Marie Kondo's Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life

by Marie Kondo

Overview

Transform your home into a haven of calm and achieve your ideal lifestyle with this inspirational visual guide featuring more than 100 photographs, from the Netflix star and #1 bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
 
“Encouraging readers to take an even more holistic and personal approach to curating their environments, [Marie] Kondo shares a visual guide featuring more than 100 photographs to inspire them to envision, and then create, more fulfilling and joyful lives.”—J.P. Morgan’s nextlist 2023

Inspired by the Japanese concept of kurashi, or “way of life,” Kurashi at Home invites you to visualize your best life from the moment you wake up until the end of each day. By applying Marie Kondo's time-tested query—“Does it spark joy?”—to your mindset and behaviors, you are invited to take an even more holistic and personal approach to curating your environment by imagining what your life could look like full of connection and free from any limitations. This ideal vision then becomes a touchpoint that helps you make conscious, mindful choices—from how you use every corner of your living space to how you take advantage of every moment.
 
At its core, the KonMari philosophy focuses not on what to get rid of, but on what sparks joy in your life. In this inspirational visual guide, beautiful photographs and Kondo's unique suggestions empower you to embrace what you love about your life and then reflect it in your home, activities, and relationships, like creating a calm nook for working, scheduling weekly get-togethers with family or friends, or having relaxing nighttime rituals that promote a restful sleep.
 
Your newfound clarity will inspire you to clear out the unneeded clutter so you can appreciate the inviting spaces, treasured belongings, and peaceful moments that remain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984860781
Publisher:	Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Series:	The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	184,637
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Marie Kondo is a tidying expert, bestselling author, star of Netflix's hit show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, and founder of KonMari Media, Inc. She has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, London Times, and Vogue, and on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Ellen. She was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Read an Excerpt

If you could make any dream come true, what would your ideal lifestyle be?

Exploring the answer to this question helps build the foundation for a life that sparks joy.

That’s why I begin with every client by asking them to share their hopes and dreams. Their eyes shine as they describe a palatial house with lovely furniture in natural colors or a big kitchen where they can bake cakes. But before long reality starts to sink in, and the light in their eyes fades. “I live in a tiny apartment,” they’ll say. “How can I make a palace out of a room that’s just 80 square feet? I guess I should be more realistic.”

On the surface, this seems like a perfectly logical conclusion, and to be honest, for a long time I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. How could I ask my clients to compromise on their dreams? How could I tell someone who loves Renoir to decorate their one-room apartment with something “more suitable,” like Japanese woodblock prints, and just focus on keeping the space clean? That would never motivate them to tidy. The very thought would quench the least spark of joy.

When visualizing our ideal lifestyle, should we give our imagination free rein, or stick to what’s possible? This is a tricky question—one I had to mull over for some time.

In Japanese, the word for “lifestyle” is kurashi. As I pondered this word, I realized I didn’t know exactly what it meant. Looking it up in the Daijisen dictionary of Japanese terms, I discovered an interesting fact. 

According to this source, it means “the act of living; spending each day; daily life; making a livelihood.” The verb kurasu means “to pass one’s time until sunset; to spend one’s day.” In other words, the ideal kurashi simply means the ideal way of spending our time, and therefore is separate from the “ideal home.”

This realization reminded me of my university days when I lived in Tokyo with my parents. Even though I had my own little room, which in Japanese cities is a huge luxury, I was always full of ideals and aspirations. I dreamed of having a bigger room, a cuter kitchen, a little garden on the balcony, nicer curtains on the windows, and so on. But the kitchen was my mother’s territory, which I was forbidden to change without permission, and my room didn’t even have a window, let alone a balcony.

But this gap between my dreams and reality didn’t bother me. I used to boast about how much I loved my room. The reason I loved it was because it was my own space, a place where I could enjoy my ideal lifestyle, whether that meant relaxing before bed with aromatherapy, listening to my favorite classical music, or placing a small vase with a single flower on my bedside table.

In other words, the ideal lifestyle refers to what we do, not to where we live.

Once my clients finish tidying up their homes, very few of them consider moving or completely redecorating afterward. Often the biggest change they describe is how they spend their time at home. Through these changes, they come to love the space in which they live, regardless of whether it matches their ideal.

