Marie Kondo - Marie Kondos Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am immensely grateful to everyone who helped produce this book, including developmental editor Lisa Westmoreland, who was involved from the planning phase; editor Julie Bennett and art director Betsy Stromberg from Ten Speed Press; my agent Neil Gudovitz; Tomoko Ishibashi for her editorial collaboration with the Japanese manuscript; The Outset team for their beautiful photography; Leanne Citrone for kindly letting us use her gorgeous home for one of the photoshoots; and Cathy Hirano for translating the manuscript. And many thanks to Kay Amano for her skillful coordination, tireless support, and enthusiasm.

And finally, a heartfelt thanks to you for choosing this book.

Wishing you a life that sparks joy every day!

Marie Kondo is a world-renowned tidying expert, bestselling author, star of Netflixs hit shows Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and Sparking Joy with Marie Kondo, and founder of KonMari Media, Inc. Enchanted by organizing since childhood, Kondo began her tidying consultant business as a nineteen-year-old university student in Tokyo. Today, she helps people around the world to transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration.

In her #1 New York Times bestseller, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Kondo introduced her approach worldwide, teaching readers that once you properly simplify and organize your home, youll never have to do it again.

Kondo has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Londons Times, and Vogue, as well as on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and more than fifty major Japanese television and radio programs. She was named one of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People in 2015.

Nastassia Brckin is a photographer and consultant who divides her time between Los Angeles and Paris. Her mission is to compose visuals and stories highlighting the presence of beauty and creating a feeling of closeness.

Tess Comrie is a West Coastbased multidisciplinary artist with a focus on photography. Her work often imbues a sense of tactility, warmth, and reverie. Comrie currently resides in Bellingham, Washington.

Cathy Hirano graduated from a Japanese university with a major in cultural anthropology and has been translating Japanese fiction and nonfiction professionally since 1984. Her translations of young adult literature have won several awards, including a 2020 Michael L. Printz Honor for The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi. She lives in Shikoku, Japan.

CONCLUSION

Live a joyful life with what you have now.

Ks notion of the ideal lifestyle was having a home where she could spend time enjoying meals with friends and family. Im sure many of us share her dream.

I know people who invite their friends over for parties, K told me, but Ive never been able to do that, even though Id love to. I have to tidy up before its possible. Her tidying progressed quickly. Around the time she finished tidying her papers, we took a break, and she brought out some buns she had picked up at a nearby bakery. During my tidying lessons I often plow straight through without any breaks, so Im grateful when my clients offer me something to eat. In this case, however, she merely plunked down the buns, still in their wrappers, along with some drinks in plastic bottles. Here, she said. Take your pick. This seemed to be disrespectful of good food and a waste of the time we were taking to eat it.

We havent tidied the kitchen yet, I thought. Still, she must have some dishes that spark joy. With her permission, I opened her cupboard, only to see an amazing array of beautiful tableware! I took out two lovely floral plates stacked in the back of the cupboard that seemed to be crying out, Use me! Use me! I warmed up the buns in the oven and arranged them on the plates. Then I poured the bottled tea into some beautiful Edo-Kiriko glasses that K had never removed from their paulownia wood box. The result? In just a few minutes, our break was transformed into an elegant little luncheon.

The point Im trying to make is this: we can realize many elements of our ideal lifestyle right now just by using whats already at hand. Do you think only people who have nice dishes and a tidy kitchen can enjoy a beautiful lifestyle? Well, thats simply not true. With a little ingenuity, creativity, and playfulness, anyone can make their life joyful with what they already have. There are so many ways to do this.

One is to celebrate seasonal occasions. When I was a child, my mother loved events of all kindsthere was never a month when she couldnt find something to celebrate. This included not only traditional Japanese festivals such as Tanabata, the Star Festival, but also holidays from other cultures, such as Halloween. Only instead of making pumpkin jack-o-lanterns, we drew felt-pen faces on tangerineseasier to find in Japan than big orange pumpkinsand placed one in every room. In December, we put up a little Christmas tree in the hall and decorated it. Turkeys are also hard to get in Japan, so on Christmas Eve my mother bought a roasted chicken at the local supermarket and tied cute ribbons around the tips of the drumsticks.

When I want decorations that reflect the season, I often hang up tenugui, traditional Japanese cotton hand towels with attractive designs, in the entranceway or living room. Rather than decorating the whole house, I hang only one or two of these in strategic spots, such as in the dining room for the family to enjoy when we gather for meals or in the front hall. While I only stick these cloth prints to the wall with removable adhesive tape, they change the atmosphere as completely as if I had changed the wallpaper. When I exchange one tenugui for another to depict the next season, its my family and the many things we have done together that I recall. Although these are just simple memories of an ordinary family, to me theyre priceless.

When we put our home in order, it changes our lives. For many, that change is dramatic. But even when the change isnt dramatic, its wonderful to learn how to savor each moment of our lives.

I hope that through the magic of tidying up, your life and your home will spark joy for you every day.

AFTERWORD

While I was writing this book, we welcomed our third child, a son, into our family. This is my first time raising a boy, and it brings with it new surprises and challenges. The addition of a new family member has caused significant changes in my schedule, and Im much busier at the moment. Weve acquired a few more things, the layout of our house has changed, and the way we use our time is a little different too.

Im sure that with each new stage in our liveslike when the children grow and move on to higher grades, when we move to a new home, or when our work changesmy vision of an ideal kurashi, or lifestyle, my priorities in life, and my concept of joyful ways to use time will also change. The lifestyle Ive described here reflects what gives me joy at this particular stage in my life.

People sometimes tell me that the things that used to bring them joy no longer do. This is perfectly natural. What sparks joy for you will change. Whats important is the process of examining what brings you joy each time it changes. Be attuned to your sense of joy at every moment of your life, and rejoice in each day you spend with those you love. It would give me the greatest happiness if this book helped you do that.