Marie Kondo has no time to tidy

I’ve been hearing a lot in the past week or two about Marie Kondo and how she no longer has time to tidy now that she has three kids. However, the way most people seem to be reacting (with glee or a “gotcha!” attitude almost like schadenfreude) makes me feel like they never understood what she was about in the first place.

Photo courtesy of KonMari Media, Inc.

To give you some context, this came about after the publication of her latest book, Kurashi at Home, which is all about achieving one’s ideal lifestyle. Let me quote a recent Washington Post article:

“Kondo says her life underwent a huge change after she had her third child, and external tidying has taken a back seat to the business of life. ‘My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life,’ she said through an interpreter at a recent media webinar and virtual tea ceremony. […] Kondo says that, for many, the perfectly organized space is not realistic. ‘Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times,’ she said at the event. ‘I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.’”

You see, while the media and general public has long focused on the decluttering part of her message, Marie Kondo does not consider herself a minimalist. As a matter of fact, the second rule of the KonMari Method® is to imagine your ideal lifestyle. This means that before even getting rid of anything, Marie Kondo suggest that we identify exactly what we want to move towards, then make room for that not just in our space, but in our life as well.

There’s an added difficulty here because of the English translation of her first book – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. To me, “tidying” is something that you do before someone comes over for dinner, by putting things back in their place. But in this context, tidying was opposed to cleaning, meaning that cleaning confronts us to nature (things get dirty and must be cleaned), whereas in tidying, we are confronted to ourselves (why do I own all these things in the first place?). This is the premise of the Tidying Festival, in which we assess all our belongings. And it is NOT the same thing as “being tidy” in the sense that our environment is not messy!

So, all this to say that Marie Kondo has gone through a major life transition in becoming a mother. Her priorities have shifted, and she is still leading her ideal life – it’s just that now, she wants to spend her time caring for her children instead of tidying up, and that’s normal. If anything, she’s staying true to her core philosophy of following her ideal lifestyle. I mean, this is someone who, when she was single, would clean out her purse entirely each evening. To which I say, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” And now that she has other responsibilities, she agrees.

It is also during major life transitions that most people hire professional organizers and other outside help. Many of my clients are parents to young children, have recently moved, or were widowed, and that’s when they just get overwhelmed because they don’t have as much time or energy to put into creating the physical environment they want. Priorities shift, needs change, and that’s normal.