If while organizing your closet, you’ve ever asked if that item of clothing (for example, that gnarly ripped tank top from college) sparks joy in your life, you’re not alone.
Odds are that you are one of the thousands of viewers who got inspired to clean their closet after binge watching Tidying Up With Marie Kondo on Netflix. The newest trend to simplify and organize your home by getting rid of physical items that no longer spark joy in your life is known as the KonMari method, and it’s sweeping the nation. KonMari goes beyond decluttering your closet -- it’s an actual way of life. If you properly organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again.
Imagine never having to organize again. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it’s not. Just like any other skill, it only takes practice until organizing no longer feels like a process and instead, an intuitive habit. The KonMari method can be applied to all departments of your life, even work.
I bet that your house isn’t the only thing that could use some tidying up. Imagine a work environment that sparks joy. I’m here to share some best practices for tackling any work process that’s causing disorganization and frustration in your life with a digital workspace you can customize -- no coding required.
1.) Do Your Spreadsheets Spark Joy?
Now really think about this. If spreadsheets are no longer sparking joy in your life then it’s time to say sayonara. Before you drag them over to the trash, let’s make sure your precious data is safe, and instead converted to a cloud-based web app.
Converting your spreadsheets only takes a few seconds when you use Kintone’s smart algorithm to recognize spreadsheet fields and translate them into app fields. Your coworkers who are visual learners will love seeing the data displayed in live bar graphs instead of endless columns of data. Your spreadsheets might not spark joy, but once you hand them over to Kintone and convert them into a dynamic app, you’ll be grinning from ear to ear.
2.) Those Workflows Need Some Tidying Up
The KonMari method encourages tidying up by category. The same thought process can be applied to managing your projects by category.
Every project workflow is unique, so make Marie Kondo proud and grant them the respect they deserve by appreciating and properly designating each one to its own special workflow. On Kintone, you can customize all the nuts and bolts of creating a workflow to ensure you are successfully meeting all your project deadlines.
You’ll get to choose which members to add to your project workflow, when they should be getting notifications, and how many. As each task leading up to the project completion gets checked off, you’ll be able to change the project status and all team members can check-in on the progress at any time. Creating a solid workflow from the get-go will be worth the effort as nothing will fall through the cracks. That means you won’t be worrying about every detail along the way. You can even take it a step further and color-code your project workflows so those nearing project deadlines are marked red, and projects further out show up as green. The possibilities are endless.
3.) Declutter That Inbox
After the item purge has passed, one of the final steps of the KonMari method is designating a specific home for the items you did keep. The goal is to avoid clutter relapse, and to be able to find these items effortlessly when you do need them.
Like that email HR sent you seven months ago with steps on how to access your healthcare portal. You have that one handy, right? Truth is that our inboxes are overflowing with messages, and no one really has the time to sort them out. Unless you KonMari on Kintone that is.
With the ability to comment in apps and keep conversations organized within spaces, it really is as easy as pie. All you have to do is type the name of the app or thread with the message you are looking for—that is, if you don’t already have it bookmarked on the homepage. Each message also has a specific number to it, so if you want your colleague to view a message from long ago, you’d permalink that comment for even faster access. Most of our conversations happen on Kintone which makes life easier. And of course, you can keep communication flowing with third-party vendors with guest spaces.
We are in no way affiliated to Marie Kondo or the KonMari method, but we do have Japanese heritage thanks to our parent company Cybozu based in Tokyo. We not only love to support well-known change makers close to our roots, but we are ourselves true fans of decluttering so we can focus on what really matters.
About the Author
Malena is a Senior Events Specialist and Marketing Campaign Associate at Kintone, where she enjoys getting people excited about Kintone through events they host and creative marketing campaigns. You will find her sketching out new ideas for social media copy, drooling over event catering menus, and flipping through Kintone threads where all the project management lives. Born and raised in San Francisco, she is a natural at finding the best places to eat in the city and navigating towards the nearest Bart station. Malena graduated from UC Berkeley, with a degree in Psychology, roll on you bears!
