<p>What is the main message of Joy at Work?</p>

<p>Find joy in your work by applying Marie Kondo's tidying principles to your professional life.</p>

Productivity

Joy at Work Book Summary - Joy at Work Book explained in key points

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Joy at Work summary

Name: Joy at Work
Rating: 4.3 (169 reviews)
Author: Marie Kondo & Scott Sonenshein

Marie Kondo Scott Sonenshein

Organizing Your Professional Life

4.3 (169 ratings)

21 mins

Brief summary

Joy at Work by Marie Kondo & Scott Sonenshein is a guide to decluttering and organizing your workspace. It offers practical tips and tools to improve productivity and find joy in your work.

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Working from Home

Table of Contents

Joy at Work
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Simple ways to make your work more joyful and productive.

Even if you’re not the tidiest person in the world, there’s a very good chance you’ve heard about the KonMari Method. For nearly a decade now, Marie Kondo has been spreading the gospel of how a tidy home can change your life and spark more joy. Her books have become best sellers around the world and they’ve even led to Kondo’s own Netflix show. But her methods aren’t limited to living spaces. You can use them at work as well.

As it turns out, Kondo’s whole tidying-up empire started in the workplace. Years ago, while working in human resources for a Japanese company, she was helping people better organize their desks and offices. One thing led to another and, before long, her true passion for tidying up became her career. So here we are, having come full-circle. We’re applying the KonMari Method to our workplaces, whether it’s in a cubicle, an office, or at home.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

why messy desks can lead to billions in lost productivity;
why you should keep your papers in a vertical filing system; and
why you should keep your meetings phone-free.

Tidying up your workspace is about more than just being able to find what you’re looking for.

Are you constantly searching for important documents? Do you spend more time looking for your favorite pen than you do using it? Is describing your desk as “cluttered” putting it mildly?

Don’t worry. Having a messy desk or office is nothing special. But it’s also a bigger problem than just making you disorganized. In fact, in a 2011 survey, 90 percent of American workers saw clutter as having a negative impact on their motivation, productivity, and overall happiness.

The key message here is: Tidying up your workspace is about more than just being able to find what you’re looking for.

You may think that spending a little time looking for a misplaced document now and then isn’t a big deal. But it can be. Consider productivity: studies show that when we add up all the time spent looking for misplaced things, we waste, on average, an entire work week every year. And all that lost productivity means lost money. In the US alone, it results in an estimated $89 billion going down the drain on an annual basis.

So, tidying up can improve productivity and earnings. But a tidy workspace also has other, more personal, benefits.

It may not sound entirely fair, but people who appear tidy and well-organized tend to be viewed in a better light by their bosses. This results in a positive feedback loop that benefits everyone. When your boss thinks you have good character and are highly capable, your self-esteem and motivation levels will get a boost. That, in turn, leads to more hard work and even better evaluations from your boss.

That may sound like a good enough reason to tidy up, but it’s important to approach decluttering with the right attitude. When people get rid of clutter and make their space look well-organized just because they’re told to, then it’s likely only a matter of time before the clutter re-appears.

As we’ll see in the blinks ahead, Marie Kondo’s method of tidying-up – the KonMari Method – is about realigning yourself with your goals and purpose in life. So it’s not just about being more efficient or productive. When you follow the steps, your tidy work area will represent the place where your goals and aspirations come to life. This is why people who follow the method will continue to maintain a clutter-free environment long after they made their first changes.

Applying the KonMari Method to your workspace starts with books and papers.

So what exactly is the famous KonMari Method? Simply put, it means removing anything in your environment that doesn’t fall into at least one of three categories: things that spark immediate joy, things that provide functional joy, or things that will lead to future joy.

To know if something fits into one of these categories, visualize every last detail of your ideal workplace. How does this ideal workplace look? How does it make you feel? Visualize what items are in your workplace and where everything goes. Ask yourself: What emotions do I feel when I’m working or taking a break at my desk? Once you’re intimately familiar with your ideal workplace, it’s time to start tidying up.

The next stages of the KonMari Method involve supplies, or komono, and sentimental items.

