In April, Marie Kondo released her latest book Joy at Work. This is her attempt to bring the KonMari Method of tidying from the home environment to your workplace. I want to reassure you all: this book is not just about creating and maintaining a tidy desk, it covers all of the different aspects of our work lives including our digital realm, effective time management, prioritisation, meetings, teams and managing our wider network. And she hasn’t done this alone. Unlike her previous books, this time she has collaborated with Scott Sonenshein, an organisational psychologist who has spent 20 years supporting Fortune 500 companies, working professionals and entrepreneurs on how they can work smarter, based on credible research.

When you read the book, you will find that the authors have authority over different chapters:

Marie has written the introduction and chapters 1, 2, 3 and 11 (covering ‘Why Tidy?’, ‘If You Keep Falling Back to Clutter’, ‘Tidying Your Workspace’ and ‘How to Spark Even More Joy at Work’).
Scott has written chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (covering ‘Tidying Digital Work’, ‘Tidying Time’, ‘Tidying Decisions’, ‘Tidying Your Network’, ‘Tidying Meetings’, ‘Tidying Teams’ and ‘Sharing the Magic of Tidying’).
Although each of the chapters are written by either author, you will also find Marie and Scott’s examples throughout the book in what I call ‘content boxes’. For example, in Scott’s chapter about ‘Tidying Digital Work’, you will find a content box with Marie’s contribution on how she organises her desktop to aid her productivity.

Who is it for?

Simply, this book is for anyone hoping to become more joyful, efficient and productive in their work. It doesn’t matter what kind of job you have because the advice can be used to support any profession and any role…

Hoping to advance your career? The content can be used to help you refocus on what’s important and the kind of work habits that aid your productivity.
Feeling stressed and out of control at work? The guidance is a comforting starting point to assess all of the different elements of your job, one at a time.
Feeling burnt-out and currently resent your job? The content may help you to reevaluate what your work values are and reset your work habits (your work ‘autopilot’) to achieve a change in mindset about how you approach your work life.
Or let’s face it, if the book’s techniques and strategies fail to succeed in doing any of the above, it may just illustrate that a change of career is indeed necessary. Thus presenting a new starting point for change and growth.

My Top Ten Takeaways from Joy at Work

1. Just like in our home, we tidy up our work lives one category at a time - We tidy our work lives one area at a time, ensuring we’re fully satisfied with the changes we make before moving on to the next area. By examining every aspect, one category at time, you give yourself the opportunity to step back and see things objectively, allowing you regain control and focus on the elements of your job that are working well for you (the joy) as well as identifying the things that you need to constructively challenge (the ‘waste’). Here is my interpretation of how we can tidy our work lives by category:

We start with our physical space (our own domain), before moving on to our digital space (mostly our own domain) before finally tackling the wider areas of our work (which begin to feature how we interact with others). Following a structure like this is very important because it gives us a source of comfort that nothing is going to be overlooked. If we miss out a category, it may very well impact on our progress in achieving a joyful work life (it’s the same as leaving out the loft when you’re organising your home… eventually the items will creep up on you and threaten to overthrow everything else you’ve put into order up until that point).

Remember: Each category is a stepping stone for our progress in transforming our work life.

2. The Spark Joy concept is different at work - Can you imagine me telling you to pick up your boss, hug him or her whilst asking yourself ‘Does this spark joy?’ Exactly. The spark joy concept operates differently when it comes to examining the things that make up our work life. And unlike in our homes, ‘tidying up at work doesn’t guarantee that everything at our office or in our job will always spark joy’ (Joy at Work, pg. 22). With this in mind, Marie tells us that there are three elements to consider when finding what sparks joy for you at work (I call it the ‘SJ3’):

Things that directly spark joy for your personally: A favourite pen, work task that you’re confident doing or scheduled block of time that encourages you to work to your best productivity.
Things that provide functional joy: The thing itself doesn’t spark joy, but it allows you to get on with your work. Examples may include your work desk, a specific work program or a catch-up meeting with colleagues to update each other on a project.
Things that lead to future joy: These are the parts of your job that bring little joy right now but will lead to future prospects, growth and career development. For example, papers or digital documents related to a project you feel little enthusiasm about will, if you complete the work conscientiously, be a plus for your career.

Remember: When it comes to examining things you should keep for your work life ask yourself the following - ‘Does this help me be productive in my work?’ and ‘Does this make me feel positive about my work?’ Then check in with the SJ3 criteria above to see if you can find the meaning and usefulness in what you’re examining.

