Home office, young children or children of school age, coexistence and a house that, in constant movement, does not finish tidying up. There are many homes that, in times of quarantine, deal with exhausting days.

Marie Kondo, in her latest book "Happiness at Work" (Aguilar, 2020), provides practical advice and strategies to eliminate clutter in the work environment. This guru, author of the publishing success "The magic of order" (Aguilar, 2017) and the Netflix series "Order with Marie Kondo!", teaches us, this time from her personal experience, how to be happier in the Laboral scene.

Of course, working from home imposes other challenges in terms of time management and the balance between personal life and productive tasks, and when there are children, even more so:

The ideal (orderly) life

Our life as a couple changed completely when we became parents. Before our first daughter was born, I envisioned my ideal lifestyle like this: I would wake up refreshed in the morning, get dressed, and have breakfast ready before my kids woke up. I would finish today's work so quickly and efficiently that I would have time to play with them. At night, I would prepare dinner, pouring all my love and affection into it, and then we would sit down to enjoy it as a family. At bedtime, I would do some yoga and relax before falling asleep with a nice tired feeling. And of course, my house would always be tidy!

That was my ideal, but life is not that simple. As soon as I gave birth, I had no emotional time or space.

Lowering expectations

My highest expectations and ambitions came down to being satisfied if I could brush my teeth before bed and being relieved just knowing my daughters were alive. Babies wake up often and early so I never got enough sleep. I was always tired, my ability to concentrate was greatly reduced, and I couldn't finish work or housework on time. I tried to keep the house neat and tidy, but the girls would spread a packet of salt all over the floor or open the drawers and fiddle with my writing utensils, which were neatly arranged in compartments. No matter how much she ordered, the house would quickly return to chaos.

Folding clothes with your children

Once, after I taught them how to fold clothes, my daughters took out everything that I had carefully kept in the drawers, they "folded" them. again and put it back. For them it was perfect, but not for me, of course! I'm sure they just wanted to try folding the laundry themselves, but I didn't see the point in it at the time. I scolded them harshly, only to mentally flog myself for my impatience afterwards. This situation did not bring me an ounce of joy. Things calmed down when they started going to school.

The order of the possible

Raising young children can be very hard, but it taught me a valuable lesson: don't expect everything to be perfectly organized when your children are young. At the same time, however, I made it a point to at least keep my personal space tidy, for example, by making sure my desk drawers were organized or that the way I hung my clothes in my closet made me feel happy.

With children, we have much less control over many aspects of everyday life. For that same reason, it is important to ensure that the spaces over which we do have control generate joy for us. Creating a place, even if it's just one, that makes us happy every time we're in it can change how we feel a lot.

It is very common for people with young children to feel overwhelmed, and I often receive letters from working parents asking for my advice. One of the most frequently asked questions is, "How can I find a good work-life balance?" I always answer them by making this proposal: "Start by visualizing your ideal balance between life and work."

As I mentioned earlier, as soon as Takumi and I became parents, our work-life balance changed drastically. It became physically impossible for us to work long hours, because we needed to invest more time and energy in our daughters. And since we couldn't continue our old lifestyles anymore, we started talking about what kind of work-life balance would make us both happy.

Priority setting

In our case, we decide to prioritize time for each other and our family, and then schedule our work around that. Of course, that meant that we had to turn down more projects than before, but we gratefully passed those opportunities, thanking the people who had contacted us and expressing our hope that we could collaborate with them in the future if they were to contact us. gave the opportunity That allowed us to recharge our batteries, which in turn helped us focus on each task more efficiently. By setting goals like completing specific tasks in less than an hour, for example, we learned to focus intensely on our work for a limited period of time and deliver results in less time.

My approach to thinking about work-life balance is the same as I take with tidying up. Start by visualizing your ideal, identify and value the things that bring you joy, and let go with gratitude of those that don't.

Excerpts from the book by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein, "Happiness at work", (Aguilar, 2020).