#Decluttering Tips From A Professional Organizer For Kitchen, Bathroom and More

Where on Earth to begin? Professional organizer Barbara Reich knows the answer

Barbara Reich's decluttering sessions typically follow a certain trajectory. First, the New York–based professional organizer peppers her client with questions. How do you use this room? Which area makes you craziest? Then, she takes a deep breath and tunnels into the decades' worth of clutter, whisking ancient phone bills and mystery kitchen gadgets into trash bag after trash bag. Her clients, who range from harried mothers to CEOs, may grumble at first. As the clutter recedes, though, they usually give in.

Guide to Organizing Your Home

Her nuclear option? Imagine the future, she tells the client. You are gone, and your children are dealing with the enormous mess you left behind. How does that make you feel?

That usually does the trick.

Reich has just used this tactic on her latest client, a genial widower in his 70s named Fred. You're right, he concedes, as they survey the chaotic home office of his apartment. My kids are the ones who are going to have to throw everything out. My son-in-law, everyone, is after me to clean up. It's overwhelming.

That's where Reich comes in. A trim brunette in jeans, boots and a black sweater, she plants her hands on her hips and looks around with narrowed eyes. Piles of paper teeter on a desk. Old magazines spill from bookshelves. A dozen boxes claim most of the floor space. OK, she announces. We've got work to do.

Reich, 46, a self-described type A personality powered by six to eight daily cups of green tea, has a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in management from NYU. A lifelong neatnik, she had already launched a consulting firm when, in 2004, she found herself rearranging the toys on her children's playdates. It occurred to her: Why not transform her neurosis into a business? (It's a growing one, too: The National Association of Professional Organizers now has 4,000 members.)