LAYTON— “I get to leave every place I organize, better than I found it. I find great satisfaction in that,” says Linda Isom, professional organizer and owner of Clearing Space by Design.

Isom, who will be featured on A&E’s “Hoarders” show in October, was selected as the professional organizer to help clean and organize a local residence by Matt Paxton, the show’s clutter expert. He told Isom that he chose her “because you seem the most genuine and real and you understand the hoarder’s mindset and seem to legitimately care about helping them.”

Hoarding, according to Isom, is a learned behavior and extreme hoarding (like the homes and families featured on the show) is an addiction and needs to be viewed in that light. “Some people are just naturally more unorganized than others,” says Isom, “but in my experience hoarding always starts with a tragic event in someone’s life: death, suicide, divorce, etc.”

The show will air late next month and is telecast Monday nights at 7 p.m. on A&E.

“A professional organizer is someone who saves people time and money and reduces people’s stress levels by helping them get organized,” Isom says of what she does. “From paper to professional responsibilities, I give you parameters on what to keep, what to toss, and where to take action.”

“The fast-paced world we live in and the obsessive need for possessions” is the cause to which Isom attributes most people’s disorganization. “Stress doesn’t come from clutter; it comes from not knowing what to do with it.”

The impetus to Isom beginning her professional organizing career was a situation beyond her control. In 2002, she recalls, “I had ongoing health issues and had to drop everything at home and allow someone else to care for my family. I learned a lot from that experience. After those events, I went about organizing things in my home so they were clearly marked and anyone could find them when needed.”

From this beginning sprang Isom’s business. It opened in January 2008 and offers professional organization in both residential and business settings. Isom goes into homes and businesses and helps people “create a functioning space and then teaches them a system to keep it that way. They pay me to kindly guide them into a different way of thinking. In many circumstances it is a process of retraining their brains to a new way of thinking.”

At home, the key to Isom’s own organization is “everything has a home. It’s virtually impossible to always keep things in that home all the time, the key is having a designated, clearly marked location for the item to be returned to after it is used.”

If Isom buys something, then she discards two things she no longer needs to make room for it. “When it comes to possessions the 80/20 rule applies,” said Isom. “We only use about 20 percent of what we own.”