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Marie Kondo’s strategy during the coronavirus quarantine

The coronavirus hasn’t dimmed Marie Kondo’s joy. The tidying guru appeared to be adapting to the quarantine better than most of us, when she appeared on a Zoom call with Quartz last week. 

The experience of being stuck in her apartment during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami  prepared her for spending an extended period indoors, Kondo explains. “In Japan, people are used to living side-by-side to natural disasters,” says Kondo, who now lives in Los Angeles with husband and business manager Takumi Kawahara and their two young daughters. “A lot of our practical wisdom is based on preparedness,” she explains.

Her KonMari method—a system based on throwing out items that don’t “spark joy”—may seem counter-intuitive during a time when most are stocking up  supplies. But Kondo says cleaning and organizing can be a calming and perspective-generating intervention. Before rushing to buy more groceries, for instance, she says it’s imperative to take stock of what we already have at home, discarding expired canned goods and arranging items so you can clearly see them. “Calmly assessing that is vital,” Kondo stresses. “It’s not knowing that creates even more anxiety and fear.”

“Instead of focusing on buying more, I am eliminating waste by making the food that I have now last longer. Japanese pickles are nutritious and long-lasting,” she says. Indeed, the ancient food preservation technique yields several benefits, from boosting immune systems to improving digestion.

As the global pandemic has forced us to find ways to do our jobs from home, creating a professional environment is especially urgent, Kondo points out. This is the thesis of her newest book, Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life, co-authored by Rice University management professor Scott Sonenshein.

KONMARI

In the book, Kondo and Sonenshein challenge the hypothesis that a messy desk is an indicator of a creative genius, like in the case of Albert Einstein, Apple founder Steve Jobs, or Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Several studies hold that a neat desks can indicate a conventional thinker while a messy one indicates a willingness to embrace novelty. But Kondo and Sonenshein counter that messiness can cost companies billions of dollars each year: $8.9 billion for lost paperwork and physical files, $420 per employee on forgotten passwords and a staggering $37 billion in unproductive meetings, citing published research about the effects of organizational clutter.

Kondo, who keeps a phone charger, a pair of reading glasses and a silver tuning fork next to  her computer, says it doesn’t matter if we work on a clear desk, like she does, or embrace the Einsteinian model. “Tidying is much more than sorting things and putting them away,” Kondo writes. “The goal…is to begin a dialogue with yourself.”

As she confessed in her book, not everything in life sparks joy. Ultimately, the act of clearing away what’s not needed can foster, if not happiness, at least gratitude. Holding every object in our hands to appraise its joy-giving quotient, as the KonMari method prescribes, demonstrates the considerable abundance we enjoy. “I think it’s a good time to tidy and reflect on what we have in our lives and be grateful for them,” says Kondo.

From Quartz at Work (edited)

Formula 1 teams help produce ventilators

The seven Formula 1 teams in Britain have high-tech engineering centres stuffed with the latest production equipment. And they employ hundreds of staff with the talent to use this gear to design, test and manufacture parts rapidly, in the days between races. With the season suspended, they have been collaborating to help produce ventilators, which are needed urgently to treat patients suffering from covid-19. This week one team, Mercedes-AMG, obtained approval for a device which it can quickly manufacture by the thousand.

The machine is not a ventilator, but a breathing aid of a type known as a continuous-positive-airway-pressure  (CPAP) device. These are typically used to assist people who have breathing problems to sleep more soundly. The machine delivers air at slightly above atmospheric pressure via a mask placed over the nose and mouth and reduces the effort of breathing. Additional oxygen can also be added. According to reports from Italy, around half of patients given CPAP treatment have avoided the need for invasive mechanical ventilation.

Mercedes-AMG worked with a team at University College, London, to take apart, copy and improve an off-patent CPAP machine in a matter of days. As it was based on an existing design the British government’s medical regulator was able to fast-track approval. 

The team also worked with Oxford Optronix, a small British firm that makes oxygen monitors. The first 100 devices have now been delivered to University College Hospital and other London hospitals for clinical trials. These are expected to take three or four days. If they are successful, the team reckons it can make 1,000 of the CPAP machines a day at its base near Northampton, and distribute them to other hospitals around the country.

“The speed with which the team developed the device is remarkable,” reckons Duncan Young, a professor of intensive-care medicine at Oxford University, who is not part of the project. Patients too unwell for simple oxygen masks, but not ill enough to need a ventilator, can be treated with a CPAP machine, says Dr Young. This could, he adds, save lives by freeing up ventilators for those in urgent need of them.

From The Economist