Having a messy and disorganized office definitely impacts your ability to do your best work. Engaging a business organizer in orange county, los angeles, or san diego would be a good idea if you want to grow and flourish in your practice, business or organization. Nationally we also specialize in Feng Shui, decor re-design and business coaching, hoarder help, ADHD, ADD, anxiety, depression and anything that impacts getting and staying organized.

Having a well planned out corporate or small business space, so your best work can be accomplished, involves a professional organizer’s expertise, organizing jobs for each and every employee so they can in turn learn how to stay organized. It is one thing for planners and organizers to come in and get you organized to the bone, but how you and your employees keep up the space is another.

The difference between a good organizer and a great organizer is helping you, and everyone you work with from the outside in and the inside out.

Having your office Feng Shui style also impacts the health of the business, prosperity, customer relations, employee relations, your fame and recognition, individual career opportunities, and the creative flow and energy. If your desk is facing a wall or window with your back to the door, it means you will always have things coming out of the blue. You’ll be thinking where did that come from? Or what’s going on around here? I wasn’t expecting that!! It also means symbolically that your not facing the world or looking forward to new opportunities. Living an organized life in an organized office means all the difference to your business practices. Having your office in Feng Shui style means good energy and flow will abide and you will look forward to being at work. Having your office and even your cubicle in Feng Shui style will also be a creative way to get organized and stay organized. Everything has a home according to Feng Shui principles. Also it will be interesting to see if you are in the prosperity area of your business (especially important for the boss, CEO or owner) or the career area (better for receptionist).

Remember the outer is a reflection of the inner you!
And your office space is the reflection of your business practices!! Believe me your customers will notice when you have an ideal work place!

Your fame and reputation will be enhanced with a nicely organized, well space planned office space, while flaring up the fame and reputation area of your space (far back wall in the center, from the front door). The health (center of the floor plan) of the company depends on organization, well organized employees, well organized paper system, ideally becoming a “Green” business and going paperless. A well planned cubicle system is also important. Remember nobody’s back should be to the opening and ideally every one in the space could easily see the main entrance to the whole office.

Having a more linear approach to doing business and having time management practices is a good idea to increasing business productivity and efficiency. You want to do things step by step and create a pattern of achievement, rather than a haphazard approach, finishing parts of projects and then onto the next.

Getting a linear approach to business involves being smart with your smart phone, inputting important events into your calendar, making sure it is shared to your desk top, checking your calendar, emailing confirmations to the people in your calendar and following through and being on time to appointments.

If you suffer from symptoms of ADD / ADHD it may be difficult to follow through in a linear way, but you can learn the methods Marla Stone teaches in order to simplify your life by taking fewer steps to follow through on your plans, ideas, inventions, thoughts and philosophies of a successful business style.

Call Marla Stone, professional organizer, decor and Feng Shui specialist, linear business coach and more.
949-709-7000

Corporate office is in Irvine, California.

1.    Space Analysis-Analyze your space and figure out what you want to use it for.  If it is your garage for instance, do you want to park your cars or will it be a workshop or a kid’s play room?  Understand that you may want to use the space for more then one activity and realize the potential of the space and all that it can be.  Make drawings, even if you don’t draw well, of what you think it would look like.  Cut out pictures from magazines of ideas you have for the space.  Visualize the space in your mind’s eye.  Discuss the space with family and friends and generate ideas.  Call a professional organizer and get a free consultation about your space.  Next take everything out of your space.

2.    Find an area to sort through the things you will keep and the items you will eliminate. Take everything out of the space.  Starting with an empty space will help you determine a home for everything you are keeping and give you a blank canvas to design the space from scratch. Categorize everything you own, then go through each item and ask your self four questions. "Will I use it?", "Does it serve a purpose?", "Is it sentimenal?" and "Do I love it?" Anything that does not meet any one of the above criteria can be donated, gifted or sold, or thrown responsibly in the trash or recycled.

3.    Eliminate.  Of course the most difficult part is getting rid of stuff that you have held onto for some reason or another…and guess what, even if you haven’t used it for years and aren’t sure when you will, it is still difficult to get rid of stuff.  

​4.    Putting Everything in its place. I always say there is a home for everything and it’s true.  You will find a home for every item you want in your space.  The reason it is a good idea to have a home for everything is simple…stuff will end up back where it belongs, and it will be easy to find when you want or need it.  Since you designed the space ahead of time it should be pretty easy to move everything into place.  If there are heavy items there are great tools at the hardware store for moving and sliding heavy pieces.  This is also a time to hire a handyman, or get some handy friends over, if you need things hung, pictures, racks, wall units put together etc…  Once your finished sit and relax and take it all in.

