How to Marie Kondo Your Career and Enter the Next Decade With a Bang
And go from job to joy.
Photo: Smith House Photography; Design: Ginny Macdonald
There’s not much room for debate. Marie Kondo is the Japanese organizing consultant who is transforming lives everywhere and despite her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing launching in 2011, Kondo continues to inspire people around the world to get their spaces in order.
In the book, she breaks down her two-pronged approach to cleaning. Step one: Physically touch your belongings, see if said belongings spark a sense of joy, and if they don’t, toss them. Step two: After you’ve done the dirty work and dumped those joyless items, put everything else back in a place where it’s easy to see, grab, and put back again.
It has brought countless people lasting results—to point, none of her customers are repeats. “In this book,” she writes in the Introduction, “I have summed up how to put your space in order in a way that will change your life forever.”
So we wanted to take her home tidying methods and apply them to work. Because WHY NOT? We want to change our relationship to work forever too! If she can work magic in the home, why can’t she work magic at the office?
Here are four KonMari methods that can be applied to your career, too and kick off the new decade with a bang!
KonMari Method Lesson #1: Tackle Categories, Not Rooms
Tidying by category is Kondo’s first rule. She says to start with clothing, then books and move on to items like documents and old photographs later. The reasoning is that things in like-categories tend to be spread throughout your house, not confined to one space.
How to apply this at work: This will be similar to time-batching, or grouping like activities together. Set aside time the morning for email, time mid-morning for conference calls, and time in the afternoon for writing, creative ideas, and brainstorming. Sure, there will be the odd bits of “clutter” that pop-up during the day-- the email that needs a response while you’re in the midst of your creative jive but batching helps you stay focused and on track.
KonMari Method Lesson #2: Picking Up Each Item and Asking, “Does this spark joy?”
For most of us, minimalism isn’t our strong suit. But from those in power suits to tracksuits, everyone can get on board.
In the book, this method is applied in the literal sense to the home. The clothes that are shoved in the back corner of your closet that you need to lose ten pounds to wear. The pile of books you keep meaning to read. Just because you bought it, doesn’t mean you own it. In fact, if it doesn’t bring you joy, it’s owning you.
“Just because you bought it, doesn’t mean you own it. In fact, if it doesn’t bring you joy, it’s owning you.”
How to apply this at work: The most obvious place you can start is your desk. You can apply the same method to stacks of papers, old receipts, empty bottles of Advil, and that half-eaten Snickers stashed in the back for a 2 pm sugar craving. If your desk is surrounded by “joyless” items that you don’t need for work or taxes, toss them.
Next. There are parts of all jobs that are joyless. From the startup founder who hates Quickbooks to the intern who can’t stand the tedium of stuffing gift bags. However, you can apply a minimalist mindset to your work by understanding what each piece of your work puzzle is contributing to the larger picture. There is a nugget of joy in each task. Even if it's just that at some point, it will be over.
If you’re a freelancer (and can afford to turn down jobs, which, we know is not easy) ask yourself if this project or client will bring you joy and if what you’re contributing will bring joy to other people.
KonMari Method Lesson #3: Put the Kibosh on Nostalgia
Many times through the book Kondo talks about nostalgia and hazardous sentimental attachments to our possessions. Whether it’s boxes of old photographs and birthday cards that lead us down a long and windy path of nostalgia and distraction while cleaning, to items we hold onto for no reason—aka your grandmother’s boots you're keeping even though they’re two sizes too small. Talk about a tropical depression. The nostalgia hurricane is real and it's ruling your life. Feeling strongly about stuff is okay but it can also be the enemy of tidy. Kondo says people keep things out of "fear for the future or attachment to the past.”
“Talk about a tropical depression. The nostalgia hurricane is real and it’s ruling your life.”
How to apply this to work: It's not just stuff kids! We have nostalgia and emotional attachment to ideas. So, what should we do to make space for bigger and better creative thoughts? Kill your darlings. That’s right. The creative ideas that keep falling dead in the water. Every single one of us has that “golden” idea that we can’t escape. The one we reposition and bring up in pitch meetings, the one we’re sure is going to hit with ONE client that simply never does. Accept that. Thank the idea for taking up space in your head and let it go.
Also, those notebooks full of half-baked ideas and sparks (ahem duds) of genius you jotted down and have never looked through—toss them. We know you’re saving them for that one time you’re going to need to reference a page scribbled on in 2007 but just say goodbye. If ideas are really that great, they’ll stick around. You don’t need to create a physical library of your own brain.
