When Michelle Passoff chose to attend Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications, it wasn’t because she longed to be a journalist. She knew that having writing skills would enable her to share her experience of life such that it would make a difference for others. She never imagined that the lessons learned could be taught through cleaning clutter and writing books, speaking and consulting all over the world on the topic.

Passoff grew up in a glass house her father chose from the cover a magazine when his family of five children outgrew the two- bedroom cottage on a lake where they all lived in New Jersey.  “People who live in glass houses can’t have clutter”, says Passoff, “Some of her best lessons on cleaning clutter came from her mother.” 

Later, when Passoff was working on Madison Avenue as a media specialist for public relations agencies ,she was simultaneously taking ‘new age’ classes on personal development.  She learned some of her best clutter cleaning skills there – how to move and manage life so that goals could be achieved without obstructions.

When Michelle got a call from a friend who had enlisted a team of her pals to come help clean her apartment because it was so cluttered that her landlord threatened eviction, a lightbulb went off  and her past met her future.  She realized that she knew exactly how to get her friend out of the mess.  She went home, used all of her marketing skills to create posters advertising clutter cleaning services and she hung them on bus stops up and down Broadway.  Business started to boom.  Soon after, she a created a class and started teaching at a lifelong learning school in downtown Manhattan,

The morning after she delivered one of her classes, Michelle got a call from a student who identified herself as a writer for The New York Times.  She wanted a private consultation for an article she was writing.  The morning that the article hit newsstands, Passoff had calls from a literary agent and a publisher.  The fulfillment of her goal to write what she learned in life so others would benefit was launched.

Passoff is the author of “Lighten Up! Free Yourself From Clutter (HarperPerennial) and “Decluttering 55+: Wisdoms to create a legacy, not a mess”. She is also the host of the podcast, Decluttering 55+ with Michelle Passoff.