Professional organizers can help relieve the clutter in our lives
Part-psychologist and part-logician, a professional organizer saves individuals and businesses from the clutter that threatens to engulf them.
“Professional organizers are a cross between Dr. Phil and Martha Stewart,” said Marcie Katz, owner of Expertly Organized on Merritt Island.
By designing and implementing organizational systems and processes, professional organizers guide clients toward taking control of their surroundings, their time and their paper — both at home and at work.
They bring order, structure and control to the hearth and workplace, helping people find what they need and keep only what they eventually will need to find.
They also are hot commodities who continue to draw converts from the ranks of the environmentally mired.
When Helen Yarbrough set up her Ordered Spaces professional organizing service two years ago, the Indialantic resident had relatively little local competition.
This month — which, by the way, is “Get Organized Month” — finds six members of the National Association of Professional Organizers located in Brevard County, with others in Orlando willing to come to the Space Coast to get their clients’ acts together.
“The concept is still new to Brevard, but, in other parts of the country, it’s been in place for more than 10 years,” said Angela Little of Perfect Organizing Solutions in Rockledge.
The membership roster of the National Association of Professional Organizers numbers more than 4,000 organizers in the United States and eight foreign countries.
During Get Organized Month, the Illinois-based association has partnered with companies like GarageTek, Pendaflex and Rubbermaid for a nationwide media blitz that touts the wonders of ordered living.
“Getting organized is one of the top five New Year’s resolutions,” said National Association of Professional Organizers President Barry Izsak.
According to Izsak, National Association of Professional Organizers members will help more than 10,000 people get rearranged during January.
Local interest in professional organizers is at an all-time high, its local members say.
“I’ve seen a significant increase in my number of clients,” said Yarbrough, who has about 80 clients. “Professional organizers have become very popular because of the television shows.”
Programs like The Learning Channel’s “Clean Sweep,” HGTV’s “Mission Organization” and Style’s “Clean House” fire up consumers with feng shui visions of stressless environments where everything is in its rightful place.
Trouble is, the shows accomplish the extreme organizational makeovers in 30 minutes, including commercials.
Real life takes a tad longer.
“We do the same thing, but we can’t do it in a half an hour,” Yarbrough said. “My crew of four can do a garage job in a day. But, if you have an office full of papers, it can take a month. Paper is very time-intensive.”
Just how much time codifying paper can take was all too apparent to Ordered Spaces client Karen Eidman.
It took Yarbrough two days to straighten out Eidman’s tiny cubicle at Cumulus Broadcasting in Melbourne.
The radio saleswoman found herself sinking into a morass of paper and junk before seeking the lifeline that Yarbrough threw her.
Wires ran above her head. Finding anything in the mountain of paper she kept was impacting negatively on her productivity.
“I’ve been accumulating paper for three years, tending to keep everything and not knowing what tto throw away,” Eidman said. “I had stuff piled everywhere. I felt I really needed help.”
In Eidman’s case, Yarbrough assisted with more than just physical clutter.
“You can organize data, objects and time,” Yarbrough said. “In her case, I helped do all three, in one of the smallest spaces I’ve had to work with.”
Yarbrough analyzed Eidman’s work flow, and suggested changes to the physical location of items in her office, as well as to the filing system Eidman had been using.
For example, Eidman was wasting prime space in her minuscule real estate by storing junk food next to her desk, instead of saving that area for frequently used documents.
Even with the limited space, Yarbrough created work zones and color-coded Eidman’s files for easier accessibility.
“I was very impressed at how logical she was,” Eidman said.
Now colleagues marvel at her tidy cubicle.
For Eidman, the payoff is less time fumbling for documents and more to do what she does best — sell ads.
Pack-rat nation
Fortunately for professional organizers, Eidman is not alone in her disarray.
According to many experts, we are a nation of pack rats who often can’t find a paper clip or a nice pair of socks, much less an important piece of paper like our birth certificate.
In a survey by IKEA, 31 percent of customers reported they were more satisfied after clearing out their closets than they were after having sex.
