In November, Marie Kondo released her latest book ‘Kurashi at Home’. I was lucky to meet Marie in person to receive a signed copy of the book back in November at one of her speaking engagements in London. This book centres around the Japanese concept of ‘Kurashi’ meaning your ideal life. The very first step in the KonMari Method is setting a vision for your ideal lifestyle and ideal living environment, and this is an important step in keeping you motivated throughout your tidying journey. However, ‘kurashi’ is less about the vision for your home and possessions, and more about how you want to spend your time, how you seek to achieve a life well lived.

Kurashi at Home is a beautiful coffee table book, with stunning photographs that offer a sense of stillness, calm and inspiration to the reader. It’s larger and wider than Marie’s previous books, so be warned it will stand out on your bookcase!

Here are my ten takeaways from the book:

What does Kurashi mean? In Japanese, the word for lifestyle is Kurashi, it means the active art of living, spending each day, daily life, and making a livelihood. The ideal Kurashi simply means the ideal way of spending our time, and therefore is separate from the ideal home. The ideal lifestyle refers to what we do, not where we live.
Marie explains the difference between physical tidying and life-changing tidying. What prompts us into tidying and decluttering action differs from one person to the next. At first, we may start to declutter because we’re reacting to a chaotic environment (the visual evidence). We can never find items and are losing time so we need to sort things out. We can never relax because there are so many items vying for our attention. These initial reactions respond to the physical environment. A lot of my clients get in contact with me and ask for support because their home is overwhelming and they need to restore order and calm. Physical tidying deals with the symptoms of clutter whereas life-changing tidying deals with the cause: how did the clutter get there in the first place? How can we change our habits and actions so that we never experience this reality again? Beyond the possessions, what are you actually trying to achieve through tidying your home? In Kurashi at Home, Marie guides us in gaining a better understanding of why we want to tidy up through posing these questions:

3. The tidying block = psychological barrier: Have you ever hit a ‘tidying wall’? This refers to a time during joy checks where you simply are unable to make a decision about whether you wish to keep the item or let it go. Interestingly, this is something that happens to all of my clients at some stage. Marie expands on this scenario in her book stating that ‘a block in a particular area of tidying invariably corresponds to a block in some aspect of the person’s life, such as their relationship or work’. This is where tidying becomes deeply psychological and an incredible opportunity for self growth. If we pause and reflect on why we’re finding it difficult to make a decision, this can often open the pathway to learning something new about ourselves or unblocking a part of our past that we may be holding on to unnecessarily, for it no longer serves us. The next time you hit a tidying wall, providing it’s not just decision fatigue (which is a real thing, I promise!), push through the discomfort and try to decipher why you’re finding it a challenge to make a choice.

4. The difference between a tidying start date and a tidying finish date. According to Marie, it’s easier to set a deadline in our calendar for when we want to finish our tidying festival than it is to pin down a start date. ‘Thinking about finishing means dreaming about the future, whereas thinking about starting is for real’. Starting means letting go of some parts of your busy schedule, taking time off work, asking your partner to look after the children, and ensuring you don’t procrastinate. Starting requires action. If you’re guilty of simply announcing that you hope to finish tidying in 6 months, without assigning any specific start date in your calendar, then open your calendar right now, locate the day you wish to start, and write in ‘start tidying’. My free tidying checklist may help you stay on track too! You’re very welcome.

5. The solo performance method. I loved reading this part in the section entitled ‘Can your things breathe?’ If you have clothes rammed into your wardrobe, piled up items all over the place and items that threaten to bop you on the head whenever you open a cupboard, then try this idea out for fun. Turn off any music and take a good look around your room. If a particular object catches your eye, try imagining what the item itself is feeling (stay with me as we get creative here!) and become its voice. Say whatever word or phrase pops into your mind. Examples include ‘help me! I can’t see!’, ‘this weight is crushing me!’ and ‘please put me back in the drawer’. By the time you’ve created character voices for between 20-30 items, you will have made some important discoveries. I love the parts of Marie’s writing where she encourages us to embrace a playful aspect to tidying. Many times, she refers to items having their own energy and a very life of their own. Are you willing to try the solo performance method in your own home?

