I tidied my apartment in 2016 with the KonMari method. I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in the autumn of that year, the same autumn I moved to Brooklyn with a partner, a dog, and a deep, half-formed belief that my life would be better if I had fewer things in it. I followed the method. I laid every piece of clothing on the floor. I held each item in my hands. I asked the question. The result was, by every measure Kondo promised, a failure: I kept about 80% of what I owned and donated the remaining 20% to a thrift store on Atlantic Avenue. The "joy" question was, by my honest accounting, a question I could not, in fact, answer.

Below is the case against "does it spark joy" — using the exact same test Kondo proposed, applied to the items I had on the floor in 2016. I have changed my mind about several things I used to believe about the method. I have opinions on what to skip. There is a brief history of how KonMari went from a 2010 Tokyo apartment to a 2019 Netflix series that 60 million households watched. And there is, at the end, an honest summary — because anyone who tells you tidying is a one-question exam has not, in fact, tried to answer the question.

The list: what "spark joy" misses

1. Winter boots that do not spark joy but are required for February in Pittsburgh. I held, in 2016, a pair of Sorel Caribou boots. The cost was, in 2014, $189. The boots are heavy. The boots are ugly. The boots are also the only reason I have not, in ten years, slipped on ice outside my mother's house. Joy is not, in this case, the relevant test. Function is. Sorel does not spark joy. Sorel sparks "you can walk to the mailbox in single-digit temperatures without dying." That is, by my current standard, a more useful test.

2. A $400 winter coat I paid for and resent. The coat is, in fact, a black wool Max Mara that I bought, in 2014, on a sample sale for $1,200 (originally $2,400). I took it out of the closet in 2016. I held it. I asked the question. The answer was, honestly, "no." But I had also paid $1,200 for the coat, and the coat was, by any sane accounting, an asset, not a feeling. The KonMari method has, in this case, no instruction. Kondo's own writings suggest that if it does not spark joy, "thank it and let it go." The advice does not, in this case, survive contact with a $1,200 asset. So I kept it. I still wear it in 2026. The math is, by my current standard, what matters.

3. Inherited items that spark grief, not joy. My grandmother's watch — a 1962 Longines she bought in Lyon, the city she lived in until she was 87 — does not, when I hold it, spark joy. It sparks grief. It sparks the absence. The grief is, in my experience, the more honest response to a 64-year-old object that belonged to a person I loved and who is now gone. Kondo's method does not, in my experience, have a category for this. The watch is, by my current standard, an inheritance, not a feeling. It stays.

4. The exercise bike I do not enjoy but use. A Peloton Bike I bought, in 2019, for $2,495. I do not, in any honest sense, enjoy the Peloton. The 30-minute ride is, by my standard, a punishment I subject myself to four mornings a week. I would, if the question were pure joy, have sold it in 2020 for $1,800 on the secondary market (which is, by the way, what many of my friends did). I kept it. I am, as of this writing, $40 a month into 2026, still riding it. Joy is, in this case, not the relevant test. Health is. The Peloton stays.

5. The Vitamix. A 2017 Vitamix 5200, $449. The Vitamix is loud. The Vitamix is, by my partner's description, "the size of a small suitcase on the counter." The Vitamix also makes, in seven minutes, the only green smoothie Olive the dog will eat on a Tuesday morning. Joy is not the test. Olive eating breakfast on a Tuesday morning is the test.

6. The 47 cookbooks that spark "I might make that one day." Joy is not what I feel when I hold Ottolenghi Simple. What I feel is "this is a future possibility." Kondo's method, in this case, would tell me to donate them all. The Minimalists, who emerged from a similar space in the 2010s, would tell me to keep zero. I kept all 47. The honest answer, in 2026, is that I cook from about five of them. The other 42 are aspirational. They are also, in the case of three signed copies from friends who are food writers, irreplaceable.

That is six examples. They are, by my standard, the cases KonMari cannot adjudicate. The method is, in each case, a feeling-based test applied to a question that is, by my current standard, not about feeling.

What I have changed my mind about

A few beliefs I held in 2016 that the last ten years have quietly killed.

I used to think the joy question was the right test. It is, for about 20% of what you own, the right test. A book you will never read, a piece of jewelry you will never wear, a kitchen tool you used once — those, in most cases, are about feeling. The other 80% is, by my experience, about function, investment, sentiment, or use. The joy question is, in most cases, the wrong question. The right question is, in my experience, "what does this object do, and what does it cost to keep it?"

I used to think tidying was about getting rid of things. Tidying is, in my experience, more often about deciding what to keep. The first round of KonMari — the one I did in 2016 — was, by every measure, a test of letting go. The third round — the one I do in 2024 — is, by my current standard, a test of letting stay. Every item I keep has to earn its place. The default has, in 2026, flipped from "sparked joy" to "earns its space." The shift is, by my standard, the actual content of the method.

I used to think minimalism was the goal. Minimalism was, by 2017, what Kondo had spawned: a $2,000 platform bed, a $400 Beni Ourain rug, ten white ceramic vases, and a closet of forty identical t-shirts. Minimalism was, in 2017, a look. I tried that look in 2018. I failed. The look did not, in fact, fit a household with one dog and one partner who inherited, in 1989, a complete set of Le Creuset cookware from his mother. Pragmatic minimalism — the kind where every item has a use — is, in my experience, the only kind that survives ten years.

I used to think Swedish Death Cleaning was morbid. Margareta Magnusson's 2017 The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning is, by Kondo's standard, a competing method. Swedish Death Cleaning's premise is, in Kondo's framework, very dark: tidy now so your children do not have to tidy when you die. The premise is, in fact, the more honest one. KonMari is, by my standard, what you tidy for yourself. Swedish Death Cleaning is, by my standard, what you tidy for the next owner. The next owner is, in my experience, often the more honest reason to tidy.

