Marie Kondo in Katie's Closet

they're not very sexy. They're Brooks Brothers pajamas. I look more like Lucy Ricardo than Maril and Monroe, So think about that for a minute. Anyway, I just said goodbye to our guest today, Well, my guests, since Brian's not here. Marie Condo. You probably have heard of Marie Condo. She's the queen of tidying and the creator of something called the con Marie Method. Have you ever heard someone say I just condoed my house. Well, they're talking about Marie Condo.

She in fact, has made condoing a verb. Her books, including the runaway bestseller The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, have sold over eight million copies and She talks about really learning how to weed things out of your life, to basically throw things away. I have a real problem with this people, I don't know if you're like me. I'm a borderline hoarder. So this was very instructive for me. So I talked to her about why this is so emotional,

how she started her tiding empire. Have her two young daughters two and one changed her it all is she less of a neat nick because she now has kids. I even let her loose in my closet. She's a very brave woman. And one last note, we had a wonderful Japanese interpreter Ico. She joined us for this episode, So things are going to sound a bit different, a little more global than usual. Here's how what will work.

I'll ask a question, you'll hear Marie Condo answer in Japanese, and then Ico will come in with the English translation. It's going to be a lot of fun. Buckle up, everybody, let's do this thing. First of all, Ken, that's about the extent of my Japanese and erigato, which means thank you, Knishua means hello. Yes, all right, That's that's pretty much it for my Japanese vocabulary. But welcome to my home, and it's so nice to meet you. But the way

to see this, they're very happy to be here. Thank you. Um. You have had such a fascinating life. You're thirty two years old, but your journey really began when you were just five. I understand you became obsessed with tidiness when you were that age. Do you remember that and do you remember what motivated it? Tost So, my mother used to read a lifestyle magazine UM that came to us

all the time. We had a subscription, and I would read it every time the new one would come, and then I would try some of the housework tips and try some of the storage UM things that I really like to see how they worked. And your parents were they neat and tidy or were they messy? So my

parents were quite average in that sense. They had a lot of things, and it looked at one glance as if everything was very clean and tidy, but the moment you opened something, the inside was a little bit more cletterer. I feel that. So the sums um, what did they make of your interest or propensity towards tidiness. Did they applauded or did they ever say, Marie, please don't clean up your room? So this name and what do she got? So one time, I very into tidying up and cleaning,

and it's throwing things away. Um. This was around the time I was in middle school, and so some suits that my father really cherished or bags that my mother loved, actually threw away. And then they got very angry at me and told me not to tidy. I don't blame them. I would have been upset too. Now that I reflect on it, I really understand that I did something very mean. Um, But in my perspective at the time, I felt like, oh, they're not using these things. There's dust covered, They're never

going to use it. And I was really working off my own perspective. You also started reading books on feng shui and on neatness when you were eighteen years old. You'd go to the library and study it. What kinds of books would you read? So it was around the time the fengue was becoming popular in Japan. So I was able to find these things called mooks, which in Japanese is the in between of magazin means and books, and so I was able to find these simple ones

that I could actually read. When you turned nineteen, people started asking you to help them declutter, to help them, I guess, organized their lives. The waiting list got to be what six months long? What would you do for people? And how did that happen? Do you look? So when I was in nineteen, I went to university and my

hobby then was to clean my friends places. And then sounds fun, so fun for you, that's right, And so rumors then spread through that between my friends and they're saying that when Comari comes over, your house becomes really clean and organized. And then since then strangers started to email me through that, and then eventually it became my work. That's so funny. How much did you charge? What you call? Um? So? At first I was a student, so I didn't really

know how to price things at the time. UM, So when I was doing my friends places, they would just buy me lunch. But then eventually, UM, when when people asked for the charge, I wouldn't say for five hours, uh, five thousand yen, which is about fifty dollars. Wow, that's a pretty good deal in the day. So you decided to write a book because there was so much interest in this before I ask you about your book, Marie. Were you surprised that so many people wanted your services,

especially college students? Um? So when I decided to write a book was quite after I had already graduated from university. How old were you when you wrote your proposal? No, so I could the pupils out of thank you five years old? So seven years ago. Yeah. And also the time when my wait list became about six months was maybe ten years after I started doing my job. Um. But all my friends and family who had experienced my

