The queen of spring cleaning has lost spring in her step.
“Up until now I’ve been a professional cleaner, so I’ve done my best to keep my home clean at all times,” she said in a recent webinar via an interpreter, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
“I gave that up in a good way for me,” she added. “Now I realize what’s important to me, enjoying time with my kids at home.”
Keyword relief: The authority on cleanliness admitted that even she has trouble keeping up with clutter.
The 38-year-old organizing guru, who gave birth to her third child in 2021, is best known for the Netflix series Tidying Up, in which she instructs eager cleaners to keep what “makes you happy” and shut the rest to dispose.
The organizing queen, known for her tidy tactics, revealed that these days she’s more focused on finding happiness than fixing everything.FilmMagic
But that Kondo-esque minimalism has fallen by the wayside since maximalism has been in vogue.
“People now want to decorate capital D because they’ve been spending all this time working from home and they’ve seen the Marie Kondo thing lose all of its character,” said interior designer Hugh Long, who rose to fame on TikTok, told The Post last year.
The styling trend, which has attracted more than 809 million views under #maximalism, has the internet firmly in its grip. Users are abandoning “less is more” and collecting knick knacks, decor and accessories that catch the eye with vibrant or whimsical style.
Kondo seems to have succumbed to something similar, though probably not on purpose. In a shocking twist, she admitted her home is “messy”.
“My home is messy, but the way I spend my time is the right path for me at this point in this phase of my life,” she said during the webinar, emphasizing that her focus is on her family and not lies on their physical household.
As an authority on household cleanliness, even Kondo has “quit” as her growing family is her focus now. Penske Media via Getty Images
Her latest novel, Marie Kondos Kurashi at Home: How To Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life, describes such lifestyle changes.
She emphasizes the Japanese idea of ”kurashi” or “way of life,” which deviates from their once strict and quick rule of clearing up clutter and trash. Instead, her goal is to “ignite joy” in a different way: to find what makes her happy every day, even when dishes are in the sink.
Kondo says she no longer frets about a few extra belongings.WireImage
While the ultra-tidy author probably doesn’t have a designated junk drawer like the rest of us, her growing family seems to have humbled her enough to let a few things go awry.
“Cleaning up is dealing with all the ‘things’ in your life,” Kondo said in her book. “So what do you really want to fix?”
The Post reached out to a Kondo representative for comment on Friday.