Before Marie Kondo captured the world’s attention with her exhortations to rid ourselves of items that did not “spark joy,” there was another Japanese guru of decluttering.
Her name is Hideko Yamashita. And while Ms. Yamashita, 70, has never reached Ms. Kondo’s level of Netflix-induced fame, she is widely credited in Japan with spearheading the modern movement of decluttering our homes — or, as it has come to be called overseas, “kondo-ing.”
The two women, born three decades apart in Tokyo, both preach the idea that households amass too much stuff. Letting go of unnecessary items and creating minimalist, tidier spaces, they argue, can enhance mental well-being.
Ms. Yamashita said she admired Ms. Kondo, 40, for taking these ideas to the Western world. A spokeswoman for Ms. Kondo acknowledged in a statement that Ms. Yamashita had been a leading figure in the tidying trend for years, but said Ms. Kondo had established her own philosophies.
More than two decades ago, Ms. Yamashita began offering seminars in Japan on danshari, the Japanese art of decluttering. In 2009, her book “The New Tidying Up Method: Danshari” — published more than a year before Ms. Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” hit shelves — propelled her to fame.
Ms. Yamashita hosts a weekly television show that is widely viewed in Japan, taking on some of the country’s most maximalist homes. She also runs a school where she trains students — mostly women, middle age and older — on how to become professional decluttering experts.
When performing danshari consultations, Ms. Yamashita glides around her clients’ homes in a stylish one-shoulder apron with a red sash. With her neatly styled chestnut bob and a warm, slightly crooked smile, the septuagenarian radiates energy.
Ms. Yamashita and Ms. Kondo approach decluttering in different ways. In Ms. Kondo’s books and Netflix series, she offers easy-to-follow techniques for organizing, wrapped in her signature cheer and positivity. Keep items that make you happy and thank those that do not before tossing them away, she instructs.
Ms. Yamashita is more abstract, philosophical and probing — less approachable, converts of the Marie Kondo school argue. When sorting through what to keep or toss away, Ms. Yamashita pushes her clients to think about why they are attached to certain items, and to examine what overabundance and obsession do to their emotional states.
“For me, danshari is not about tidying up, organizing or tossing away things that don’t spark joy,” Ms. Yamashita said, slurping soba noodles out of sesame broth at a restaurant in Tokyo. “It is about returning people to a state in which parting with things feels natural.”
“When people’s homes and minds get clogged up with too many things, they begin to fester,” she continued. “It’s like how you eat and then release — it is a normal part of our existence.”
“Danshari is about creating an exit and getting that flow back,” she added.
Ms. Yamashita first encountered danshari during her university years in Tokyo, when she studied yoga and Buddhist teachings that emphasized letting go of attachments. After graduating and moving to Ishikawa Prefecture, west of Tokyo, she began applying these principles to declutter her own home, which she shared with her husband, son and mother-in-law.
It was from her mother-in-law that she discovered the difficulties of encouraging others to declutter. When Ms. Yamashita tried to throw things away, her mother-in-law would rummage through the trash bags, scolding her with “mottainai” — a Japanese term expressing regret over waste.
Her mother-in-law complained that the house was too small. “I wanted to scream, ‘You’ll have more space if you just get rid of stuff!’” Ms. Yamashita recalled.
In 2005, Ms. Yamashita, then 50, had another building constructed near her family home, calling it the “Danshari Open House.” There, she began coaching her yoga students on the principles of household decluttering.
Four years later, Ms. Yamashita published her book — an instant success that was followed by dozens more. In total, Ms. Yamashita’s books have sold more than seven million copies.
Tomoko Ikari, an associate professor of consumer behavior at Meisei University in Tokyo, said danshari resonated so strongly in Japan for a reason: The idea of living simply and detaching from desires is embedded in the Buddhist teachings that help shape Japan.
However, despite the popular image of tidy Japanese homes and lifestyles rooted in a Zen minimalist aesthetic, Japan is a country of limited space with a high concentration of people in big cities. Many homes are small and overcrowded with possessions, Ms. Ikari said.
“There were people who knew about danshari, but it was small before the rise of Ms. Yamashita,” Ms. Ikari said. “Years later, what started with Ms. Yamashita has reverberated into the global ‘sparking joy’ phenomenon we see today.”
One early morning last fall, Ms. Yamashita arrived for a danshari consultation at a small apartment on the eighth floor of a nondescript building in northwestern Tokyo. Her video crew was in tow to record the session for her YouTube channel.
Dressed in light-wash jeans and a frilly white blouse, Ms. Yamashita breezed down the entry hall into the main living area, pausing to take in the scene before her.
Towers of tote bags, baskets and hampers overflowed with clothes and toys. In one corner, dozens of dusty bottles sat behind beanbag chairs, while a miniature trampoline lay turned on its side. Virtually no surface was visible, buried under avalanches of old gadgets, picture frames and office supplies.
“Well, this doesn’t feel refreshing, does it?” Ms. Yamashita remarked, flashing a smile as she turned to Risa Kojima, the apartment’s wide-eyed owner standing in the living room. “Are you intent on making this refreshed?” she asked.
Ms. Kojima, 41, and her husband, Takashi, both work full time and have three sons — one a toddler, one in kindergarten and one in elementary school. In addition to her day job, Ms. Kojima juggles several side gigs, including photography and event planning. Her husband handles most of the housework and child care.
A decade after they moved in, the couple’s 750-square-foot apartment had been in disarray for so long that they no longer really noticed the mess.
Starting in the living room, Ms. Kojima and her husband began sorting through baskets filled with old pens, gaming devices and tangles of charging cords. Ms. Yamashita flitted around the room in her signature apron, wiping down surfaces and peppering the couple with questions.
One early question — “The comfort of this space and your attachment to these items — which matters more to you? Which has more value?” — seemed to catch Ms. Kojima off guard, leaving her stumped.
By the end of the five-hour session, as often happens on Ms. Yamashita’s television show, Ms. Kojima had found some answers.
“You’re noticing there are too many things out in the open, but we need to probe deeper into the fact that you have so much stuff,” Ms. Yamashita said midway through their cleaning.
“I think my mind is cluttered,” Ms. Kojima replied, from work and elsewhere. “I have so many things constantly being jammed into my head,” she said.
Ms. Yamashita pressed: “Obviously, no one can see inside your head, but it’s visible, in this space.” She then gestured at the living room. “Can you see how the challenges you’re dealing with in your head are physically manifested here?” she asked.
“I think the problem is that I can’t even recognize when there’s too much,” Ms. Kojima said.
During a break between the morning and afternoon sessions, Ms. Yamashita, accompanied by her video crew and Ms. Kojima, walked to a small noodle shop down the street. Settling at a low table in a corner of the straw-mat-lined restaurant, Ms. Yamashita commiserated with Ms. Kojima about how challenging danshari could be.
“In many ways, having to face our things is like having to face ourselves,” Ms. Yamashita said. “We all take on so much and it’s difficult to work on reducing things when it comes to relationships and work.”
Her goal, she said, was to help the working mother of three learn to become aware when things were getting to be too much. “What we’re doing with items in your house — it’s just training,” she said.
