Marie Kondo says she isn’t perfect and never was, even before she had a family.
The Japanese tidiness expert, who raised eyebrows last year when she admitted she’d “kind of given up” on tidying, told Sky News: “I wasn’t perfect even before I had children. I got tired. Things didn’t go according to plan.”
She’s in the UK for the first time in five years, teaching future KonMari consultants how to declutter their lives and “spark joy” in the act of cleaning up.
One of Japan‘s most famous stars, Kondo‘s 2011 book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has sold more than 14 million copies in more than 40 countries worldwide.
After setting up her own consulting business aged just 19, 10 more books, two Netflix series, and an online homeware shop have followed.
So, news that she’d ditched tidying created headlines around the world. Kondo admits she was “surprised” by the scale of the reaction.
It was speaking to the Washinton Post last year, when Kondo mentioned she’d started prioritising spending time with her children over tidying, and admitted her home was “messy,” that the backlash began.
Kondo explains: “Maybe the fact that I said that I was putting being tidy on hold for a while after the birth of my third child, it feels like that’s the more normal state of affairs, that people are realising that I’m not perfect.
“It was just a comment that I’d made casually, but at the same time I think I realised how many people out there had had the same experience of having children and suddenly finding themselves much busier.
“There’s so much to do. You can’t do all the things that you previously were able to. It made me realise how many people out there in the same boat. That was a big thing for me”.
‘Streamline’ the remote
Kondo now lives in California with her family, daughters Satsuki, 9, and Miko, 8, her three-year-old son, and husband Takumi Kawahara.
With a multi-million-pound business empire to run, she travels around the globe.
So, what’s the first thing she does when she touches down in a new country? Tidies of course.
Kondo says: “I love tidying my hotel rooms. As soon as I get into the room, I take everything out of my case and decide on its place.
“If there are things that I feel like don’t need to be on display, like the remote control or the information folder, I’ll put it away in a drawer to make the space more streamlined.”
She says the act helps organise her energy.
No such thing as a guilty pleasure
So, does Kondo, who recently turned 40, have any “guilty pleasures”?
Apparently not. But pleasingly, if you follow her tidying methods, neither should you.
She explains: “That’s not a concept that I really have, if I have something, it means I’ve decided to keep it…
“I don’t feel that sense of guilt and I encourage other people to think about it that way as well”.
And as for anything she won’t chuck away? Kondo laughs, admitting: “I never get rid of my husband’s things”.
A good tip for marital harmony no doubt, and with 12 years of both living and working alongside her husband Takumi, Kondo may well have the key to relationship success as well as a tidy house.