Why even Netflix’s decluttering guru Marie Kondo lets some mess pile up now that she has two kids
- Japanese decluttering queen says that if books bring you joy, don’t throw them away
- She has accepted that, with two young children, she can no longer keep her home perfectly tidy
Japanese decluttering queen Marie Kondo’s Netflix show has sparked a fresh wave of global interest in the tidying concepts she outlined in her bestselling books.
Kondo’s books – including the original The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – are about to be reissued in Japan and her next venture is an online salon aimed at building a community to help relieve the loneliness and stress of tidying up.
In an interview, Kondo was asked about what the patented KonMari Method really means.
Making the Netflix show in California, what surprised you about the way people live and shop, compared with Japan?
What surprised me is that the houses themselves are very big. And the fact that everyone has a garage. A lot of people use it as storage space, rather than as a place to keep their car.
That’s something I didn’t see in Japan. And because you have that storage space you probably just keep accumulating things.