Wednesday, July 22, 2009

What the Heck IS a Professional Organizer?

I am often asked by people who have never heard of my profession, what exactly is a professional organizer.

First of all, Professional Organizers, much like lawyers and doctors are often specialists. Some work only with physical space organization, some only with paper, some only residential, and so on. There is an enormous range of services being offered. For the most part, we all work with systems and processes. I consider myself to be a general practitioner, as I offer a pretty broad array of services. Some examples of services I have performed include (in no particular order): entire house organizing or re-organizing; room or area specific organizing; home office set-up and organizing; work-flow process development; estate inventorying, moving prep. (packing/unpacking), and coordination, yard sales, tax preparation, downsizing, filing systems, software training, public speaking, business systems, policies & procedures, and so on.

What often prompts that first call is that someone has reached a point of frustration or overwhelm that has pushed them over the edge. Or, they just recognize a need for assistance in dealing with a situation. When this happens, a professional organizer can be an enormous help. Because we are not inside your chaos, we can bring calm, objective counsel as well as action to what may appear to be an insurmountable problem.