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Marie Kondo at Business Insider.
Marie Kondo is a lifestyle celebrity in Japan known for helping people decrease clutter and straighten up their homes for good.
But her de-cluttering methods aren’t limited to homes — they can be used to tidy up any space, including offices.
Kondo’s book — “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” — is full of tips on discarding clutter and storing what’s left. In it, she encourages readers to clean everything in one fell swoop and only keep the things they truly love.
“Even in the workspace, at your job, your things should still spark joy,” Kondo told Fast Company in May.
Earlier this year she told Business Insider that you can tell when something sparks joy when you “feel your body go upward.” If something doesn’t make you happy when you touch it, Kondo said you should “thank it for its service” and get rid of it.
“When you choose things based on your real feeling, you can choose the right amount of items to totally fit [in your space],” Kondo said. “That is surprising for everyone — this is part of the magic of tidying up.”
Her book became a top seller this year and even earned her a spot on Time’s 2015 “Top 100 Influential People” list.
And she’s developed a fan base so huge, her followers are flooding Instagram with photos of their “kondo-ed” spaces.
Bellow you’ll see inspiring images of so-called “kondo-ed” offices that people posted on Instagram and instructions on how to conquer your own workspace.
This might be what your office currently looks like right now. The point of kondo-ing is to surround yourself only with things that you love.
Before you begin, understand that you should go through all your possessions one category at a time: Start with books and magazines, then papers, then miscellaneous items, or Komono, and end with mementos.
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To start “kondo-ing,” put all of your books in one spot and sort them by what to keep and what to throw away. Kondo’s philosophy is to discard first, store later.
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When deciding whether to keep a book, “Make sure you don’t start reading it. Reading clouds your judgment,” Kondo warns. Instead, hold each book in your hand, and if it gives you a thrill of pleasure when you touch it, keep it. Otherwise, discard it.
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If you think you’ll read a book “one day,” Kondo says it must go. “‘Sometime means never,’” she says.
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If an item doesn’t seem to particularly spark joy for you, but it is necessary to get work done, you may keep the item, but you should change your relationship with it and appreciate how it contributes to your daily life. These items make your days go by, Kondo explains, which means you haven’t realized that they are, in fact, making you happy.
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Make sure you thank each item for its service as you discard it.
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Kondo’s rule of thumb for papers is to discard everything. The caveat is if the paper is in use, is needed for a limited period of time, or must be kept indefinitely.
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Kondo divides all papers that should be kept into two categories, papers to be saved and papers to be dealt with, and stores them accordingly.
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You’ll probably end up throwing out or giving away a lot of what’s in your office. It may be easier to go into the process with the assumption that most things will go and you choose what you keep.
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It’s important to have a place for everything, according to Kondo, so you will put things immediately back in their spot.
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Forgo any fancy organizers and store miscellaneous items in simple square or rectangular boxes in your desk.
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Eventually, your book case could look this orderly.
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After you’re done organizing, you’ll realize you have a lot more room for storage than you previously thought. Your office will feel much lighter.
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And once you learn to tidy up the Kondo way, she says that you’ll never go back to being messy.
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Tidying up all at once the Marie Kondo way could even have a positive effect on your body, she said.
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She said some of her clients’ acne cleared up while others lost weight. “Your self perception is improved by living in a clean and neat room,” Kondo told Business Insider. “This can change lifestyle and in turn appearance.”
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Now go forth and “kondo.”
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The post People are so obsessed with this household de-cluttering method, they’re using it to transform their offices, too appeared first on Business Insider.
Source:: Business Insider