Pro turns organization into fun

Author: Lea Calderon-Guthe

In celebration of National Get Organized Month, the Ilsley Library played host to Porter Knight '89, a professional organizer and Middlebury alum, and her troupe of multi-talented performers for the town of Middlebury's first ever Organizing Variety Show. Armed with plate-spinners, jugglers, singers and poetry, Knight brought organizing tips and family-friendly entertainment to the 40 or so people gathered in the library performance space on Jan. 17.

The variety show was Knight's 12th annual talk for the public at the Ilsley Library after beginning her career as a professional organizer in 1996, but for the past 11 years Knight appeared without back-up dancers and provided a more formal presentation. Her presentations have been different each year as she has added new tips or different skills, but this year she focused on changing the delivery of the information instead of the information itself.

"I wanted it to be crazy and different, but I wanted people to actually leave with information so they could go home and know more about organizing than when they came," Knight said.

The show's attendees learned a lot about organizing, but they got know their organizer, as well. Knight had never planned on being a professional organizer, but continual encouragement from her husband put her on the organizing path. Knight tells the story of her husband's cluttered kitchen and his habit for storing all of his cooking utensils on the counter. After marrying Knight, it was clear his past storage methods would not mesh with hers, so Knight went to work creating an organized system for all of his gear.

"My husband said, 'You know, Porter, people would pay for that. People would pay for that systems thinking you do,' and I said it wasn't like a job," Knight said. "This was in '96 when if you told somebody that you were an organizer, they thought you were like a union organizer."

Despite the ignorance of the times surrounding professional organizing, Knight eventually followed her husband's advice and has since become Vermont's only professional organizer with clients nationwide. She teaches tele-classes, classes over the phone, to other would-be organizers once a month and has a wide and varied client-base, from doctors looking to straighten up their offices to frantic housewives dealing with sitting rooms full of junk. One thing most of her clients have in common is a belief that they will be the worst Knight has ever seen, but Knight says she has yet to see an impossible mess. This outlook on Knight's part has led to a lot of success stories and many appreciative clients - some so appreciative they have even written her poetry which Knight had a friend read at her show. The poems were thankful in every way, especially of Knight's particular organizing philosophies.

"One of the big things I love telling about organizing is that it's not about being perfect, it's not about being fussy or compulsive or uptight - that's a big myth that I try to debunk," Knight said. "It doesn't have to be overorganized - it only has to be organized enough."

Knight's choice of delivery method for her talk reflected her philosophy: instead of a rigid and overly structured lecture, she presented her material in a dynamic, yet still useful, manner. Before the poetry reading, three of Knight's more musically gifted friends sang songs whose lyrics had been rewritten to fit the theme of organizing, including one penned by Knight herself to the tune of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." For the second act, Knight's nine-year-old son, Liam, led plate-spinning as a demonstration of "having too much on one's plate," and Ben Allred, the Brisol Balancer, juggled as a metaphor for multi-tasking, or "having a lot of balls in the air."

The third act entailed some audience participation in the form of karaoke and dancing, though the tone remained educational. Knight presented three of her favorite organizing acronyms with corresponding dance moves to help the audience remember them, and then, for the grand finale, she invited audience members to come up and sing more organizing parodies of popular songs, including "50 Ways to Lose Your Clutter" to the tune of Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover."

The audience clapped and whistled at the end of every musical number, and much joyous recounting of the night's performances followed Knight's exit. The show's host, Jerry Germain, also host of Middlebury Community Television's "INFOcus" and former host of Middlebury Radio WFAD's "Morning Show," called it a success.

"I think it went well for something that was not rehearsed," Germain said. "She got the point across like she always does, no matter what setting."

Audience members had similar sentiments.

"The entertainment was really captivating, but the tips were great, too," said Kristen Fritz of Bristol, Vt. "I've checked her book out of her library before and I think I'm pretty organized myself, but I think I need to teach my husband some of her tips from tonight."

Carla Tighe, a Middlebury resident who has known Knight since the beginning of her organizing career, commented on the changes in Knight's performance.

"I've gone to other things of hers to listen to what she has to say, and I think what was really great was she decluttered it - she only gave the important parts," Tighe said. "If you are a take-charge person, you should be able to take what she said and at least make a little change."

If Knight had not been successful before this evening, the show's display of her fun-loving personality would have won her several new clients, and it clearly made a fan out of Germain.

"[Knight] has just got a great personality, she deals well people and she's just a fun person," Germain said. "She has basically organized the county and beyond since she started back in the mid-90s, and I think Porter's the perfect person to do this kind of thing - her enthusiasm just catches on to other people."