Marie Kondo returns to clean up the pandemic mess: ‘Ideal moment’

The New York Times

Marie Kondo has big plans for us to tidy up not just our homes but our entire lives. But is a country that has just spent two years on a relentless shopping spree that has filled Peloton bike houses, fire pits and bread machines in the mood to accept the minimalist style of home tidiness that Kondo espouses?

The Japanese lean-living guru certainly believes so. She sees the moment we live in as an opportunity to expand her reach to offices and even personal hygiene routines. In Q3 2021, in “Sparking Joy With Marie Kondo,” a three-episode miniseries airing on Netflix, viewers followed Kondo as she persuaded small business owners to embrace the central tenet of her tidying method: keep the things you need. bring you joy and throw the rest away.

She is now gearing up for the November release of her latest book, “Marie Kondo’s Kurashi at Home,” which shows readers how to apply her methods to every aspect of their lives. Among her suggestions is to practice “joy-spotting”, an exercise that we could translate as “stop a while to smell the flowers”, which she recommends that her four million followers on Instagram adopt.

“When we’re back in the office or developing new ways to work in a hybrid way, it’s an ideal time to reflect on what makes us happy,” Kondo told me in an email interview.

Kondo entered the US conscience with 2014’s “The Magic of Tidying Up,” a hugely successful book that turned his last name into a synonym for order: “make a Kondo in your sock drawer and get your life in order.” In 2016, she released “It Brings Me Joy,” an illustrated guide on how to fold shirts and find your personal “power focus.” Kondo proclaimed that Americans had already reached a peak of their personal possessions.

But perhaps he came to that conclusion too soon. The last two years have shown that we are nowhere near the peak of consumerism’s mountain. When the pandemic hit, Americans immediately turned their period of prolonged isolation into an opportunity to buy things for their homes. Even disruptions in the global supply chain, rising gasoline prices and inflation have not been able to slow down our propensity to spend. We began to see delays in deliveries and scarcity of supplies as challenges that turned the experience of consumption into a marathon. An eight-month wait for a couch? No problem. Spending on home renovations hit a four-year high in 2022, according to a survey by the website Houzz.

At the height of the pandemic, when social life and activities were limited, shopping “was probably one of the few things that a lot of people could do that felt enjoyable,” said Travis Osborne, director of the Anxiety Center at Evidence Based Treatment Centers in Seattle. “Purchasing and consumption are behaviors that reinforce each other. At the brain level, neurochemicals related to feeling good are released when we buy things.”

And so we went shopping with the greatest enthusiasm. But now that we’re returning to a life lived outside of our homes, Kondo is here to remind us that the Instant Pots and inflatable pools we’ve purchased may not bring us much joy, if they ever did. .

“People may have accumulated additional objects during the pandemic that brought them joy at that time,” she said. But now, “I recommend that people choose objects that bring them joy and give thanks to objects that no longer serve them, and give them to others.”

It is the signal for the great post-pandemic American purge. Last month, Martha Stewart held a two-day sale at her farm in Bedford, Connecticut, where she sold a lot of personal items — garden furniture, wicker baskets, Christmas decorations and, according to a Curbed reporter, decorative concrete sheets offered at US$ 40 (R$ 205). Tickets for the event had a starting price of US$ 250 (more than R$ 1,200). Homeowners who need tips on how to put away all the stuff they bought during the pandemic can now turn to season two of Netflix’s “Get Organized with the Home Edit” on April 1, in which the bubbly duo of experts home storage Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin rearrange overcrowded pantries to create Instagram-worthy images.

At Junkluggers in New York, business is up 30% over this period last year as New Yorkers are calling on the company to remove exercise equipment, standing desks and low-quality furniture bought to cover. spaces left empty due to months of waiting for more expensive items. Josh Cohen, owner of the Junkluggers franchise, who is rarely swayed by the things people ask him to carry, was shocked by the fervor with which consumers were trying to get rid of their Peloton exercise bikes. “I can say that nothing surprises me anymore, but this was one thing that surprised me,” he said. “We’re talking about a $1,500 exercise bike.”

As much as we love shopping, we may also enjoy throwing things away. What we appreciate is not so much a clean home as the act of throwing away what we don’t need, said Tal Ben-Shahar, director of the new master’s program in happiness studies at the Centenary University of New Jersey, which points out that people derive happiness from experiences, not objects. “Once it passed, when it was over, we got used to it very quickly,” he said. “But it was the process that generated the joy, not the result.”

Shopping gives us new things to discard, and removing excesses also gives us new opportunities for consumption – as Kondo knows all too well. She sells a line of baskets, boxes and receptacles at the Cointainer Store, with options like a “serenity” themed jewelry box for $14.99 or a file box that offers “calm” for $14.99. $49.99 (R$250). On her Instagram page, she promotes her partnerships, including one with the website Shutterfly, and encourages her followers to, for example, wrap themselves in a Marie Kondo-branded blanket emblazoned with a photo of their families.

Those interested in adopting a leaner lifestyle can also purchase products directly from Kondo’s website. The $55 Indigo Shibori Dye Kit, for example, is marketed as an opportunity to find joy. What can bring more joy than learning a traditional method of dyeing fabrics? But the product serves a second purpose: when you’re done dyeing all those old tea towels, and they’ve stopped bringing you joy, you’ll have new products to throw away.