Trouble is, we don’t know where to begin without professional help.
“Most of our clients reach a point where they can’t find their keys and are tripping over themselves,” Katz said. “It’s a surprisingly universal problem that cuts across all income levels.”
Her Expertly Organized service specializes in “right-sizing” residential overclutter.
Many of her clients are empty nesters, retirees and senior citizens who have reached the point of no return after accumulating a lifetime of junk.
Other organizers will focus on redoing business systems or channel their expertise into one area of the home, such as the garage.
Still, you have to tread lightly when it comes to encouraging people to part with type of stuff, since one man’s trash is another guy’s memento.
That’s when professional organizers reach for their inner Dr. Phil.
“Things that were relevant once may no longer be relevant,” Katz said. “You have to get to the root cause.”
Katz may ask a bookworm client if he truly believes he can possibly ever finish the hundreds of books he has piled up around the house.
A die-hard hobbyist may receive a gently worded suggestion that perhaps there comes a point when you can have too many avocations.
“When people realize their time is limited, it’s an eye-opener,” Katz said. “You have to infuse a bit of reality, to ask your client how long it takes them to complete a task.”
Varied solutions
Experts in the organizing industry will tell you there’s no cookie-cutter solution to clutter, but that the organizer must help find the systems that work best for every individual client.
“A lot of the time, people are disorganized not because they have no storage space,” Miller said. “It’s time management. We organize the space and the time.”
Messiness, it seems, is as unique as the individual, and so must be any attempts to conquer it.
“Getting organized is more process than project,” Katz said. “You have to have consistence.”
It’s important to work with people’s daily rituals, not to fight them.
“It’s just like losing weight,” said Yarbrough, who arrived into the organization business from a background in math and computer science. “You have to make a behavioral change. I open their minds as to how they can use their space.”
For some people, aesthetics are paramount, while others are content with the least expensive way of getting things in order.
“Plastic containers will work for some people, while a shoebox will do fine for others,” Yarbrough said.
Organizers will tell you that the longer a person stays at one location, the better the chance he or she will explode with junk.
“People that move often don’t usually have that much clutter,” Yarbrough said. “If you stay put, you become immune to it, until one of your friends questions why you have three toasters.”
Chronically disorganized
Through courses from the National Organization of Professional Organizers and other professional groups, organizers keep up on the latest trends, including helping crack that toughest of nuts, the chronically disorganized.
Some professional organizers concentrate on helping those unfortunates who cannot throw anything away and are labeled chronically disorganized.
However, others admit defeat when it comes to these ultimate hoarders.
“These are people that need some psychological counseling,” Yarbrough said. “I’ve been in some homes where you can’t even find a path to get through.”
Don’t think that the pile of newspapers at home qualifies you as chronically disorganized.
These are seriously cluttered people.
“We’ve gone into places where the rooms are stuffed from top to bottom, so that you can’t even get in,” Little said.
Little has taken courses on the subject from the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.
Many of the chronically disorganized are victims of traumatic brain injuries, although the root of the problem is not always medical.
“Sometimes, it can be brought on by a very stressful event,” Little said.
Many professional organizers offer a free consultation to check out the extent of your mess.
Some charge by the job, others by the hour. In either case, expect to pay between $30 to $50 an hour for the service.
Good organizers will encourage you to save money by doing much of the work yourself.
“If they’re willing to accept responsibility and do some of the work themselves, what could take us five hours may only become two hours of our time,” Little said. “We try to train them to train themselves to what to hold on in their lives.”
Little charges $50 an hour, although she offers “Buy Two, Get One Free” specials that comes out to $100 for three hours of her services.
Some people, however, never learn.
“Some people who choose not to be organized find themselves calling us once a month,” Little said. “We do a lot of little drop-bys for these clients.”
Little managed a trade association until going into business with her partner, certified public accountant Suzanne Miller.
She uses Miller as the poster girl for an organized life.
“She’s got three boys under 6, a home and a career,” she said. “If she can be organized, anyone can.”