3. Put your digital documents in order - The trick is to keep a simple system. During my virtual presentations to Google and WeWork in April and May this year, at first I wondered whether I should be explaining how to organise documents… After all, isn’t this slightly trivial? I’ve understood that actually, it’s an essential part of us feeling completely in control of our work life. In the same way it’s essential to keep on top of our papers in our home environment, unless we regain control over our digital documents, things can become overwhelming for three reasons: first we can’t find what we’re looking for easily (which reduces our efficiency); second our devices slow down if we’ve got too many things open at one time; third we eventually run out of storage space (be honest, how many times have you had to put a halt to your work efforts to free up storage on your devices?). I found organising my documents very straight-forward and although I thought it was going to be an arduously long task, it actually took me around two hours from start to finish. I will go into the how to organise your digital documents in another blog post soon but for now I want to show you how I currently organise my documents into four key folders:

Folder One: Personal documents (it’s always best to keep these separate from work-related documents, and if you have a separate work computer or device, if you have personal documents stored there, they probably don’t need to be there).

Folder Two: Spark Joy London Current Projects (similar to my pending papers). Inside, I have a subfolder for each project.

Folder Three: SJL Records contain previous business data, policies, procedures, and typically don’t need to be modified.

Folder Four: SJL Saved Work consists of documents from past projects that I intend to use or refer back to in the future.

Remember: The key to successful organisation is avoiding over-complicated storage systems.

**The power of a tidy desktop: This is the first thing I see when I start work and it really sets a positive mood for the work day…**

4. Use the desktop ‘to delight’ - This has to be my favourite Marie Kondo-ism from the book! As we know, Marie teaches us to find the positive intentional benefits of every single item we decide to keep in our lives and I love how she applies this to something like our desktop. For most people I work with, their desktop is a dumping ground of documents, screenshots and redundant folders. I have to admit, before reading Joy at Work, I didn’t take a proactive approach to tidying my desktop on a regular basis. Now I include a brief desktop tidy-up as part of my daily shut-down ritual and it’s made a big difference to how I start my work the following day with clarity and a focused mind. I was also reassured by the fact that Marie, the queen of tidying, only started keeping a tidy desktop recently too:

“One day a fan came over to talk to me while I was working on my laptop at a cafe. I was so mortified by how cluttered my display was that I’ve kept my desktop tidy ever since.”

— Marie Kondo, Joy at Work, pg. 87

Remember: If your desktop is a source of distraction, you can turn it into a (feel free to use a different word here!) ‘delightful’ space.

5. Aim for only 10 email folders - I will write this with 100% transparency. At the moment, I have 43 folders in my work email. I do not have any subfolders. Scott tells us that a good number of folders to maintain is typically 10, quoting a study completed by Olle Bälter, Associate Professor in Human-Computer Interaction, who tells us that having more than 20 folders is too completed to manage: ‘with too many folders, we spend a lot of time finding the right folder to store messages, and then remembering where we put them,’ (Joy at Work, pg. 89). As you are all probably aware, I consider myself to be an organised person but when I read this I realised that my digital organisation leaves a lot to be desired. I will keep you updated on my progress; my email organisation is on the agenda for July. I would encourage you to take a closer look at your current number of email folders… can you beat my 43?!

Remember: Less is more when it comes to email folders.

6. Three traps can lead to ‘activity clutter’ (also known as ‘calendar clutter’) - ‘How can I manage my time better?’, ‘What’s the best way to write an effective to-do list?’ and ‘How can I prioritise work tasks to increase my productivity?’ are things I get asked a lot whenever I support corporate clients through delivering workshops and staff training programs. It’s safe to say that a lot of us suffer from a jam-packed schedule. And a jam-packed schedule can lead to burnout, which in turn leads to a significant decrease in our productivity, innovation and creativity. The final part of this negative spiral may result in us beginning to resent our job. If we take a closer look at our schedules we can identify the wasteful elements (interruptions, distractions, some meetings and unnecessary job admin to name but a few) and then take the first steps to be proactive with how we manage our time, instead of reactive. In Joy at Work, Scott explains the three things that can lead to activity clutter, which I found very interesting:

The Overearning Trap: Working too hard and allocating a lot of our time working for the wrong results (praise, money or simply being competitive).
The Urgency Trap: Instead of making time to dive deeply into our work and experience the joy and satisfaction that can come from tackling an important task, we jump from one seemingly urgent task to the next. Why do we do this? Important tasks tend to be more difficult to complete than urgent ones, making us more reluctant to start them. Urgent tasks have a more immediate payoff, making them more enticing to start and pleasing to finish.
The Multitasking Trap: Multitasking doesn’t mean doing several activities simultaneously, it means rapidly switching from one task to another without accomplishing one thing effectively. This can lead to more mistakes being made. It can also lead to people prioritising the wrong activities.

Do you fall into one of the above traps?

Remember: Activity clutter builds when meaningless and wasteful tasks disrupt our days and sap our energy.

