Want to Unlock the True Value of Your Data? Try Applying Marie Kondo-Inspired Principles

Marie Kondo became a household name with her transformative approach to decluttering household spaces. Her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up emphasized the profound benefits of strategic elimination and the joys of radical streamlining. It may seem unexpected to open an article about data—and how to unlock its potential—with references to Marie Kondo’s principles; however, the connection is deeply relevant. For chief marketing officers (and countless other C-suite executives), the data crisis is existential. Kondo’s ideas offer timely inspiration for overcoming that challenge and finding a path forward.

What’s more, artificial intelligence is exponentially increasing the volume of data in our lives (it can also solve the problem it creates, but more on that later). This isn’t just a matter of managing and organizing information; it’s a deeply personal and cognitive one. Research shows that our decisiveness declines significantly when our brains are overstimulated.

Cluttered Knowledge = Cluttered Mind

Our day-to-day experiences show that the overwhelming flood of data pouring into our brains is incredibly difficult to capture, centralize, and manage. Far too often, that data ends up siloed and hidden. And when companies can’t find what they need, they usually respond by duplicating what already exists…somewhere.

While it has become a cliché that business runs on data, the “running’ is seriously impaired. That’s a significant loss, because data, in any form, holds the potential to unlock incredible insights and drive meaningful innovations.

Yet much of that data remains unused, even though it can be a critical make-or-break factor in the success of everything from launching new products to expanding into new markets.

A Marie Kondo-inspired approach to data can be genuinely transformative. Don’t be misled by the fact that her philosophy was designed for the physical world, the clutter of closets and junk drawers. Even in a world of unlimited cloud storage, the underlying principles remain just as powerful.

The essence of her principles isn’t to just toss everything you don’t immediately need. Instead, she says, “The true purpose of tidying is not to cut down on your possessions or declutter your space. The ultimate goal is to spark joy every day and lead a joyful life.”

Outlined below are data management strategies inspired by Marie Kondo’s principles to help conquer information overload, improve decision making, and elevate productivity.

After all, the problem is broader than you might think, with recent research finding that “86 percent of organizations say their tech is inadequate or outdated, which also hinders them from effectively using their data.”

Commit Yourself to “Tidying Up”

Commitment is Marie’s first rule for the home, and it translates remarkably well to the business world. People are people, and recognizing we have a problem (and committing to solve it) is the essential first step.

Data bulking is the norm, as budgets for surveys and other research are in billions, but you must arrive at the realization that you’ve been focused solely on accumulation.

Rather than fixating on the sheer volume of data we have, we should focus on how we access and deploy our data for competitive advantage. Even the largest companies often overlook how their data is utilized and how that utility is tracked and measured.

In this context, tidying up means “opening up” and harnessing AI to turn untouched libraries of data into highly valuable and business-building content, which can be used to make informed decisions to fuel growth and innovation.

A Place for Everything, and Everything in Its Place

Kondo also draws on a well-established psychological truth: visualizing something in your mind motivates action. Seeing your goals makes them more attainable. With this in mind, CMOs should create three-dimensional mental maps of their current infrastructures.

Most infrastructures were designed to be either rigid or isolated. Rigid systems are heavily guarded and centralized, while isolated systems fragment data, making it difficult to share or communicate. Imagine millions of keys and millions of locks with no way to match them to the right needs at the right time.

Now, picture the ideal data topography, built from scratch with AI that is trained on your organization's knowledge, seamlessly connecting the right information with the right use cases.

The Magic of Simplicity

In this future yet achievable state, data will possess three characteristics: immediately identifiable, conceptually cross-referenceable, and kinetically fluid. This represents one departure from Marie’s approach, which insists that tidying up should happen by category, but with AI-powered knowledge management, there is no need for rigid categories or ontologies.

Instead, you can store everything in glorious messiness and withdraw it, on cue, with precision, accuracy, and relevance.

Complex systems create resistance; simplicity will convert frustration to joy.

Consider Whether Your Data “Sparks Joy”

This is perhaps Marie Kondo’s most famous principle: hold onto something, and if it doesn't bring you immediate joy—“…a little thrill, as if the cells in your body are slowly rising”—you should let it go.

Again, there’s a twist for the enterprise. At any point in time, you can’t always know if a node of data will give you joy in the future. It might seem useless in the moment, but tomorrow, there could be a material change, whether it be a new competitor, regulation, or consumer trend—that same data could become a game changer, sparking joy in ways you couldn’t have predicted.

Plus, the utilization of generative AI as an integral part of data insights management takes everything a step further: once that node of data is identified, it can be acted upon instantly, transforming what was once a slow, manual process into a joyful, seamless way to navigate complex challenges with invaluable insight.

A Marie Kondo-inspired mindset, combined with AI, can truly liberate data from clutter, increasing its accessibility and value. AI-driven data access can be the ultimate source of both expected and unexpected joy in the enterprise.

Thor Olof Philogène is founder and CEO of Stravito, provider of AI-powered enterprise knowledge management, with customers such as Heineken, Comcast, and Nestlé. Philogène was previously chief revenue officer and VP for growth at fintech company iZettle (now Zettle by Paypal). Adam Hanft is a brand strategist who advises Fortune 500 companies, innovative startups, and global leaders. He writes on brand and political strategy analysis, with his work having appeared in the WSJ, the Atlantic, and Fast Company.