So, with books and papers sorted, it’s time to move on to the final two categories in the physical realm of your workspace. This time, we’ll gather up all of your items into one place, and we’ll go through them piece by piece.

The key message here is: The next stages of the KonMari Method involve supplies, or komono, and sentimental items.

The KonMari Method can also be used to clean up your non-physical workspace.

At this stage of the process, you should have only the most essential items in your workspace – with everything in its own designated place. The author recommends using dividers and small boxes that fit within drawers to keep everything organized. This way, your USB sticks can have their own spot – separate, but within the same drawer as other devices and electronics.

At this point, your desk should be clear of any papers or supplies. After all, a desk is a work surface, not a storage space, right? Plus, having your desk completely free of any clutter will be great for approaching your work with a clear, undistracted, and uncluttered mind.

Don’t let email and other digital notifications get in the way of your work.

How much of your job description concerns email? If email is even mentioned at all, it’s probably not one of your primary responsibilities. And yet, for many of us, this task can seem never-ending and all-consuming.

As part of your digital tidying-up, it’s time to change the way you approach email, as well as the other distractions that come with having a smartphone.

To declutter your work life, reconsider your schedule and which tasks really need your time and energy.

So far, we’ve talked about decluttering your workspace and digital devices. But to really tidy up your work life, you need to look beyond your physical surroundings. Finding joy and harmony in what you do also requires a schedule that’s free of clutter and wasted time.

Just as you can spend too much time on emails, you can also waste away entire weeks by going from one unproductive meeting to another. Or, maybe you find yourself constantly tending to the needs of others, leaving you with little time for your own work. Well, now’s the time to get all this activity clutter under control.

Reevaluating your meetings and teams can also add more joy to your work life.

Let’s face it, some meetings are unavoidable. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to make those meetings more worthwhile. If you find a regular meeting to be unproductive, then other people are probably unhappy too. So why not work together to tidy up your meetings and make them more joyful?

The key message here is: Reevaluating your meetings and teams can also add more joy to your work life.

There are plenty of ways to keep your work life joyous in the long run.

Finding joy at work isn’t all about tidying up your immediate surroundings. It’s also about nurturing a healthy work environment. While some of this may be out of your control, that doesn’t mean you can’t do your part to ensure that your environment is as joyful as possible.

The key message here is: There are plenty of ways to keep your work life joyous in the long run.

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What is Joy at Work about?

Joy at Work (2020) takes the popular and life-changing KonMari Method of tidying up your home and applies it to your workplace. This new approach is aimed at cleaning up and organizing not just your desk and bookshelves, but also your computer storage and email inbox. As always, using the KonMari Method will also bring you closer to finding joy and rediscovering what’s really important in your life.

Joy at Work Review

Joy at Work (2020) by Marie Kondo & Scott Sonenshein provides practical advice on decluttering and organizing your professional life. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Offering a fresh perspective, it combines Marie Kondo's famous KonMari method with Scott Sonenshein's research to bring innovative ideas for a more organized work environment.
The book emphasizes the importance of intentionality and joy in our work, helping us create a space that fosters productivity, creativity, and a positive mindset.
With compelling case studies and relatable examples, it showcases how decluttering can lead to improved focus, reduced stress, and overall work satisfaction.

Best quote from Joy at Work

The goal of the method shared in this book is not just to have a nice neat desk but to begin a dialogue with yourself through tidying…

—Marie Kondo & Scott Sonenshein

Who should read Joy at Work?

Anyone with a cluttered workspace
People who dread going to work in the morning
Struggling workers who’d like to feel excited about their jobs again

About the Author

Marie Kondo has been passionate about tidying up since she was a young girl. After taking on a few clients while in her twenties, she soon turned her passion into a career. As the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2011), she shared her own process, known as the KonMari Method, which combined decluttering homes with self-realization. Since then, she’s become a world-renowned author and television personality.

Scott Sonenshein has a PhD in organizational behavior and is currently a Professor of Management at Rice University. His research is focused on finding ways for people to become more creative and resourceful, and thereby find more satisfaction and meaning in their work and their lives. His writing has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, and Fast Company. He is also the author of the best-selling book Stretch (2017).

Categories with Joy at Work

Productivity

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