Organize the World: Design Your Life to Spark Joy by Marie Kondo (Transcript)

Marie Kondo is a Japanese organising consultant and author. She introduced the KonMari Method in her best-selling book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.”

Here is the full text of Marie Kondo’s talk titled “Organize the World: Design Your Life to Spark Joy” at SXSW 2017 conference.

 

Marie Kondo – SXSW 2017 TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone. I’m Marie Kondo.

I feel honored to be standing here on such a wonderful stage today. Everyone at (South by Southwest) SXSW is talking about big things. But I would like to talk about something even bigger. My grandmother.

My grandmother lives in Miyazaki, a very peaceful place in Japan. Her house is not big and she does not own anything especially nice. But she took very good care of her things.

Her house was always clean and tidy. Even inside her drawers were beautifully organised. Just like her house, her presence was simple and beautiful. She never got angry no matter what happened. She was gentle. I admire her very much.

She would always tell me: Value what cannot be seen from the outside.

Normally people can’t see inside your house. However the way you organize the area and how to treat your belongings will greatly affect your way of thinking. More than we imagine, whether our house is tidy or not has a great impact on our life.

Tidying is a big thing.

Now I’d like to ask you a question. Is your house tidy? If your answer is no, don’t worry, I can help you. The answer is what I call the Konmari Method.

Let me show you some Konmari transformations before, and after, before and after. Another before and after. What a change!

Tidying with the Konmari Method will not affect only your house. It will change your life. While you are tidying using the Konmari method you will also understand yourself more and design your life you want.

Today, I am going to tell you how to put your home in order in a way that will change your life forever.

But before this, in order to understand for you how my method was created, I would like to talk about my story.

I started to have an interest in tidying up when I was 5 years old. I really liked home lifestyle magazines that my mother subscribed to.

When I was 15 years old, I started tidying seriously. I tidied up, I read every book related to tidying. And I tidied it up every place I go.

One day, I tidied up my own room. Next today, my brother’s room. Next day, my sister’s room. Then, the kitchen, living room, bathroom, the friend’s room, friend’s room, friend’s room, classrooms after the school, and then back to my own room.

I tidied up every day.

When I was 19 years old, I became an organizing consultant. My graduation thesis was about Tidying. So safe to assume, I am a crazy tidying fanatic.

KONMARI METHOD

Without further ado, let’s go on to the main subject, what is the Konmari method.

There are four Rules.

Rule 1. Imagine your ideal life. Before you tidy you need to face your truth — you need to face yourself. Why do you want to Tidy? What is your ideal life? Be specific. I’ll give you one example of my client.

Please imagine as you listen, my client’s ideal life is pure white wall and floor. They are simple with essential furnitures and nice front. Nothing else on the floor, very neat like hotel room. “Before I go to bed, a scent of lavender aroma, classic piano music playing in the background, doing yoga, drinking chamomile tea before go to sleep. That is the life I want to live”, my client said.