Critic
After Tidying Up Your Home, Can Marie Kondo Fix the Workplace?
A new book offers tips to make the daily grind more smooth. But it doesn’t really address what ails us.
Illustration: Jaci Kessler Lubliner
Marie Kondo’s Joy at Work arrives at an awkward time. What does it mean to be “at work” now that we’re social distancing? And how would one find “joy” in anything, save for the fact that it’s 11:08 a.m., I’m writing this in my pajamas, and I’m somewhere between second breakfast and first lunch?
It’s not Kondo’s fault that her book is being published during a pandemic, but it’s impossible not to read it in that context. Work is changing fundamentally right now for hundreds of millions of people around the world.