How Marie Kondo changed her mind about mess: ‘I realised perfect order was not my goal – it was spending time with my kids’

The ‘queen of clean’ on how she learned to love a little bit of clutter

Marie Kondo became a global home-organising phenomenon when she wrote The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up more than a decade ago. The book was published in more than 30 countries and her trademarked KonMari Method of tidying by categorising, ordering and only retaining objects that “spark joy” catapulted her on to Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list in 2015, inspired two Netflix shows – Tidying Up With Marie Kondo and Sparking Joy With Marie Kondo – and amassed the Osaka-born guru 4.1 million decluttering fans on Instagram.

Three children later, the 39-year-old’s mindset has shifted radically. “As long as the living room floor is clean, then that is what the new tidying threshold becomes,” she says. Word of her embracing a “messy” home emerged last year when she explained in a webinar that she had “kind of given up” on tidying the house after the birth of her third child, a son, now two. (She also has daughters, seven and eight.)

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