journey has have all been very surprised about all of this. Um. Your book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up is an international bestseller. How many copies have been sold? Marie? So, it's been sold in forty one countries. Um, and we've sold all together eight million, four hundred thousand. How do you say wow in Japanese? Initial wow? Wow, that's amazing. Um. I thought this was so interesting, Marie. It really took off after the tsunami in Japan and what happened that

changed people's mindsets as a result of the tsunami. So, in Japan, right after this all happened, the tsunami, and everything was it was on TV every single day, and that actually led to a lot of people really reconsidering and thinking about what is important to them. Um, what is it that it's in my life that's important? And the first things that they may have thought about are the things that surround them or the things that they had owned. And I think that was something that led

to UM, people reading my book. I imagine though people reconsidered material possessions and possibly thought some of them, we're not as important as they might have believed. So this

designing it but UM, I think it's very true. UM, A lot of people really just spent their time looking over their things one at a time, and when they really took their times to think about each and everything, I think they started to realize that before it may have given them joy, but now that they look at it now, it doesn't give them as much joy anymore. Let's talk about the Connoree method if we could. UM. I've heard of it and I'm excited to learn more

about it. But it's really, I guess, first and foremost about decluttering and simplifying your life. Is that right? Um? If anything, my method is really about really thinking about what makes you happy. UM. And then to be able to really treadure the things that are actually important to you. So that entails everything, uh, books, clothing, kitchen udencils, bathroom products, etcetera. Yes, so through this method, we look at every single thing

that you own, and everything is supposed to bring you joy. Yes, So it's really about figuring out how each and everything really does give joy or not. Is that too limiting my produce? Sergianna asked, if you know she has a kitchen sponge, it doesn't necessarily bring her joy, but it's really important to have around the house. So how do you differentiate things that bring you joy and things that

are just simply necessary to live? Looking me, Um, So that's actually a kind of question that I often get. So one thing about this method is that I hope that people discover and find, uh, even in the small things that are very helpful to you, that actually the fact that you have this thing that's helpful to you is actually giving you some joy, and that you feel gratitude towards even the smallest things. Tell her I'm never going to look at my kitchen sponge the same way. Well,

not any me tonight. It's true. So people really start to really love even the small things like sponges. Really, alright, Gianna, let the record show you are loving your lunge. Um, what if what if too many things bring joy to someone. We're sitting in my closet. By the way, it's a it's a serious walking closet. I mean, if I could describe it for our listeners, it's really a bedroom that was converted into a closet. I'm embarrassed to say, but I have a lot of clothes, and for my job,

not as much now as before. It was necessary for me to have a lot of clothes. And now look at it, it's ridiculous. I have so many clothes. I can't really find anything. Having said that, take me through how I would declutter this closet. And I'm sorry that

was such a long question. I well cause I also regarding clothes, first of all, it's you have to look at all your clothes, um, So take them all out, whether they're clothes they're affolded, or whether they're clothes are hanging, bring them all into one place, and then bring them over to somewhere else, so that you actually have to take each piece of clothing each time and hold them, and you hold it and you put it close to

your heart on the things give so UM. You definitely hold your clothes UM and then feel whether you feel these positive feelings or not UM, and then really feel these physical sensations of whether you feel positive by holding them UM. And that is something very fundamental in my Calmari method. I'm sure a lot of our listeners like me think, gosh, maybe this doesn't bring me joy now, but maybe it'll bring me joy later when I lose

a few pounds or it comes back into style. So just in case I want to hang on to this UM, maybe I spent a fair amount of money on it, or maybe it's something that I think I might wear in the future. So I think people hold onto things

with those thoughts in mind. How do you how do you get them to get out of that mind that it almost There are actually two ways must So the first method that I suggest is that when you go through all your clothing, just start with the things that are very apparent to you, so ones that you know immediately don't spark joy in you, or the things that maybe UM do you you know immediately that you want to keep UM. And by starting to let go of the things that are apparent to you that you don't

want to keep. Then you start to actually be able to build the ability to recognize joy easier UM, and then you'll be able to work through your grayer zones as well the more still small oil UM. So regarding clothes, when when you're thinking one day that I'm going to wear this UM and it's it's really also important to