7. Make a task pile to discover what it is you actually do at work - Scott tells us to write down each of our work tasks on index cards (or on a spreadsheet if you prefer) to reaffirm what things make up our job. They will fall into three types of task:

Core tasks: These are the central, ongoing activities of your job, the key things you do that justify your existence at work. For example, when I used to be a teacher this was planning lessons, assessment of children’s abilities and tracking their progress.
Project Tasks: These are the tasks that have a discrete beginning and end. Examples include designing a new product, a campaign or planning an event.
Developmental Tasks: These tasks help us to grow and learn like training, reading, attending conferences, or taking on a passion project. They should advance your career. I love how Googlers are entitled to dedicate 20% of their work time to a passion project. Craig Fenton (Director, Strategy & Operations at Google) told me that this led to the development of Gmail in 2004.

What I love about the task pile is that it offers an insightful reality check and allows you to ask yourself the following:

- How do these tasks relate to my ideal work life?

- How do the piles compare with one another? Are you challenging yourself enough? Learning enough? Getting enough feedback from others?

Remember: Creating a task pile for your job gives you the opportunity to confront your work life.

8. If you find a job task that doesn’t bring you joy, use the Beneficiary Test - I will admit that I had no idea what this test was before I read the book. This means asking your colleagues about whether they view the task you’re required to do as having a meaningful contribution to their work output. If it does, then you may find new meaning in completing the task. If they don’t value the task either, you have collective evidence to take to your boss or line manager in an effort to discard the task.

Remember: There will always be ‘joyless tasks’ that we’re required to do at work. It’s very unlikely that we will enjoy 100% of our work all the time. But we can take steps to constructively challenge the things that do not bring us joy or allow us to make a meaningful contribution. Wow, that was a long remember point… Sorry guys! They’re meant to be short!

9. Take a pause before saying ‘yes’ - I know the concept of saying ‘no’ isn’t new but what I liked from Joy at Work was the focus on why it’s important to politely decline. I was always the ‘yes’ girl in work when I was a teacher. In the spirit of being a good colleague, I almost always said yes. Each activity didn’t take up a lot of time but altogether they added up, and kept me from working on the things that would advance my career and along me to grow. Sometimes there are good reasons to say yes (potential to learn, advance your career, build relationships) but often we get lured into agreeing to too many tasks because we feel guilty saying no. Let go of the guilt. Or we feel like we’re going to miss out. Let go of the FOMO. When someone asks you something, take a moment to reflect and if in person, it’s perfectly alright to say ‘I’ll think about it and get back to you’. Take charge over your decisions rather than just reacting to what’s coming up. Ask yourself the following: will engaging in the task bring you joy? Will it be meaningful to you? If it won’t, politely decline it. ‘Research shows that when we delay making a commitment, we feel more empowered to say no to tasks we don’t enjoy and yes to tasks we do.’ (Joy at Work, pg. 116).

Remember: It’s important to politely decline something if it doesn’t align with your skills, work values or time frame.

10. Replace networking with high quality connecting - When my husband and I used the KonMari Method of tidying to prepare our home for a home birth, we successfully transformed our physical space but what I didn’t expect was the complete change in mindset that came with it; I started to analyse every aspect of my life including my relationships with friends and family, asking if they still brought joy to my life. This transition in mindset is not left out of Joy at Work. This time however, we can apply the process to the network of people that support us in our work life. Of course, there will always be colleagues you have to work with regardless of whether you get on with them, but I’ve learnt to take a closer look at who I want to build meaningful relationships with in my work life.

Marie herself has only 16 connections on LinkedIn. Joy at Work teaches us to say goodbye with gratitude to any relationships you no longer need and nurture those that you decide to keep. When you’re deciding which contacts to keep you can ask yourself the following:

- Which connections do I need for my job?

- Which connections can help me advance my work-life vision? These people may bring about a new opportunity or provide valuable information and insight.

- Do I feel positive when I think of this person? Would I be happy to see them soon?

We can also apply the same logic to networking events: does this event offer an opportunity for growth and connection? If it doesn’t, protect your time and say no with confidence.

Remember: Everything can be successfully KonMari’d, even work relationships!

These are my top ten personal takeaways from Joy at Work. As a KonMari Consultant, from the book I have learnt a great deal about how the KonMari Method can transition into one’s professional life, which is especially relevant as I continue to support corporate clients in their efforts to become more productive and enhance employee wellbeing. Although I found the book helpful, in my workshops I continue to draw upon other work improvement methodologies and philosophies where I feel there is a gap in the content of Joy at Work and where I feel there is room for expansion in the topics discussed in the book. This post was written with the intention to express ten relevant points that I find useful right now in my own life. You may resonate with the content of the book in many different ways, depending on your current job, role and responsibilites.

Is Joy at Work still on your to-read list?

If you’ve already read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on the content below in the comments.