PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZERS     Devin Greaney    March, 2003 Published in SILICON HILLS NEWS

A little girl in Atlanta had an interesting play activity that foretold her future.

“When I was a small child I would go into my parent’s closet and rearrange things,” Christy Frierson said. After growing up and spending several years in banking she decided to make it on her own as an entrepreneur and is starting her own business as a professional organizer. She and six other members of the Central Texas Organizers met for a recent Saturday luncheon in Austin and discussed either starting or working in the field.

If your car is the only thing not in the garage you might need a professional organizer. If your home has bills and important papers placed where you would not loose them (if you could only remember where that was) you might need a professional organizer. If the office simultaneously orders coffee because there was only copy paper in the break room and copy paper because there was only coffee in the copier room  you might need a professional organizer. If you have to climb over a rusted tool box in the storage shed to find Christmas decorations that fell behind your vintage Strawberry Shortcake and Max Headroom memorabilia that broke your Def Leopard mirror over a spare tire belonging to the car you sold back in 1989 ....you get the idea.

Professional organizers work with a customer to find a better solutions for living, storage and work spaces. More importantly they suggest what the client can do to keep it that way.  “Getting organized is not just about getting rid of things,” Barry Izsak owner of Arranging It All said.

Vanessa Schmidt left Dell in September and began to devote herself full time to her business, Imapct Solutionz. Never owning her own business, her first time was  “really hard, harder than I could imagine. I was very naive,” she said. The security of a regular paycheck and benefits was something she was used to but she saw a need so she stuck it out “I’ve been more fulfilled in the last nine months than ever before,” Schmidt said. She has now found herself interacting with more people and discovering things that interest her she might not have seen staying in her comfort zone.

Forty two specialties of professional organizers are listed by the National Association of Professional Organizers. Carol Noble recently retired from the State Auditors Office and had always been interested in organizing things. Career books led her to this line of work and with such an interest in putting things in order “this will almost be like not working,” she said. She wondered if she should decide on a specialty before starting her business because she is not sure what niche to try to fill. “Just dive in,” Schmidt advised her and she will find a specialty that way. “People are always asking me to help them organize and I am passionate about it,” Noble said. She didn’t know there were others as passionate until she joined Central Texas Organizers.      

Izsak was the veteran of the group. He has been doing this since 1996. He said an organizer can get the customer started on the rode to ending chaos, but the residential or business customer “needs to have a commitment to change their behavior,” Izsak said.  

It is one thing to put things in a logical order and create a logical system of keeping that way. But it is up to the client to follow through and there needs to be a desire on the customer’s part to get organized, not just to have someone to come do it for them which is what some clients want. Going to the dentist needs to be accompanied by regular brushing and flossing. Getting an education means studying. A similar commitment works with organizing ones life. “We manage change. They need to be ready to change,”  Lorie Marrero of Living Order said. Schmidt remembers a client who wanted her services, but was not ready to change. “I was really stressed out,” she said. “They were buying a new house because they had too much stuff,” Schmidt said. “Here’s all this paperwork. It’s waist high but I don’t want to get rid of anything,” is an attitude Margaret Selzer has seen in some clients. To combat this attitude, Izsak starts to convince them to throw away a few things, then it becomes easier to throw other things away. Also educating people on what is relevant is important. Some feel they need to keep IRS related paperwork forever, but it actually needs to be kept for seven years.

Marrero uses money and a calculator to encourage people to clear out their homes and workplaces. “Let’s look at the cost of it. It costs this much to keep it in your house (by looking at the price per square foot), this much to store it off site and this much to buy it again if you need it,” she said.  She says this usually drives the point home.

Disorganization is something many of us have dealt with in our own lives. Organization “is really not an inherent trait but a learned behavior,” Izsak said. But for some there is chronic disorganization. Some organizers stay clear of those clients while others specialize in them. Karon van Vuuren of Kapela Solutions said she is working with such a client and both have benefited.

Like most issues, the chronically disorganized have a website (www.nsgcd.org) that list twenty one questions to identify such personalities. Has disorganization been a factor in your life for many years? Does it interfere with your quality of life or relations with others? Have attempts at organization failed? Are some of the key questions. Psychologists have identified people who  are “clutterers” and even more disorganized are the “hoarders” who sometimes have trouble bringing themselves to taking out the trash. These people sometimes need therapy or a twelve step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous so disorganization no longer interferes with their lives. Attention deficit disorder (ADD) plays a part in chronic disorganization, too. Marrero said “If they see something that is useful they want to keep it even if it’s not useful to them.” She encourages those clients to “find it a new home,” she said. Christy Frierson will “box stuff that is really important” and what is not worth boxing the client can decide if it is worth keeping.

One important element a professional organizer brings to a living or workspace is an objective pair of eyes.  “This is just a piece of paper or sweater to us,” Marrero said. The client may have been reluctant to throw it out because the piece of paper could have been the ticket envelope from his trip to Europe and the sweater could have been the one he was wearing at the skating rink on his first date. Schmidt said she has seen people who start to become too organized to the point it is counter productive. “I try to teach balance,” she said, “someone who is objective to say it’s okay not to be perfect.”   

Almost everyone has some attempt at organization but the organizers see common mistakes that are made. “People buy too many products that don’t work and they don’t know how to use,” Marrero said. Van Vuuren has seen people buy color-coded files  that are not used properly thinking a device will organize them, not just help them organize.  “Something could look neat but not be organized,” Schmidt said.

Organizers have worked with homes that have thirty years of clutter. Marrero was working a house where she found $500 the deceased owner had hidden in a book along with $5,000 in uncashed checks. The client made money off their services. Some organizers will return to the same location every month for two years or more. How long it takes them to finish a job depends primarily on how much stuff the client has, how quickly they can make decisions and how long has the cluttering been taking place. Some charge by the hour and others see the location and charge a flat fee. Most organizers charge between $30 to $125 an hour. It all depends on different factors such as experience, the work being done and geographical location.

It can be a dirty job to clean things up. Schmidt invested in kneepads after a job that left her “ literally black and blue from the knees down,” she said.

There’s an expectation from spouses and significant others of some people have work and personal life that may be intermixed. The husband of a doctor knows his wife may be called out of bed at 2 am. The wife of a traveling salesman may go weeks without seeing him. But what about the organizers? Do they drive people who they are close to crazy? Do others in the house do the same to them? Marrero has two boys so she has learned to deal with a fair amount of disorganization. “I live with a messy,” said Izsak who says they peacefully coexist by respecting each other’s space. Van Vuuren’s situation is perhaps opposite what many would expect. “I have a very organized husband. I am now getting more and more organized,” she said.  

If you have issues with organization, at least you have good company.  According to his law partner, even some one as wise as Abraham Lincoln could have used the services of an organizer. “When you can’t find it anywhere else, look in this” Lincoln had labeled a bundle of papers on his desk.

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