Local Organizer Seeks Three Village's Messiest Closet

Break out your cameras and throw open your closet doors. Eileen Koff wants to find Three Village's messiest closet.

The professional organizer and 19-year Three Village resident has in which the prize is a free closet makeover for one local winner. The deadline is Feb. 11, and more information is on her website. Her contest is part of a larger project – "GO Month," or Get Organized Month, which took place in January – sponsored by the professional organization to which she belongs, the National Association of Professional Organizers, which has about 4,000 members.

"Organizers throughout the entire U.S. do this every year," Koff said. "We give back to the community."

In the 13 years since she started her business, To the Next Level, she has seen some pretty crazy things: hoarders, hobbyists and collectors run amok, everyday folks whose lives have fallen into chaos as the result of life changes. She acknowledged that plenty of people make attempts to get organized early in the year motivated by personal New Year's resolutions, but said they are not always successful.

"That's what's interesting about my industry," Koff said. "There is no normal. Everything is a bit askewed. We get called for many different reasons, but the primary reason is when people's self-help attempts are no longer suiting their abilities."

The NAPO conducted a survey in which 96 percent of respondents felt they would have more free time if they were more organized, with 71 percent of respondents saying better organization would actually improve the quality of their lives. It's something Setauket residents Deede Cook and Peter Winkler, two of Koff's clients, know firsthand after meeting her at Innovative Nutrition.

"[We] quickly decided that she was what we had been looking for,” Cook said. “We are learning from her that to be organized, you have to understand yourself, your values, what you love, and what your true priorities are.”

It's something Koff started doing as a child; she recalls spending playdates organizing her friends' closets, and later continued during college in her friends' dorm rooms. She completed a degree in child development, but realized the classroom wasn't for her – and started a business based on the joy she said her casual organizing projects brought to her friends. She received a certificate from the Board of Certified Professional Organizers in 2007, has a certification from the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization, and specializes in environmentally friendly organizing.

Koff works three days a week, which has allowed her plenty of time to raise her three sons, Ian, Evan and Keenan. Her business peaked in 2007, but the recession had its effects. "I have seen a decline in my profits, but ... I've never been in the red," she said.

Her business started booming after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which she said threw many people's lives into a state of turmoil. It catapulted the professional organizing industry into the media, spawning television shows about organizing.

"If the world got chaotic," Koff said, "then the least they could do was control their own home, their own sphere."

Editor Christine Sampson contributed to this story.