I used to think one method was enough. The KonMari method works, in my experience, for clothes, books, and paper. It does not, in my experience, work for tools, electronics, or sentimental objects. For those categories, the test is different — not "does it spark joy" but "does it do its job, and is there a better one to replace it?" Tools get a different test. Sentimental items get a different test. The one-size-fits-all joy question is, in my experience, a marketing line that, like most marketing lines, does not survive contact with the items you actually have.

What to skip when tidying

If I were advising a friend who wanted to tidy their home in 2026, I would tell them to skip these methods and these tests entirely at the start.

The joy question as the only test. Apply it, in 2026, only to a subset of items: books you will not read again, clothes you will not wear again, decorative objects that mean nothing. For the rest — the tools, the investments, the inherited objects — apply a different test. The function test. The cost test. The replacement test.

The vertical folding. KonMari's vertical folding is, by every measurement, beautiful in a drawer. It is also, by every measurement, the reason I had to refold half my shirts every time I opened the dresser. I tried vertical folding for two years. I have, in 2026, returned to horizontal stacks in shallow drawers. The vertical folding is, in my experience, a photo-optimized method that does not survive the daily use of a real dresser.

The gratitude ritual. Kondo teaches, in the method, to thank each item before letting it go. I tried the gratitude ritual in 2016. It is, by my experience, performative. The gratitude ritual is, by my partner's description, "the reason I never want to do this again." Skip the ritual. Drop the items at the thrift store. The items do not, in fact, care whether you thanked them.

The category-by-category method. KonMari teaches, by her method, to do all clothing at once, all books at once, all paper at once. I tried this in 2016. It took, by my standard, four weekends. The current method I use is, by my current standard, the 15-minute-a-day method: one drawer, one shelf, one closet per day. The 15-minute method is, in my experience, more sustainable than the four-weekend method.

The "does it spark joy" answer for inherited items. The inheritance question is, in my experience, the one Kondo cannot answer. The 1962 Longines is not, in fact, a question. The grandmother's tablecloth is not, in fact, a question. The boxes of baby clothes my mother saved from 1987 are not, in fact, a question. They are history. They are, in some cases, the only physical connection I have to people I have lost. Skip the joy test on inherited items. Replace it with the use-or-store test: do I use this, or do I store it in a labeled bin? Either is, by my standard, an honest answer. The joy test is, for inherited items, the wrong one.

KonMari consultants. The Certified KonMari Consultants program launched, in 2016, at $500 for the first session. By 2024, the program had, by my estimate based on LinkedIn searches, between 1,200 and 2,000 active consultants. The cost of a consultant-led home tidying is, in 2026, between $2,500 and $8,000. The result is, by every account I have read, the same: a tidier home. The cost is, in most cases, higher than the value. Skip the consultant. Read the book or skip the book. The book is, by my standard, $17. The consultant is, by my standard, $4,000.

A brief history

Marie Kondo's method is, by every measure, a 21st-century invention. Kondo was born in 1984 in Tokyo. She began, at age 5, reading housekeeping magazines. She began, at age 15, studying tidying as a spiritual practice. She wrote, at age 19, her first book — a manga-illustrated guide to tidying that sold, by her own account, fewer than 100 copies. She wrote, at age 30, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. The book was published in Japan in 2010. The English translation, published in 2014 by Ten Speed Press, sold, by 2019, approximately 13 million copies worldwide.

The method has, by any measure, spawned an industry. The KonMari consulting network launched, in 2016, in partnership with a Portland-based organization called Intentional Impact. The Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo premiered in January 2019. The series drew, by Netflix's own numbers, 60 million household views in its first month. The result was, by every measure, a 2019 cultural moment: thrift stores across the US were, by March 2019, flooded with donated items. The resale market for used clothing and home goods spiked. The minimalist aesthetic — the white walls, the matching ceramic vases, the platform beds — became, briefly, the dominant 2019 interior design trend.

The retreat began, in my experience, around 2020. The pandemic forced everyone to look at their homes for two years. The aesthetic of 2019 minimalism collided with the reality of homeschooling, work-from-home, and the daily use of every room. By 2021, the dominant trend had shifted from "fewer things" to "more functional things." By 2023, the dominant trend had shifted again, to "fewer but better things." The current 2026 trend — the one Real Magic by Sarah Archer (2024) and Stuff by Gail Cantor (2023) describe — is, by every measure, "have what you use, use what you have." The joy question is, in 2026, one question among many. It is, in my experience, no longer the only one.

The honest summary

Marie Kondo's method works, in my experience, for about 20% of what you own. The other 80% is, by my current standard, decided by other tests: utility, cost, replacement, frequency of use, and the honest answer to the question "would I buy this again today?" The "spark joy" test is, in most cases, a marketing line that survived contact with the larger culture for about ten years and then, like most marketing lines, faded.

What works for me, in 2026: every object in the apartment earns its space. The vertical-folding was abandoned. The KonMari consultant was never hired. The 1962 Longines stays. The Peloton stays. The 47 cookbooks stay. The Vitamix stays. The Sorel Caribous stay. The Max Mara stays. The deep winter coat stays. The inherited objects stay. The tools stay.

What does not work for me, and may not work for you: the one-question test applied to items that are, by their nature, multi-question. The KonMari method is, by my standard, the most successful tidying method of the 2010s. It is also, by my standard, the most oversold. The honest summary is, in the end, this: the method is for clothes, books, and paper. For everything else, you need a different method.

Ten years in, my apartment is, by every measurement that matters, tidier than it was in 2016. The method I used in 2024 was, in 2026, the method I should have used in 2016. The math is, by any honest accounting, embarrassing. The math is also, in the end, the only thing that matters.