tidying is discovering the best way to live in your home.
Every home, just like every person, is completely different.
People choose to live their lives in so many different ways, and the things that they surround
themselves with in their homes directly reflect this.
The KonMari Method has had a huge impact on millions of people worldwide, but it's not
all been in a positive way.
Some personal possessions can hold significant meanings to people, and not everyone responds
well to being told that they need to rid their lives of them.
Even so, Kondo believes that there isn't anything wrong with the strong negative responses that
her tidying process has received.
She told CBC Radio,
"This necessarily isn't a bad thing for me because it creates an opportunity for people
to understand what they're passionate about.
If this message moves you or frustrates you in a certain way, you should be exploring
why, and that should allow you to understand what you're passionate about and what you
find valuable in life."
In other words, if there's something about Kondo's method that doesn't spark joy in you,
that's perfectly fine!
"Why do you want to tidy?
What is your ideal life?"
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