Marie Kondo says the first step to succeeding at work is tidying up your workspace. Here's how 10 minutes of cleaning your desk can help build a more fulfilling career.
- Tidying guru Marie Kondo has a new book out, "Joy at Work," cowritten with Scott Sonenshein, a Rice University professor of management.
- Kondo argues that organizing your workspace is the first step to improving your life and career.
- By reviewing the items you've accumulated and the appointments filling your calendar, you can get a better sense of what really matters to you.
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Before Marie Kondo was a tidying guru and a global sensation, she was a sales representative at a staffing agency.
She ran a consulting business on the side, advising clients on how to declutter their homes and offices. But the demand for her services was so overwhelming that the side hustle started to take up all her free time. Kondo told herself, "Maybe I should make it into my life's work."
Kondo has a new book out, "Joy at Work," coauthored with the Rice University professor of management Scott Sonenshein. The book guides readers in organizing every aspect of their work life - desk, files, calendar, and professional network.
When we spoke last week, I asked Kondo how she'd advise someone who wasn't sure whether to go all-in on their entrepreneurial pursuits like she did. Her answers seemed at first like they came from an eye-rolly brochure for the KonMari method, Kondo's trademarked technique for organizing your space. Kondo recommended asking yourself, "What sparks joy" for you? You can start that process of introspection, she added, "by tidying your workspace."
Then I gave it a few seconds' thought. Kondo, I realized, was onto something. Something big.
If there's a theme to "Joy at Work" and to my conversation with Kondo, it's this: The best way to understand what you really want out of work and life is to examine how you're currently spending your time and money.
And that self-awareness is no small feat. It can be hard to separate yourself from your vision of the person you'd like to be and to see yourself objectively. But psychologists say that people who clearly understand their own passions and what motivates them are more successful.
To that end, you could ask friends and coworkers what they really think of you, or hire an executive coach to help you out. Those are probably good ideas. But a quick and dirty alternative is simply to go through your stuff.
Your current behavior says a lot about what your goals are
In Kondo's case, she didn't set a career goal for herself - become a full-time organizational consultant - and then rearrange her calendar so that she could transition away from the staffing agency. Instead, she saw how she was already behaving - spending all her free time on organizational consulting projects - and began to better understand her career goals.
"Tidying is essential," Kondo told me, "because it clarifies how you're spending time" right now. Kondo tidied her workspace in the more abstract sense, by taking a look at the appointments on her calendar.
In the book, Kondo shares examples of people who achieved that kind of clarity through more literal tidying.
Consider a KonMari client named Ken. When Kondo initially asked Ken about his ideal work life, he shrugged and said he'd probably like to leave the office earlier. Then Ken reviewed the pile of books that was languishing on his desk. Many of them were about self-development and how to find more passion in your work. Once he noticed that pattern in his book collection, Kondo writes, it "showed him that he longed to enjoy his job more and achieve self-fulfillment through doing his best."
I don't know Ken. But maybe he felt embarrassed about admitting that he wanted more fulfillment out of his work life. Maybe he thought that would be too hard to achieve. Maybe he felt he didn't deserve that satisfaction. Whatever the case, his insistence that he just wanted to spend less time at the office belied his behavior. Ken didn't need a therapist to tell him that - he just needed to take a look at his book collection.
Most of us know what this is like. I personally spend a lot of time buying tea and picking out meditation classes that I only sometimes drink and attend. As much as I talk about all the stories I want to write and people I want to meet, I guess what I really want is to relax.
When it comes to professional success, Kondo told me, it's important to be true to yourself. Success sits at the intersection of your strengths and your passions, she added.
That kind of self-knowledge could easily take a lifetime. Kickstart the process - and improve your career - by looking at what you've already accumulated.