About Carmen Klassen

As a child, I didn’t really bother with cleaning up. Both my parents were very clean and tidy, and we all had family chores on Saturday, but I only cleaned my room when I was forced to. This cleaning process involved taking everything I didn’t know what to do with, putting it in a box, and putting the box in the basement. Easy!

Fast forward to sixteen-year-old me. By now, it was just mom and I at home. My older siblings were living their own lives, and my Dad was in long-term care because of advancing Parkinson’s disease. Mom and I were downsizing, and I had to go through all those boxes in the basement before we moved… Let me tell you, that left an impression!

Ready to fast forward again? Now I’m a 32-year-old single mom with four kids, struggling not to lose my marbles while working towards an online Bachelor of Psychology degree. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and needing some shortcuts. Being of a slightly lazy nature, I realized that the easiest way to keep the house clean was to have less stuff. A lot less stuff. So, I decluttered and got organized. 

When I graduated with my degree, I realized that what I really wanted to do was help others live easier lives, so I trained to become a Professional Organizer and opened my own business. From the start, my approach was a little different because I was always looking for the emotional reasons behind my client’s clutter, and the mental solutions that would help them create the lives they really wanted.

I loved my job! But when I started moving countries with my new (wonderful) husband and our blended family, I didn’t want to keep starting and closing businesses. So, I turned to another passion—writing!

Love Your Clutter Away is a direct result of my experiences working with all types of clients. From retirees to new moms, single women to busy families, and people with a single cluttered room or people with two houses full to the brim, there are some strategies that work well for everyone. 

The underlying issue of how people feel about themselves is covered frequently in this book. That’s intentional! More than anything else, I want readers to walk away from my book with one phrase stuck in their head and their heart: I love myself!

I’m not perfectly organized, and I don’t have a magazine-perfect home. What I do have are a lot of systems that work really well for myself and my family. As we prepare to move to a different country (again!) I’m proud to say there isn’t a single box of ‘miscellaneous’ hiding in the basement that needs to be sorted!