Columbia College Today

“Storage guru” Jill Pollack ’89 has been a personal organizer for show biz clients such as Marcia Cross and Jennifer Tilly.

Photo: jeff lewis

Three years ago, Jill Pollack ’89 had reached the summit of her TV career, producing Trista and Ryan’s Wedding for NBC. But masterminding one of the most-watched reality shows of all time seemed to her more like a service to TV advertisers than to humanity. Time for a change, she decided.

Pollack started to clean house, quite literally, tidying up the cluttered Los Angeles home she shared with interior designer P. Kirk Pereira ’90, a friend from Columbia. As Pereira watched Pollack work her magic, he had a thought. Perhaps she could apply her organizational talents to one of his design customers, actress Jennifer Tilly.

“I wanted her to stop organizing my house,” Pereira jokes. “So I introduced her to some of my clients.”

A business was born. With Pereira’s help, Pollack entered the growing trade of the professional organizer, picking up clients through word of mouth and through her website (www.jillpollack.org). Word of her talent spread fast. Within a matter of months, Pollack received dozens of calls from prospective clients in Los Angeles and New York, mostly celebrities and professionals whose permanently jumbled closets and schedules had resisted the most valiant housecleaners and personal assistants.

Pollack often begins by observing her clients’ routines and habits in each room of their homes. If a client likes to kick off her shoes when she walks in, Pollack doesn’t try to retrain her; rather, she adds a shoe rack to the entryway. If clutter piles up because a closet isn’t accessible, Pollack rearranges the furniture or tries to segregate living from storage areas: Holiday decorations shouldn’t be stowed away in a frequently used closet, for instance. Then comes what is often the most difficult part: letting go of less essential items. Pollack doesn’t throw anything away without permission. Instead, she sits down with her clients amidst the clutter and has a heart-to-heart about their priorities. What does their lifestyle really call for?

What happens then depends much on the clients’ problems and goals. Some are afraid to open the doors to certain rooms in their homes, fearing an avalanche; others are beset by a vague feeling of disorder. Pollack can’t save everyone. In rare cases, she encounters pathological “hoarders,” sufferers of obsessive-compulsive disorder who must see a therapist before Pollack can intervene.

In most cases, however, the problem is just an overly busy schedule. Despite her wealthy and famous clientele (Desperate Housewives’ Marcia Cross, Sin City’s Brittany Murphy and Tilly, for example), Pollack resists the title of “organizer to the stars.” “I don’t just line up lipsticks,” she quips as we lunch one bright winter afternoon outside Joan’s On Third, a New York-style deli in Los Angeles. She compares her role to that of a personal trainer — a profession once seen as an absurd indulgence, but now widely accepted. Like a trainer, Pollack’s job is to teach, motivate and fight recidivism: You don’t get fit, or learn how to stay organized, in a day.

“The first thing I tell my clients is to let go of the guilt,” says Pollack. “You’re already holding onto Nana’s jewelry and her quilt collection — do you really need to keep her tennis shoes, too?”

“Boy, do I need an assistant,” is a common response to the disorder in one’s life, says Pollack, but outsourcing one’s organization can be dangerous. One of Pollack’s clients, an ex-supermodel, was so accustomed to being told when and where she had to be that she was unable to keep her appointments after she retired. That’s where Pollack came in, teaching her client how to use the color-coded calendaring system she developed as a psychology major at the College. “I always had to make my bed before I studied,” Pollack recalls of her years living on the 12th floor of Carman.

Pollack applied to the College largely because of her father Elliott Pollack ’62, 65L’s passion for Columbia. During her first year, she hosted Frank, a CTV show focusing on campus life. After earning her master’s in journalism from NYU in 1991, Pollack spent the next 10 years working for CBS News, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, The Sally Jessy Raphaël Show and EXTRA as an assistant, then a producer. But even as she climbed the ladder, Pollack found herself returning to the ambition of her psych major days: She wanted to help people.

Now, in a small but important way, Pollack is doing just that. “I feel like a weight has been lifted, like I have more power over my life,” Tilly told InStyle last September, in a feature that showcased her L.A. villa and Pollack’s organizing skills. “I’m me, with less stuff!” That’s a lesson, Pollack says, that applies not just to celebrities but to the rest of us: It isn’t simply a matter of what we consume, but how we use what we consume to improve our lives. “You can’t control the world,” says Pollack. “But you can control your environment.”

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