Lessons Learned from Marie Kondo's "Tidying Up"

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Have you tuned in yet to the new Netflix show, “Tidying Up” with Marie Kondo? It seems everyone has been watching the series, so I had to watch also. The show is based on Marie’s best-selling book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Marie, a self-proclaimed “tidying expert” prescribes a very specific process to clear your space. If you follow the KonMarie process, Marie asserts your clutter will be gone forever.

Watching real people on the show—people just like my clients—implement the KonMarie method was fascinating. While I am not sold on her one-size-fits-all approach to decluttering and organizing, there are lessons to be learned (beyond Marie’s method for folding):

  1. Make time to organize. The clients on “Tidying Up” were successful in their organizing projects partly because they set aside the time to declutter and organize. For some of them it took many weeks and months. While I’m not suggesting you quit your job and just work on getting organized, setting aside consistent blocks of time will help you reach your organizing goals faster.

  2. Be clear on your motivation. The clients on the show each had their own reasons to get organized. From merging households, to moving or downsizing, Marie helped the families bring forth their motivation for getting organized. This is another important component for success at organization—keep in mind why you want to get organized. Is your stuff holding you back from bigger and better things?

  3. Trust your decisions. I work a lot with clients to help them make decisions and trust in those decisions. “Tidying Up” showed that while decision making can be challenging, once you get going, it often gets easier. You can build momentum, starting with small decisions and working up to the harder ones. And once you decide to let something go, take the steps to get it out of your house and move it on.

Have you watched the show? Has it inspired you to get organized?

The Saved Piece of Paper that Changed my Career

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Recently I was going through my own files to shed excess papers and projects that no longer fit my goals. I came across an article and wondered why I had kept it, until I noticed a note I’d written at the top: “This is the article that inspired me to become a professional organizer.”

The article was from a 1998 American Way, the American Airlines inflight magazine. Back then I managed volunteer teaching programs in Africa and Latin America. I spent a lot of time traveling on American Airlines back and forth from Boston to Miami, and sometimes on to Costa Rica and Ecuador.

This article was the first time I heard the term, "profesional organizer" and learned that it was a growing field. Although I loved my job something in this article spoke to me at the time, so I pulled it out an threw it in my “career” file.

I found that file and article years later, when I was a Product Manager for a large education company and was ready to move on. The article mentioned NAPO, the National Association of Professional Organizers. I joined NAPO, took courses, and realized helping others get organized (and love their homes again) was my passion.

Sometimes it pays to keep a piece of paper—if you know why it’s important. If you have a document that’s important or a piece of memorabilia, jot down the significance.