Organizing expert uses tough love, psychology
Ever looked at your overstuffed garage and considered just dragging everything outside and setting a match to it?
Dorothy Breininger could help you avoid that conflagration.
You probably know her better as Dorothy the Organizer. She’s an authority on the subject who appears on A&E Network’s Emmynominated weekly TV series “Hoarders.” You might also have seen Breininger dispensing her clutter-free-living advice on TV programs. She has coauthored six books, produced the award-winning documentary “Saving Our Parents” and is a popular public speaker.
How did she train to be a professional organizer?
“I actually started out as an executive assistant to deans and chancellors of universities and CEOs of large companies,” Breininger said. “I was always organizing the lives of busy, important people, usually men. So many of them would say, ‘You’re so organized. You should start a business doing this.’ ”
Breininger took a sabbatical to explore the possibility. “I spent some time traveling around the world,” she said. “What struck me was that everywhere I went, people had so much less stuff, yet they were so much happier than we are here in the U.S.”
Breininger says every project is unique, but she usually starts by posing the same question to clients.
“I like to ask, ‘If this clutter were talking to you, what would it tell you?’ ” she said. “It could be a person who hoards because they had some sort of traumatic event in their lives and need the stuff around them for security. Or perhaps they can’t let go of the past or a person who is gone.”
Sometimes there’s no underlying reason, Breininger said. “People lead busy lives and accumulate too many things without even realizing it.”
She divides clutter bugs into three age groups.
“There are the young ones who have too much information clutter. … It’s not always easily findable, so they’re struggling,” she said.
“Then we have those over 70 who were brought up on paper and are overwhelmed by it. They come from a period when saving was a virtue.
“Then there are the boomers, who were brought up with paper but are now straddling two information worlds and pulling their hair out.”
Before she arrives at a home, Breininger implores clients to leave everything exactly where it is.
“I tell them, ‘Please do not move anything. Don’t clean up before I get there, otherwise I don’t see your patterns. I need to see those books sliding off your night stand. It tells me how your brain thinks. Are you a piler or a stacker or a filer? That information tells me how to organize your office.’ ”
Breininger also needs to figure out her client’s aesthetic taste from looking at all that random stuff.
“I need to know whether you’re visually oriented and whether aesthetics are important,” she said. “Do you prefer everything in beautiful containers or Dorothy Breininger ‘s tips on decluttering ■ Hang things up. “Put up hooks and install them wherever they’re useful. They’re perfect for keys, backpacks, hair dryers. It’s a great thing because you can see them, but they’re out of the way.” ■ Sometimes partial success feels like a triumph. “I once worked with two professors from Chicago who had 750,000 books in a three-story brownstone. I got rid of 27,000 for them in three days. They were thrilled with the result.” ■ Forget about eBay or yard sales if you’re not so inclined. “Do you really sell things on eBay? Are you really the kind of person who can take the time to do a yard sale? If not, then don’t be afraid to donate things or throw them out.” baskets? Or do you just want to see it close at hand in perfect piles?”
Breininger’s own home is well organized, she says, but she does allow herself one indulgence.
“I have a junk drawer. I believe everyone should. There’s no such thing as perfection.”