As a student in Japan, Kondo tidied her friends’ apartments. When she started work as a staffing agency sales associate, she organized her clients’ desks. She developed a motto—“Keep only what sparks joy”—and turned it into a successful business, KonMari (which has since certified more than 400 consultants in 43 countries), along with best-selling books. Her latest, Joy at Work, tackles organization at the office.
A version of this article appeared in the May–June 2020 issue of Harvard Business Review.