Even if you can’t move to a new house or apartment, you can still change your lifestyle. You just need to live as if your space is your ideal home. That’s really the point of tidying up. So, when imagining your ideal lifestyle, think concretely about what you’d like to do and how you’d like to spend your time at home.

Oddly enough, once they’ve finished tidying and have realized their ideal lifestyle, many of my clients actually end up with the house—and even the furnishings—of their dreams. I can’t count the times I’ve heard my clients say things like, “Two years after tidying we moved into a house exactly like the one I imagined.” Or “Someone gave me the kind of furniture I’d always wanted.” This is one of the many strange and wonderful effects of tidying that I’ve witnessed through my work.

Whether you believe it or not is up to you. But if you’re going to imagine your ideal lifestyle, why not go all out?

Table of Contents

Preface 7

1 A Dialogue with Yourself 9

2 A Dialogue with Your Home and Possessions 43

3 Visualize Your Ideal Home 61

4 Your Joyful Morning 117

5 Your Joyful Day 137

6 Your Joyful Evening 171

Conclusion 205

Afterword 209

Your Ideal Lifestyle Worksheets 211

Acknowledgments 219

Index 221

Editorial Reviews

08/15/2022

Kondo returns with a wise guide to achieving one’s “ideal lifestyle” that builds upon the “spark joy” philosophy laid out in her bestselling The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. She invites readers to ask themselves “what do you really want to put in order” and to imagine their perfect home. One’s entryway should feel like “a sigh of relief” with just one pair of shoes left out for each family member, a living room should “foster conversation” and have a designated space for each object, and “a good kitchen makes cooking fun.” Then come steps for tidying up each part of a daily routine: morning should involve a good breakfast, daytime plans should stick to an established schedule, and cotton or silk pajamas are a good idea for a calm evening. Along the way, Kondo includes family recipes, among them her mother’s black vinegar chicken wing stew, miso soup, and “amazing amazake.” While some suggestions will likely be a bridge too far (such as wiping the soles of one’s shoes every day), the majority of her advice is sound and easy to implement. This one’s another must-read for Kondophiles. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

10/28/2022

Tidiness guru Kondo's (Spark Joy) newest book begins with her standard tidiness method, but it expands to examine what readers do in their current life in order to spark joy in their lifestyle. The Japanese word for lifestyle is "kurashi," and in this book, it more subtly means living one's ideal life. Filled with practical and common-sense tips and techniques for decluttering one's home and life, the book also includes suggestions for visualizing what one's ideal home and life might be. The book also focuses on the practices and behaviors a person might do in their daily routines to achieve the ideal lifestyle. Kondo incorporates examples from her personal life and Japanese culture to illustrate her suggestions and to enhance her messages. This is mitigated by a series of worksheets at the end to help readers reflect on, identify their ideal lifestyle, and implement it. VERDICT This book moves beyond the home to include everyday activities and lifestyle. It's likely to be in high demand due to Kondo's popularity.—Marjorie Mann

Library Journal

There’s a quiet enthusiasm in Traci Kato-Kiriyama's narration that elicits calm and inspiration—emotions that are fitting for kurashi at home. Marie Kondo translates kurashi loosely as “way of life” or “the ideal way of spending our time.” Kondo, whose “spark joy” method of decluttering organized homes around the world, is back to show us how to create kurashi at home. Kato-Kiriyama’s voice is gentle and clear as she definitively outlines Kondo’s step-by-step process in encouraging tones. Both author and narrator inspire, and even make it sound easy to tap into our ideal vision for our life and space and to incorporate the habits that will allow us to live with simplicity and joy. Kato-Kiriyama’s peacefully persuasive performance is sure to spark joy as listeners create their own kurashi at home. M.F. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

There’s a quiet enthusiasm in Traci Kato-Kiriyama's narration that elicits calm and inspiration—emotions that are fitting for kurashi at home. Marie Kondo translates kurashi loosely as “way of life” or “the ideal way of spending our time.” Kondo, whose “spark joy” method of decluttering organized homes around the world, is back to show us how to create kurashi at home. Kato-Kiriyama’s voice is gentle and clear as she definitively outlines Kondo’s step-by-step process in encouraging tones. Both author and narrator inspire, and even make it sound easy to tap into our ideal vision for our life and space and to incorporate the habits that will allow us to live with simplicity and joy. Kato-Kiriyama’s peacefully persuasive performance is sure to spark joy as listeners create their own kurashi at home. M.F. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2022 - AudioFile