KonMari Method Lesson #4: Simplifying and Letting Go Feels Good, So GOOD
Yes! Getting rid of clutter and freeing up your home space feels great. You feel lighter, more free, and less emotionally tied to STUFF! When it comes to closets specifically the Marie Kondo method creates space between stuff. Your clothes have SPACE GLORIOUS SPACE to live and breathe! Dressing all of the sudden becomes easier when you can SEE everything! Decision making is easier when you love everything and therefore you become more efficient with your time! Exclamations abound!! (For real, this is happy, joyous stuff.)
How to apply this to work: You don’t have to do anything here! Once you start letting go of the clutter on your desk and in your head, you will free up space for the next steps. You’ll be giving your career the breathing room it needs to expand. It will also help you become more clear on what projects to say yes to, and which projects to turn down.
You’ll feel relief instead of anxiety, joy instead of a job.
What are some ways you can apply this method to work? Share in the comments below!
This post was originally published on September 15, 2016, and has since been updated.
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Help! The 80-Hour Work Week Is the New Norm
And it's killing us.
It’s 10PM on a Monday and I’m still working. As painful as it is to say this-- it’s pretty normal. I expect it is the same for many of you reading this.
Work has taken over our world in this never-ending cycle of touch base, make moves, move the needle, squeak the wheel, hustle, bustle, go get ‘em, I can’t turn my phone off on the weekend, because nobody else does-- BUT HOLD UP! Hooooold up, slow that gravy work train down. What are we doing to ourselves?
We’re guilty of doling out advice about how to work smarter on a Sunday. In recent years there has been a steady rise of U.S. employees not only working after hours but also during lunch breaks and over the weekends. And while the U.S. does advocate for work-life balance, we are a country of "overloaded" workers.
We’ve talk a bit in the past about France, their commitment to the 35-hour work week, and their ban on emails past 6pm. There are other female-led companies that have taken similar steps to alter the course. Shani Godwin, CEO of Communiqué USA, a leading marketing strategy and creative content company serving small businesses and Fortune 500 brands has implemented this approach. Shani has a number of work-life balance policies, including no emailing after work hours, as a way to ensure her employees have time to manage their personal lives and spend time with their children and families.
The problem is that Godwin is part of the minority of companies that enforce such policies.
We’ve all bought into the myth of the hustle, in part because the fear of failing or “getting in trouble” as an adult is very real. What if my boss needs me at 2pm on a Saturday? What if there is a last minute crisis? If everyone else is doing it, and I’m not, will I be seen as a less valuable employee? Will I be replaced?
"The reality is we have to keep up with the Work Jones'. Even if that means responding to weekend emails."
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The answer is likely yes. The reality is we have to keep up with the Work Jones'. Even if that means responding to weekend emails.
***
Do you remember as a kid first learning about peer pressure? When your mom or dad would ask, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?”
“NO!” You’d yell indignantly, at that point secure in your sense of self and autonomy. Well, we’re a little less indignant these days and a lot less free-- at least from our phones, and we’ve jumped. But since we've all jumped it's up to us to figure out how to make it work, and understand the breaking point of our own burnout.
Most of us agree (even our bosses) that we have to give ourselves permission to take a break. Some creatives set ground rules about emailing, and will put up an away message telling emailers that they will be available from 8am-8pm, and that all weekend emails will be returned on Monday AM. Try it out. It might work for you. It might only add to the anxiety you feel about not responding immediately.
Carly Kuhn, an LA-based illustrator (@thecartorialist) who has worked with brands like Absolut, and just took over Coachella’s Snapchat this past weekend, says “You have to take advantage of situations, and hustle, especially when it’s your own thing, but that makes it so hard to turn off.”
But she sees a positive. “Our world is more collaborative than it's ever been, and work and life are similar. But for me, that makes those special gem moments when you meet someone new, and you realize we don’t have to talk about work, this is not about work, all the more special.”
Rachel Mae Furman, leisure expert (yes, that is one of her real titles, bless) of Smoke & Honey says, “The problem with the current work culture is that it doesn’t leave any time for leisure, and leisure is vital to working better. To be on top of your career game, you need to be on top of your leisure game.”
“To be on top of your career game, you need to be on top of your leisure game.”
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So how do we put an end to the imbalance?
