Tidying Up With Marie Kondo: KonMari on reel

Netflix released Tidying Up With Marie Kondo on 1 January, an apt day for a show like this. If, like me, you find reading self-improvement books an absolute chore (remember that deathly boring book about not giving a f*ck?), you can watch Kondo’s now famous KonMari method come alive here. The show features the Japanese tidying queen visiting American families to help them deal with their clutter, illustrating in real-time the philosophy of her 2014 book, The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up.

In the first episode, Kondo and an interpreter visit the Friend family—Rachel, Kevin, and their two children—and helps them streamline their mess and their lives. If Kondo seems unreal at times—the interpreter carries an umbrella over her head, she meditates and “thanks" the house she is about to tidy—the families are painfully real. If you live with a partner, it is bound to make you feel part of a global community of couples who argue over clothes piles. The show comes at a time many of us have been missing the boys from another Netflix show, Queer Eye. But whereas that show involves exquisite add-ons for home improvement, this involves elimination. A better mood for January, we think