#Kon mari the art of tidiness series#

Marie Kondo spent five years working as a shrine maiden, or miko, at a Shinto shrine - something that greatly inspired her approach - and since the release of her first book in 2011, has more recently brought out a popular Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, where she helps home-makers reassess how they use their space and reacquaint themselves with the best of their belongings.Īs work from home has become a reality for many people in the UK, and large parts of the population are struggling to come to terms with the shift, Marie shares with us a little on the basic principles behind the KonMari method, from her new book ‘Joy at Work’, and how these can be applied to the digital work-from-home lifestyle in order to help keep us happy and healthy during these trying times: WHY TIDY?

Just take a look at some of its greatest cultural and technological products, whether that’s the hyper efficient bullet train system that runs almost to the second, the spirit of minimalism and less-is-more aesthetic throughout Japanese architecture and design (see: Uniqlo and Muji), or even the fact that in Japanese there exists a word for the very Japanese propensity towards neatness and hygiene - ‘kireizuki’.Īrguably one of the biggest leaders in the world of ‘kireizuki’ is Marie Kondo who has taken the world by storm with her patented KonMari method, based upon reconnecting with your clutter and finding a systematic way of deciding what you do and don’t need by asking if an item ‘sparks joy’, or if, in Japanese, it ‘tokimeku’. Japanese culture has, for a long time, had a great reverence for tidiness, orderliness and timeliness.

Kon mari the art of tidiness