Becoming a KonMari Consultant Is Like Undergoing Group Therapy (With a $2,750 Price Tag)

Simply signing up for the program—and shelling out the $2,250 it costs to attend—doesn’t guarantee you’ll be certified. You’re expected to come to the first session having read Kondo’s books (particularly her breakout hit, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up) and having tidied your own home. Once you’ve done the work on yourself, you’re ready to learn how to apply it to others—and what it takes to turn those skills into a business. (Oh, and if you're there to become BFFs with Kondo, sit this one out: She appears in videos at the start of each day, but she no longer teaches the program. A team of instructors do.)

Completing the course earns you the title of CIT, or consultant-in-training, and from there, you’ll still need to log at least 30 hours of practice tidying two clients’ homes, complete with before-and-after photos and a lengthy report to explain what you did. If you pass that phase, you’ll be invited to take an online exam. Ace that, and you’re still not done: You’ll need to complete an onboarding interview, then pay a $500 “activation fee” to become a consultant.

Even then, there’s no guarantee of a set amount of work. You’ll be listed on KonMari’s Consultants page, but it’s on you, as an entrepreneur, to secure clients and set your rates. (I’ve seen consultants charge $75 to $100 an hour, with that rate increasing as organizers gain more tidying experience.) What you’re getting in return is the ability to market yourself as a KonMari consultant—as opposed to a traditional organizer—as well as access to KonMari’s client management software and a private community for consultants to mentor each other and share best practices for growing their businesses. In fact, the entire third day of training focuses on launching your company, from identifying your target market (say, KonMari for the TikTok crowd) to what services to use to schedule client meetings (Calendly is a fave) or when to send an invoice (after your initial call and before the first tidying session).

It’s an involved process, to say the least, but despite how rigorous it is, last year’s students had a 92 percent first-time pass rate. “The fail rate is very low because people are well trained by the time they reach the exam,” Tracey LeWorthy, senior director of the KonMari Consultant Program, told me via email. After the course, CITs are paired with an evaluator, who serves as a Sherpa of sorts, guiding them through the process. Should you fail the exam, you can take it again. You just have to put in the work to get to that point. And that work can be taxing, even if you’re the tidiest person on the planet.

After the heaviness of the past year—and considering many people seek out KonMari consultants after major life changes, like death or divorce—sometimes, all a person can say is, “Nothing sparks joy for me anymore.” When that happens, Morrissey suggests digging deeper: “How does it feel to acknowledge that?” She lets the question linger.

In moments like this, consultants need to sit in the discomfort, staying cool, calm and collected as the client thinks through an answer. Why? “It’s a fast-track to truth, and sometimes the truth isn’t joyful,” she explained.

That’s what makes KonMari so different from most organizing methods. You’re not arranging books into Roy G. Biv order or automatically donating anything that hasn’t been worn in a year (though those strategies can be delightful and effective). The role wavers between camp counselor and project manager, keeping things moving while asking questions that help people arrive at their own conclusions.

A huge part of the three-day training is—to quote Ted Lasso quoting Walt Whitman, “be curious, not judgmental.” And it’s much trickier to do than you’d think.

If all you can get out of the person is, “I don’t know, it fits,” as a reaction, “that becomes your baseline for joy,” Morrissey told us. Your job, she explained, is to meet people where they’re at. Gradually, as you go through more items, you’ll start to see glimmers of happiness: the story behind the faded blue tee he was wearing when she proposed, or the tattered drawing of a dinosaur their now-grown daughter drew when she was four. That’s also why a huge tenet of the KonMari Method is that the consultants do not decide (or even weigh in on) what to keep. It doesn’t matter how ill-fitting the dress is, how raggedly the pillow or how crumpled the paper. You joy check and ask questions, observing your client closely, as they decide what to hold onto and what needs to be “thanked for its service” and let go of.

This was a challenge for many CITs, who peppered instructors with questions in the chat, like: What if they ask you how something looks on them? Shouldn’t you be honest? What about someone who’s really indecisive?

“You hold space for them,” Morrissey replied calmly.

You don’t rush things (which, admittedly, works in a consultant’s favor, if they’re charging by the hour). Ultimately, what sparks joy is deeply personal, and you don’t want a client to feel pressured into making a decision they’d later regret. That’s also why KonMari consultants are told not to ask to keep anything being donated or discarded. You can help them find the right organization to donate to, and if it’s offered to you, you’re asked to politely decline. After all, if you took everything everyone wanted to give away, you’d have your own tidying problem to contend with, Morrissey joked.

Throughout the day, CITs were sent to Zoom breakout rooms, where they practiced dealing with client issues in small groups. With each one, the 130-person class seemed to grow more comfortable, vulnerable and—dare I say it?—joyful. People shared stories of what drew them to the KonMari Method, of the toll the past year has taken on them and how they were finding a way through it, one tidier bookshelf at a time.

I thought about my own journey; how, at the start of the pandemic, I turned to things to create a sense of sanctuary at home. The world felt scary and uncertain, but I’d buffer my daughter from it by buying an indoor slide and a ball pit! It had gotten so out of hand that, after six months of quarantining in Florida, I had to rent a minivan to haul everything back to our home in New York. I found security in stuff, but slowly, I found myself drowning in it. I turned to KonMari to recalibrate my relationship with what I owned, so it wouldn’t own me.

As a media attendee, I’m not officially a CIT, and to be honest, I’m not sure I’m ready to launch an organizing business. But if those three days taught me anything, it’s this: Recovering our spark takes time, and in these uncertain-yet-hopeful days, the best thing you can do is stop judging yourself for not having your life together, let alone tidily organized into hikidashi boxes.

To learn more about the KonMari Consultant program, visit consultant.konmari.com. Registration is currently open for the next course, which takes place April 19 through April 21.