You have to make a choice-- and it's a personal one. What are you willing to commit to your job? What are you willing to give up? Do you even see working toward a goal as giving something up? Are you OK with having after-work drinks be "work?"
In part, it depends on what industry you want to work in. If you work at a startup, you know you're going to be clocking insane hours. If you want a job that clocks out at 6pm, you can find one.
But very successful people work this hard. All the time. Don't shoot the messenger.
Arianna Schioldager is Create & Cultivate's editorial director. You can find her on IG @ariannawrotethis and more about her on this site she never updates www.ariannawrotethis.com
What If You Could Only Work 35 Hours a Week?
If the French can do it, can we?
The idea of a 9-5 is laughable for most of us. The Great 40-Hour Work Week Myth. A concept adapted after the Great Depression in efforts to stimulate the job market, 40 hours was considered a shorter work week. It was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 passed, which established the five-day, 40-hour work week for everyone, which is still observed today.
In France however, a 35-hour work week is the current law. The cap, introduced in 1999 was flagship reform of the Socialist government in power in efforts to fuel job creation.
In January of this year, in what is likely to be one of the final big policy initiatives of President Francoise Holland's government, Holland and Socialist prime minister Manuel Valls proposed an overhaul of the policy. It was not met with welcome arms. Quite the opposite, working to divide an already fractured Socialist party. Of the country's 3,400 page labor code, 125 are dedicated to working hours-- hours many citizens see as a major tenet of the Socialist party.
On the 9th of this month, protestors took to the streets as Holland and team presented draft reform of the labor code to cabinet.
All of this uproar got us thinking. Surely we're better off than the 1800s when it was standard for men, women, and children in the U.S. to work 14-hour days thanks to the Industrial Revolution. But with the average worker in the US clocking 47 hours per week, what would a 35-hour work week even look like?
And when, if ever, would you be in the prime position to pitch it to your boss?
THE FAIRYTALE THAT NEVER CAME TRUE
This one has nothing to do with princes, and everything to do with market principles.
Once upon a time in the '30s, influential economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that as technology advanced and made us more productive, the work week for man would become much shorter. In an essay called, "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," Keynes anticipated a 15-hour work week. Today, we are working longer hours than ever, though one part of Keynes theory came true.
Technology has made us faster, more connected, and in effect more productive. We link up with international clients with the click of a button. We can upload and market from our phones. Yet advancements have increased our workload, blurring the boundaries between on-the-clock hours and off.
Technological progress also fueled a consumerism boom, so instead of working less, people started buying more. The easier it became to market and distribute goods, the more we bought, and the more bought the more we had to work to bankroll our consumer tendencies.
THE BENEFITS FOR YOU, YOUR BOSS, & THE ECONOMY
The Indeed Job Happiness Index 2016 scrutinized data to rank job satisfaction in 35 countries as well as major cities in the US and Europe. The study, released earlier this month, revealed that the happiest workers in the US live in Los Angeles. According to Indeed the happiest workers in LA are those with “personal assistant, creative director, production assistant, and teaching assistant” roles. Might this have something to do with the non-typical work hours of those jobs? Perhaps.
According to the study, "Compensation consistently ranks as the least significant factor when it comes to considering what makes people happy at work. However, although the work-life balance correlates closely with overall job satisfaction." In other words: shorter hours.
"The work-life balance correlates closely with overall job satisfaction."
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There are other potential benefits. Shorter hours for one worker means more hours for another. Which is why some economists believe that a shorter work week is a job creation tool.
Shorter hours might also mean a reduction in stress, anxiety, be better for your overall happiness, and reduce child care costs if applicable. It would mean less money, but if the saying is true, money can't buy happiness.
To deliberately work less would mean that you would also have to deliberately buy less.
SO IS A CONDENSED SCHEDULE RIGHT FOR YOU?
Hard to say. If you want to broach the subject with your employer, the best argument for a shorter work week is that it has been proven to increase productivity. But you also need to consider that the adage of working smarter, not harder applies to the case of the 35-hour week.
If you have only four days to complete assignments you would typically finish in five days, it's economical for the company, beneficial to your mental health, potentially giving you the opportunity to find happiness and live-work balance.
Is that, and a reduced pay check, worth the extra day off to you? Because you can't have your cake and eat it too in this case-- no matter what the French do.
Or you could simply move to LA, where we might have the happiest workers and the angriest drivers.