think about why I'm thinking these things. How did I come to the idea of saying that I'm going to wear this one day, and whether that's something that's more heavy, for example, to be thinking, oh, I spent all this money, therefore I'm going to wear it one day, and maybe that's a more heavy sort of sensation as opposed to maybe it gives you joy to say, oh, um, you know this is going to encourage me to lose some weight,

and if that's a positive feeling UM. And so to really understand these reasons and feel these sensations a positive or negative or heavy UM, and to really kind of taste almost the physical sensations that you feel when you come to these ideas UM can be very helpful. One of the sections in the book is seasonal Clothes Eliminate the need to store off season clothes, and you advocate

pitching rather than storing. UM. So the reasoning behind is is that UM, in working with my clients, I did come across many cases where people did have UM, you know, a summer clothes put away or winter close put away depending on the season. UM. But by what I also found that is that a lot of people miss the opportunity to actually flip their clothing over with the seasons. Because you're storing so much, they have no idea how much they actually own, UM, and so UM they end

up buying something that they actually already have. I've done that, so you have like UM, and so that leads to not understanding what they in fact own and then because of that, UM, not really seeing what's actually necessary for them. So you don't make the switch. So you try to have winter, spring, summer, and fall in your closet so at once. UM. Yes, at least for myself and many of my clients. UM, by the end of all the tidying, we're able to see what we have for all seasons.

One exception possibly are things such as coats which are which do take up a lot of a lot of space, or boots they only wear in the winter, or on the flip side, swimwear that you own me where in the summer. These small things, they might actually do some seasonal switching around, especially here in New York, because people have very small closets. Um, this is unusual. Listeners, Please don't hate me because I have a big closet at by the way, but many people have very small spaces

to keep their things. You can do, ladies, they thought, I'm not a um. So, it's definitely just a suggestion to really try and have everything in one place, all the clothes that you have in one place, and be able to know. What's really important is that you are able to know what you actually have at all times. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with the delightful Charmie Marie Condo and now back to Marie Condo. There are a lot of books

out there, self help books about organizing your life. Why do you think yours has resonated so much and sold so many copies? What's different about your technique so that won't let you? Um? So, I think it comes from the fact that my book is not just about cleaning your room, but rather it's about through the process of tidying and organizing to face yourself and to understand yourself better.

What order do you need to declutter your life? You start with clothes and then you move on to other items. What is the order that you recommend so the in my method, I recommend that people start with clothes, then books, than documents, and then miscellaneous things, and then things that give you memories, sentim and some things. Yeah, I am extremely, extremely extremely sentimental, are you? It's all this new? What

does she so? I might be more of a more kind of brisk sort of personality rather than super sentimental because of the work I do. You're lucky. You're lucky because I think a lot of people have a hard time parting with things that they feel represents their family or memories are very special. My husband isn't sentimental at all, but I'm super sentimental, so I have a hard time parting with things. So I'm glad it's the fourth thing

on your list. I wanted to ask you the parallel between a clean, tidy environment and your peace of mind and what it does for you and your daily life, and how you've seen it change your clients and people you know, and yourself really. So as regarding the effects of a clean environment, I think it does have both a physical and psychological effect, and it probably reduces stress. Not feeling frantic looking for things and misplacing things and trying to find an item of clothing probably makes you

less anxious. Yes, I agree. I think um, by being able to move along smoother throughout your day really does give you room to not have to worry about the small things. Um, and definitely lessons the stress in your life. You have many clients now, Um, how much do you charge? And what have you found that your clients have in common? I know everyone's different, but is there a common threat among them? Um? So actually I have sort of stopped

right now to give private lessons or tidy. I'm more focused on teaching my method and so for example, doing these consulting to teach people how to actually do so you have disciples now who go out and teach your method to other people? Or do they have to be certified or take a class? Yes, that's true. I actually, um, we do give certifications and right now it's actually going on. But when you did have clients, when you saw people, was there a common threat among those clients, so all

