my guru

I have to admit that, when it comes to organizing, I have a guru.  His name is Peter Walsh.  I first discovered Peter when he was on the first season of the TLC show, Clean Sweep.  In case you never saw the show, Peter would show up at a family’s home to help them de-clutter a room or two and bring along an interior designer and a carpenter to help completely makeover the space.  According to wikipedia, the show ran from 2003-2005 and I think I saw every episode.  I was addicted to the show, but especially to Peter and his spot-on analysis of the homeowners and the reasons for their clutter.

After the show had been on for about a year, I was chairing the training committee of a local women’s organization of which I am a member.  As we brainstormed ideas that year for training topics, I off-handedly suggested that we should do a training on clutter and organization and try to get Peter Walsh from Clean Sweep.  Well, my very fabulous, smart and capable committee member (and now dear friend), W, offered to try to get Peter for the event.  And she did it!  I only have very dark, grainy pictures from the event.  And for some reason, I didn’t get a picture of myself with Peter (what was I thinking?).  But here is the best image I could find, with a little light correction in Picasa:

Peter at the training event in Pasadena
January 2004

The really cool thing about Peter speaking at the event was that he wanted to de-clutter a space for one of our members as an example and tape it to show at the training event.  So I got to spent one whole Saturday at the home of the then-president of the organization, cleaning out her clothes closet, ASSISTING PETER WALSH!  It was fabulous!  I learned so much from him that day (in between pinching myself to see if it was really happening).   And he was very gracious to personally answer a couple of e-mails that I sent him a few weeks after the training.  All around a really class act and a very nice person.

After he spoke at our event, the trajectory of his career skyrocketed (not that I am linking the two…).  He continued on Clean Sweep and then became the resident organizing/clutter expert on The Oprah Show and in O Magazine.   When Oprah started OWN, she gave him his own show, now called Extreme Clutter.  He as also written several books, all of which I own, none of which I have read yet, but I will be reading them soon on the elliptical and will let you know what I think.  Stay tuned!

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