What Marie Kondo Taught Me About Design
Marie Kondo Revamped My Design Work
First, Kondo Revamped My Home
My husband and I Tidied Up our entire house. We got rid of 8 trash bags of clothes, a box of books, two trash bags of papers and countless bags of miscellaneous nick-nacks. It was amazing. We bought organization baskets (from the sale section of Target) along with a few adorable baskets, to make sure the revamped organization remains the same.
Marie Kondo Tricks
Marie Kondo has a very unique style of removing clutter and items in your house that don’t bring joy. Like many of you know, thankfulness for the each item is key. As a practice, you must thank the items before you place them in the recycling. It took some getting use to. I wasn’t able to speak to an inanimate object for the first hour without feeling cringe; but then it started to sink in. Both Zac and I were able to actually feel thankful. This item—book, shirt, shoe—was able to keep me company for years. I could at least thank it for it’s duty, right?
Remaining Thankful through Every obstical
I dread organization. It’s something Zac and I work really hard to accomplish. Honestly, sometimes it doesn’t happen. We look forward to going out to dinner, hanging out with friends, watching a new movie or going for hikes—not organizing. But the more I organized, the more I wanted to. The organization snowballed into cleaning and the cleaning into deep cleaning. I started to be thankful for everything we had, not just the items we were removing. I started to be thankful for our toilet brush, our house plants and old couches. (And not just the way a third grader is thankful for the “house over their head”.) I started feeling legitimately warm for the provisions we were afforded. (I know some of you will be turned off by the mention of God; but I started praying words of thankfulness. God is good. And I felt it throughout my entire body.)
We were able to “Kondo” our entire home in three weeks. It looked amazing. I felt like we could have the Queen over for dinner or Jennifer Aniston over to watch Friends. But it didn’t last for long. The fourth week, the kitchen started to pile up with dishes, the living room stopped looking spotless and the bathroom became overrun with towels. This was still our life. Our closets were so much cleaner and our drawers could close without a shove; but Marie Kondo wasn’t the magical fix. She’s not a fairy godmother.
Marie Kondo Transformed My Work Life
Great Design Takes Work
When working on a design, there is sometimes a moment you absolutely love your creation. You’re thankful for the colors and type aligning to make a perfect piece. You sit back in your chair, with your hands wrapped around your head for the ultimate relaxation pose. You’ve done it! I like to compare it to the emotions you feel after you’ve cleaned your entire house. The sense of accomplishment is real; you can feel it in your bones.
But every design is not perfect. Actually, most designs are perfect. Sometimes the towels are thrown around the bathroom, or the typeface looks awful. Sometimes you don’t even know where to begin. Graphic design can beat you down. It just takes coming back again and again to make sure you are constantly working on your craft. Constantly working on your design work is the same as working daily on chores so your home stays organized. You must constantly learn new design tools, discover new inspirational bloggers or new networks to connect with in order to keep moving forward in your work. It takes major work.
Be Thankful for every Stage of the Design Process
Constantly honing your craft can get extremely tiring. It can get really hard. I’m not here to sugar coat anything; it’s the truth. But since we have met Marie Kondo (through Netflix, with 5M other people), I’ve realized there are simple ways to make it a little easier to keep working day in, and day out.
Within the last three weeks, I’ve taken a breather after every stage of the design process. There are 7 processes I have for every project.
Review the design brief (ie. understand what will grow the clients business; asses what your client wants.)
Research/Inspiration (Getting an awesome vibe of inspiration)
Brainstorm/Sketch
Build Your Design
Self Review/Evolution
Client Review
Final Changes
After every step, I grab water or take a breather and remind myself of something I’m thankful for from the prior stage of the design process. No, I’m not kidding; I know it sounds crazy. (Honestly, I don’t always say my note of thankfulness out loud because of lurking people nearby; but that’s not the point.) I “Kondo’d” up the design process to be thankful for the project I just worked on. It has changed my mindset. It has also changed my self confidence within the work-sphere.
No Design Looks Like the Next
When Zac and I were watching the Netflix Original show Tidying Up, we noticed that every family’s home didn’t look like the centerfold of Architectural Digest or Elle Decor. But, each home looked perfect for that family. Some homes were still filled with piles of boxes or stacks of DVDs. But each home was lightyears more organized than weeks prior.
Your designs don’t need to have 10K likes on social media. Your designs don’t need to look exactly like those who you admire. Your designs just need to be great for you. Each of your designs just need to be better than your last. As long as you keep moving forward, your success will triumph beyond measure.