this name. So, one thing that I found is that not only did my clients really want to clean, but they often have some other related problems in their lives that they want to deal with and so and cleaning is just a sort of way to grapple at these problems. So it's a metaphor for something deeper that's troubling them. They need some kind of freeing. I think that's exactly right. Have you ever had hoarders or people who simply cannot

part with their possessions and you've suggested psychiatric help. So this is designing. Um. I don't necessarily, um suggest psychological help or do psychological things necessarily, but through the process of tidying, many of my clients do notice in themselves certain psychological things. UM. For example, I had a client who said, oh, I have these tendencies because I have certain resentments towards my mother. Or I had clients who

were saying that, oh, I'm keeping all these jobs. That's and that's related to this fear that I have towards my job. UM. So they do books books because I'm feeling certain fear or uncertainty about my jobs. UM. And so they often do come to certain psychological conclusions through that. So in Away Marie's the therapists, do you meet the attical talk those get on this give it's true? Um, I do you know? What I'm actually doing is the tidying and cleaning, But um, when we look at the results,

I'm often doing something more psychological as well. What is the strangest thing you've seen a client really attached to that they couldn't let go, or any other strange experience you've had working with people. So one thing that comes to mind is one of my clients was a collector of masks from all over the world. Um, they had ballroom masks, all these different kinds of masks, and when you go into the room, it was quite a strange environment because there were faces everywhere. So did they get

rid of them or keep them? Zimbo on the the ones that just brought them joy? I still still think, Um so yes. So she did go through every single mask to figure out what they actually sparked joy in her. Um, it ended up being quite a lot that remained that did spark joy. But she was quite proud because she could now confidently say, all of these mass leon are things that spark Joy. Are your Japanese clients or were your Japanese clients different than your American clients. So this

one thing I noticed. I think generally speaking, UM Japanese and American clients tend to have sort of the similar problems regarding tidying. But one thing I did notice is that UM people Western people often have more sentimental attachment towards their things UM, especially things that have a lot of memory, maybe things that were passed on UM or inherited. Our Japanese people in general a little less. Do they

accumulate less? Are they more minimalists in their kind of design and possessions or is that just something that I think it's like because a lot of people do wonder that UM. But the thing is, I do think it's maybe sort of a myth that's sort of created UM. And actually there's really a lot of people who own a lot of things in Japan as well, so they fall victim to clutter to No, It's true. We have UM a listener voicemail that I thought we would play,

and then we have some Twitter questions as well. Hi, I had a question for Marie Condo. I was wondering, what's something in her home that is totally unnecessary, but she keeps because it sparks her joy. Thanks. No antique. No, So I have this pair of antique tongues. Um. That's actually very difficult to use. Um, and I very very rarely use it, but whenever I just look at it, when I opened the drawers, it just gives me so much joy. All right, good to know. Um, you have

two young daughters. How old are they? Imoca two years old? And why you're Wow, that's wonderful, that's so fun. I have two daughters too, and but there twenty six and twenty one. Um, And I'm curious if your attitude has become a bit more relaxed, because, let's face it, parenthood can be very messy because kids can be very messy. So, um, have you changed at all in terms of feeling that you want to be super neat and tidy? Hi? Uh so it's true. After birth, Um, I became very different

in my attitude. Um. I think before I gave birth, I was always clean, Everything was tidy and organized. But then I realized once I gave birth that it is quite impossible, and so I gave up being a perfectionist. Kids will do that to you, I think, and and are you going to teach them? Do you think, uh, the importance of being tidy? Or you think you'll just see if they naturally go that way? So this name. So one thing that I do try to keep in mind in front of my children is that I show

my children how happy I am when I'm cleaning. So I actually really so cute right now. Marie's husband showed me a picture of their little girl. Is she cleaning? Oh, she's folding. She's folding her blanket. Oh my god, that's hilarious. What's her name? That's key? So cute? And she's how old? To your sold she's your two year old? So cute. You're starting them young. That's good though, you know, I

think you know, I think that's great. I wish I had done that with my daughter's My older daughter really does try to fold and roll things now because she's been seeing me just be happy folding. I'm just curious. Your closet probably looks quite different than this closet. How many items of clothing do you have in your closet? To nine disco? Um, So, I've actually never really counted how many I've had I have, but I have a closet this big, this wide, just a regular closet, and

