Get What
You Really
Want
BY Jennifer Allford, Shelley Arnusch,
Jennifer Friesen, Kait Kucy AND
Alana Willerton
ILLUSTRATIONS BY Ally ReevesTop tips from local experts on how to feel
and look better and have a happier life, a
cleaner house, more time and more success.
rid of distracting clutter and only keeping items
that make you happy, you have more time to work
on your “ideal lifestyle” — basically, getting rid of
junk frees up your emotional and mental space to
focus on being happier.
“What makes the KonMari Method really
different is we organize by category and not by
room,” Youn says. For example, instead of look-
ing at all the stuff in your living room, with the
KonMari Method you’d start by looking at all of
your clothes, then books, papers, miscellaneous
items and, finally, sentimental items.
“Whenever people are thinking about tidying
up, they’re usually only thinking about a specific
area at home [like the kitchen or living room].
But when you do that, you end up moving things
from room to room, so you waste a lot of time
and that’s what we don’t want people to do,” says
Youn. “We want people to look at things just one
time and then they don’t have to deal with them
again, because then you can move on and actu-
ally live the life that you want to live.” —A.W.
28
avenueJANUARY.18GET ORGANIZED
W
hen it comes to getting organized,
home is often where the heart of
the problem is. Helen Youn, the
Canadian Prairies’ first certified
KonMari consultant, specializes
in helping clients clear out the clutter using the
KonMari Method. Created by Marie Kondo,
author of the international bestseller The Life
Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the KonMari
process is about determining whether items
in your home “spark joy” within you (and get-
ting rid of them if they don’t).
According to Youn, just being in a cluttered
space can take up a lot of brain power. By getting