Marie Kondo Reveals Giving up Her 'Extreme' Cleanliness

Lifestyle guru and Netflix star Marie Kondo told fans that she has "kind of given up on" keeping her home perfectly clean this week. Kondo has a new book out now called Marie Kondo's Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life, and in a promotional webinar she admitted that she hasn't been following all of her own recommendations to the letter. However, Kondo said that she believes she making the right choices for her life at this stage.

"My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life," Kondo said at the event, according to a report by The Washington Post. "Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times. I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home."

Kondo and her husband, Takumi Kawahara, have had three children together since they married in 2012 – daughters Miko and Satsuki, and in 2021, son Takumi. In that time, Kondo has risen to global stardom for her KonMari organization method, first popularized in her 2011 book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and the 2019 Netflix original series Tidying Up that followed.

Kondo published a new book in November of 2022, which takes the philosophical lifestyle aspects of her work to a whole new level. In it, Kondo wrote about applying the same ethic of tidiness to the rest of life. One popular excerpt reads: "Tidying up means dealing with all the 'things' in your life. So, what do you really want to put in order?"

For Kondo personally, that changes and evolves as with everyone. She told her webinar guests: "sometimes I pack my schedule so tightly I feel frazzled or am overcome with anxiety." In times like that, perfectionism for its own sake will likely not be productive.

Marie Kondo's Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life is available now in print, digital and audiobook formats in English – and in many other languages. Her other books are available wherever books are sold as well. Tidying Up is streaming now on Netflix.