that's where i'd fit all my clothes. But I mean twenty items of close thirty So this this on to maybe about forty. And you always wear white. Now it's only when I'm at my job that I would wear white. Um. On other days, I just wear any other colors. And but you no longer wear pants because pants don't give you joy jeans, So I have always been saying I actually don't wear jeans or a long pants ever. Um. But actually last year my husband actually recommend this and

suggested that maybe I try. I actually bought one pair of jeans. I'm sure you look great in them. You're teeny tiny. How tall are you and how much do you weigh? I know that's a very personal question, but I feel safe asking you. So I only know it in centimeters. But I'm a hundred and forty seven centimeters, which is I think fourfeit eight four ft eight yeah, I think it is four ft eight yeah. Uh. And I'm thirty seven kilograms, which is that's eighty one and

a half pounds. You. This is a pretty powerful lady in a teeny body. Did you ever imagine that you would make a whole career out of this, out of helping people tidy up. Yeah, I never thought that this would be something that I would be doing. Um As a small child, I had idea that tidy and could be so life changing for so many people, and even today and here I am now and I'm still very surprised. What happens when you throw something away and you regret it and you miss it and you think, oh, I

wish I had that. That's actually something that everybody who has tidied and done this kind of tiding does experience this sort of regret of having let go of something that they didn't want to actually let go of. But that experience is actually quite important to actually learn what that feels like and to feel that, oh, these are some of the things that I shouldn't be letting go of,

something that's actually important to me. And of course, ideally in your first try, you actually know immediately what you're going to regret and where you're not going to regret. But that's not always the case. But I want to I want people to see that kind of experience of understanding regret and to put a positive spin on it.

And understand that, Oh, now I've learned some thing through this process of tidying, and now when I look to do it again, I'll maybe understand better what brings me joy and what I'm able to part with some of this some more. And I've also noticed that people who have actually gone through this process of tidying and organizing often might feel the certain regret, But um, don't actually

feel that at a very deep sense or a depressing way. Um, once you've actually gone through the process of tidying, that's sort of a change in feelings that you received through the process, sort of a fleeting moment, but not a depressing moment. Did you ever worry growing up that you're desire to be neat and tidy was less of a passion and more of a obsession or compulsion, not to psychoanalyze you or anything more. Oh, this is um sure. Actually, when I was a student, I think I was quite

obsessed with tidying. Um. I've always felt that I must throw things away, or I must organize, I must tidy. But when it actually became my job and I started to work with clients and actually start to see the positive effects that my tidying has created with my clients. Um, that's when I suddenly realized that, oh wait, actually this has become my passion and this is like a passionate thing for me. So you don't worry about it anymore.

Because your college thesis was how to declutter your apartment from a sociological perspective. Yes, I did write about tidying up in my college thesis. So you still love doing this and talking about it and sharing what you do with others. Yes, I'm actually even surprised by how passionate

I get when I speak about tidying even today. A huge thank you as always to my production team for taking the show on the road today, Gianna Palmer, our producer, Jared O'Connell, our audio engineer who's just getting over a bad cold, So an extra thank you to Jared. Please don't touch anything in my apartment, Jared and Nora Richie,

our production assistant. As well, thanks to our social media whiz kid I can call you a kid, Alexon Bresnik, and to the inimitable Emily Beena over at Katie Kirk Media. Also a very special thanks to our interpreter for this episode, Iko Massubucci. We could not have done this without you. Iko. Also, our friends over at Architectural Digests actually made a video of this whole process, as Marie taught me how to

part with things that I've had way too long. The video will be out by the time you hear this, and I'll link to it on social media so you can all see it and hopefully learn something. Brian gold Smith and I are the show's executive producers. Mark Phillips wrote our theme music. And people please stay in touch. Email us at comments at currec podcast dot com. Leave a voicemail at nine to nine to two, four, four, six, three seven. Tell us the episodes you've enjoyed. Tell us

who you'd like to hear from. We're always looking for great guests. Johann I thought Danny Meyer would be a really fun guest anyway. Jeanne is sitting on the floor of my closet right now. I'm on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook under Katie Curic, and I'm Katie dot Kuric on Snapchat because I'm so like the kids. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you next time.