By now, everyone (with a Netflix subscription) knows who Marie Kondo is, and can probably tell you that her main business is to clean and declutter your home. But did you know that her method could be easily applied in a business environment?
I met Marie and her method, or rather her book, in a small bookshop in London a few years ago. I really enjoyed reading it – I’m a rather tidy person myself – but I actually just parked her method & instructions in a corner of my memory. It’s only when I saw her show on Netflix that it all came back: I watched 2 episodes and then decided it was time to apply her ideas to my home. To the point that you can now give me whatever piece of cloth, I’ll fold it KonMari style and it will hold in place.
At this point, you’re probably wondering what’s the point of explaining you this. Actually, one of the very first step of the KonMari method is to take each of you possession in your hands and see if it sparks joy, INSIDE YOU. If it makes *ching*. And when I went to work after having KonMari-ed my home, I realised you can use your newly acquired “does-it-spark-joy” skill to plenty of situations. It’s actually a quick and easy assessment method, here a few examples:
- Recruiting: You can apply spark joy to many steps of the recruiting process. For example, it’s important when you get a resume to make sure the person has the skills you’re looking for but then take a minute to ask yourself: does it spark joy to read this resumé, does it make me excited to meet the person? If a person has 80% of the hard skills but sparks joy, meet them! If they have 100% of the hard skills but there’s no spark of joy, I’d actually not meet them. You do whatever you want, but most likely you’ll spend a lot of time with the person you recruit, they can learn and get the missing hard-skills but soft skills are harder to acquire (if not impossible). I promise you, you’re really not making yourself a favour to be forced to spend your time with someone that doesn’t spark joy.
- Anything you create: text, video, advertisement, a picture you take, ANY-THING. Once you consider your task is completed, take 3 extra seconds to ask yourself “does it spark joy?”. If it doesn’t ask yourself why, what could you improve, what can you change? If a thing you did doesn’t spark joy for you, most likely the people it’s intended for won’t have a spark of joy when seeing/reading it neither.
- Potential partners: very similar to recruiting as it’s about selecting the people you work with. Does this partner sparks joy when you hear him talk, does it spark joy to imagine him talk about your product? People that will spark joy are most likely those that share the same values and beliefs than you. With the others, you’ll always have this little voice in your head saying “Hmmm, you sure?”
- A prospective project: when deciding what should come next and planning projects ahead, as for all the other ask yourself “am I excited about it?” and if not “how can I make myself and others excited about it?”, should I reframe the scope, should I add something, etc. You’ll be way more efficient and achieve goals faster if you focus on the exciting/joy-sparking things. Disclaimer: there are things that you have to do, and you won’t escape it. Just make sure you always have one project that keeps you excited and other mundane tasks will seem easier.
I already hear some people telling me it’s nothing new. It was called just “gut-feeling” before. But actually, not really, “spark joy” is an assessment on the potential positive impact someone or something has on you. In that sense it’s closer to “Surround yourself with positive people” than “Trust your gut-feeling”. Your gut-feeling sometimes pushes you to take the less harmful way, but there’s still some harm.
Try it, with the time, you’ll get to know more and more what sparks joy for you and it will bring more positivity, optimism and certainty in your professional life.
