NEW YORK—Midafternoon rays seeped through a skylight and lit a pristine apartment in Park Slope, where two women laughed and chatted intermittently about their children and ex-husbands. Liz Gessner was not home with her best friend that afternoon. She was sorting financial records with her professional organizer.
When one thinks of people who hire professional organizers, extreme hoarders from reality television shows may come to mind.
Yet Gessner’s apartment was already uncluttered and exceptionally clean: White wooly rug, white couch, and bathroom towels that were of the same shade of impeccable white.
Simply enough, professional organizers help individuals and businesses become more organized and get rid of excess.
Yet since the founding of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO) in 1983, professional organizers have branched out beyond the removal of physical clutter, although they can help with that as well.
Professional organizing now extends to various aspects of life: from closets to financial records, emotional clutter to mental clutter.
Gessner and her professional organizer Sharon Lowenheim go from discussing how to organize digital financial records to telling stories about disastrous social situations.
“It’s therapy, more than anything,” Gessner said.
