![]() ![]() Think of it as a Shinto-inflected version of the William Morris dictum: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” In a slight work-around, this includes all items that make you happy by performing a valuable service – so Jimmy and Logan don’t have to chuck every plant pot that doesn’t make them fibrillate with delight. Anything that does spark joy can be kept. Going by category (seeds, tools, stationery and so on), anything that doesn’t “spark joy” must be thanked for its service – Kondo worked for three years as a Shinto shrine maiden and a mild animism suffuses her outlook – and binned. Then she starts to usher them through the process of sifting through the detritus of years. In she comes, in delicate neutrals (I want her wardrobe as well as her face, hair, body, serene disposition and core of steel), to thank the family and honour the place she is about to set to rights. Jimmy has a mental map of where everything is, but nobody else does and so work gets done despite the disorganisation rather than riding smoothly along the rails Marie knows she can lay down. Like any small business built up over years, its workings are piecemeal. Logan’s Garden is a plant nursery in Los Angeles run by Jimmy, who has been gardening since he was four under the aegis of his grandmother, and his 35-year-old son, Logan, who has been gardening since he was 16 but into whose hands Jimmy is still reluctant to pass the business. The first episode is one of the most charming. She creates order out of chaos, efficiency out of inefficiency, instituting systems, eliminating redundancies and giving us all a glimpse of a better, brighter life the other side of 42 bin bags of crap. This time, instead of homes, Marie (accompanied again by her Japanese translator Marie Iida) goes into businesses and sorts them out – and their owners – stage by calm, thorough, satisfying stage. Sparking Joy has followed the principle of the book by not messing with the original TV formula. (Ditto Joy at Work, which is somewhere on my desk but I cannot find it). This was like the first bestseller but with added pictures, and we all bought it because we will buy anything that brings us closer to our god. Now she is back with a new series on Netflix – Sparking Joy With Marie Kondo, named after her second bestseller. She could have talked you into a burning car, never mind storing T-shirts vertically in colour order. She was so tiny, so neat, so disciplined yet understanding – she was the method made flesh. Her first Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, reinforced it all. Such is the key to the organisational guru’s success (over 10m books sold, a popular homeware line, massive cultural penetration round the world, a hit makeover show in 2019) her method and her brand hit the sweet psychological spot of blending practicality, aspiration and nonjudgmental kindness. Marie knows what is in my heart and that I will start one day. Alas, while I yield to no one in my adoration of the bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying and creator of the KonMari method of decluttering, I have not yet got round to implementing all – or indeed a single one – of her strictures and so cannot lay my hands on them. ![]() Or, more appropriately for right now, the home office.I have all Marie Kondo’s books. “ I’ve always been very passionate about my mission to organise the world, so I’ve been thrilled and humbled by such a large response.” Now she's back with another book – Joy At Work – which takes her KonMari technique to the office. “I was surprised at how many people were adopting the method,” she said when we spoke over email the other day. Years later, her Netflix series brought her approach to cleaning one's house – by collating all your possessions by category and discarding things that don't spark joy – to an even bigger audience, each time producing as much consternation as it did satisfaction. Marie Kondo seems to be a woman who is always having a renaissance: when her first book, The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up, was published in Japan it was a runaway success when it was released in English it was a success once more. Now that we're all in isolation, we asked for her advice on the perfect desk and home The famous Japanese life organiser Marie Kondo is back with her new book, all about KonMari-ing your office. ![]()
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