6. Creating a workspace that sparks joy and completing a shut down ritual. During the pandemic, Marie was interviewed frequently about how we can achieve a good balance of working from home and relaxing at home. Part of the content of Kurashi at Home builds on her initial advice about creating a good working atmosphere through aromas, music and the items at your disposal as you work. She also emphasises the value of having a set shut-down ritual to enable you to fully switch off from work tasks at the end of the working day. I fully believe this can have an important impact on our work/life balance and it’s something I have written about previously in a previous blog post ‘Struggling to switch off from work? Try a shut-down ritual...’.

7. Bedroom = sanctuary. In true KonMari style, Marie takes us through how to spark joy in different areas of the home, with beautiful references to feng shui principles. I particularly love the part about creating a sanctuary in your bedroom and how this facilitates good sleep: ‘As we transition from sleep to wakefulness, our subconscious mind, which takes over during our sleep, persists for a while alongside our conscious mind, which takes over during the waking hours. For this reason, I recommend arranging your room, so the first thing you see inspires positive thoughts and feelings’. There are 3 chapters in Kurashi at Home that focus on building a joyful morning, daily and evening routine. Marie shares some wonderful insights into the parts of her routine, which spark joy for her and make her life easier. This is content that hasn’t been featured in any of Marie’s previous books. The book also includes ideal lifestyle worksheets towards the end to support the reader in creating their ideal morning, day and evening, with detailed examples.

8. An insight into Marie’s family life and how her view of the ‘perfect’ home has changed over time. In an interview with Showfields, reflecting on her experience as a parent, Marie expains that in the past ‘I often felt intense internal pressure to always be perfect, a high expectation that I had placed upon myself. But with time, especially after I gave birth to my second daughter, I let go of my need for perfection altogether. I am busier than ever after having my third child, so I have grown to accept that I cannot tidy every day and things won’t always go according to plan – and that is okay! When you grow your family, expectations of what you want your life to look like can be readjusted as circumstances change.’ We can’t forget that when Marie initially wrote The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up over 11 years ago, she wasn’t a mother. Her own vision of her ideal home and ideal lifestyle has changed over the years, as it does for all of us as we go through the different phases of life. I love how Marie’s reference to letting go of perfectionism is so explicit in Kurashi at Home. As a busy working mum of two children (now 4 and 6), my expectations around having a perfectly organised home all the time have certainly been tried and tested over the years. I’ve also learnt to let go of the need for things to be perfect, in an effort to stay present with my family, otherwise I miss the things that truly matter in my life.

9. Habit change - Marie’s 10 day challenge. Although I differ in my opinion and personal understanding through research to habits being formed in 10 days (my belief is that it can take anywhere up to 66 days to form a new habit and how long it takes to form a new habit depends on the person and the circumstances), I enjoyed reading Marie’s insights on habit change: ‘it takes just 10 days of effort to develop new habits’. In order for a new habit to stick, she advocates trying something (whether it’s reseting the kitchen at night, putting your clothes away or making the bed every morning) consistently for 10 days with no gaps in between the days. I really like how Marie’s writing is now incorporating habit change into transforming your home through the KonMari Method. Whenever I work with clients, although I primarily hired to support them with making decisions on what they wish to keep moving forward, our sessions also include ample discussions on facilitating positive habit change so they are able to maintain their decluttered and organised home when I finish working with them. Once a client has finished their tidying festival, I would prefer to be invited back into their home for tea and (possibly, if I’m lucky!) cake, instead of them needing further support in decluttering and organising their home! I believe KonMari and positive, transformational habit change go hand in hand. That’s why they call it the life-changing magic of tidying up!

10. Gift giving. One of the last sections of the book is Marie’s take on giving and receiving gifts. Although my views differ slightly to Marie’s, I really enjoyed reading about how she welcomes gifts from people into her home, even if she isn’t so keen on them at first. Perhaps I’m more ruthless when it comes to gifts, because if something doesn’t spark joy for me as a gift, I let go of all guilt and the sense of obligation in keeping the item, and pass it on with gratitude. As a side note, another thing I liked about Kurashi at Home is the little pockets of advice Marie offers throughout the book in response to the questions she’s received from her fans over the years. Examples include ‘what to do if you have a messy partner?’ or ‘what happens if everything sparks joy?’.

My verdict: 4/5 stars (to get the 5th star, I would have loved to have seen photographs from Marie’s home in the book, but perhaps that’s me being too nosey?!) A girl can dream!

Is Kurashi at Home on your to-read list? What are your thoughts on the book if you’ve read it already? Let me know in the comments.