5.    Sit and Relax and take it all in.  Finally your space is complete.  This is a time to use the space and see if it really works for you.  You may want to make adjustments and move things around and even eliminate more stuff you realize you’re not going to use in the space.  You may also want to purchase some new items for your space.  Reflect on the space and make sure it is how you really imagined it.  Hopefully with all the planning and carefully considered steps your space is perfect for you and voila!

Consulting business and residential occupants is easy when you are a NAPO Professional Organizer.  Working with a NAPO organizer makes all the difference. Many people running around call themselves "Professional Organizers", but NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) Organizers are trained regularly in all the upcoming and current ways to get and stay organized.

Call for a free 30 minute phone consultation and get organized now and for good.

​949-709-7000

We all know the saying “Follow the yellow brick road” from the Wizard of oz.  I can’t help it…”Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road”.
Well the idea of following a path without any idea of where you are going is nonsense.  Also “The blind leading the blind” comes to mind. And we all know that when Dorothy and crew wound up at the Wizard’s door he did not have all the answers.  The better answers, about each of their directions in life, came from the support and or confrontation between Dorothy, the lion, the scarecrow, the tin man, the good and bad witch, and let’s not forget the munchkins.  Ultimately each of them individually figured out their own weaknesses and strengths and their golden path, not the yellow one.

The most profound and usually correct answers, for every life challenge we face, are all stored within each one of us. Test it out. When you are relaxed ask yourself a question to something you have been pondering. Am I in the correct relationship? The answer will be there inside you. You will hear a yes or no answer coming from inside you. Am I in the correct job? A yes or no will resound. You can even go further and ask why. Answers will come from your inner voice!

People are out there in force telling themselves and everyone else what they need to do or what they should do or what they could do, but do you or anyone else really know what is best for you, without identifying what you truly want in life? Have you thought about what you truly value in life? Make a list of what you value most in life now. I guarantee you it is not the values of your past.  Check in with your present self and figure it out. Past values may have been socialization, lots of sex, parties, clear skin, being popular. Now it may be time to read a good book, leisure time, tight skin, gardening, getting together with close friends and or family, your kids accomplishments. Depending on what stage of life you are in the value system will change. Being clear on your values will help you set life goals. Having life goals are important if you want to get on the golden path!

The beginning of change is to identify what is not working for you in the present. Ask yourself what part of life are you not enjoying. What makes you feel uugh? What feels overwhelming, exhausting or depressing? Decide how to decrease those aspects of your life immediately. If carting the kids around makes you feel degraded as if you are a bus driver, look for a car pool, if it is cooking find a neighbor who loves to cook, and trade a task that you enjoy such as doing hair or makeup for her, or babysitting for her. I would gladly cook for a neighbor if she would pet sit my chihuahua child so I could spend more time working or traveling without the guilt of leaving the little guy alone. Let’s say you abhor gardening and your friend loves it, but she can’t stand shopping by herself, or doesn’t have the stylist talents that you have. Exchange the gardening for personal shopper services.

There was a very famous therapist named Virginia Satir who was a master at group therapy. Virigina Satir’s greatest talent was connecting people to people and creating support systems for her clients. She would have a group and would find out one of them could sew, another stayed home with a child, another was a carpenter. Connecting how each group member would help and support another towards their dream was an amazing talent Virginia Satir possessed. Virginia found that the greatest social dilemma was not having enough support from family, friends or neighbors. People became too proud to ask for help. Let’s face it many of us live across the country from our relatives, we don’t live in ethnic, cultural neighborhoods any longer, we have lost our physical connections to friends and family. Neighbors tend to drive into the garage and close the door behind.

Reach out and touch your neighbor. They really do most likely like the camaraderie and could use the company and some help from you. Move closer to family if they are supportive, go to support groups and create links and  networks to help you on your path of life. Okay here it comes….”people, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world”. Hum along!

Organize your life and live an organized living situation, get organized by following what you dream about. Add-friendly ways to organize your life by creating neighborhood barbecues, potlucks and get-togethers. Organize your mind and figure out what you value.

The Feng Shui principles work to help space challenges or disturbances. Challenges could be the home’s architecture, and or landscaping that can disturb the flow of the “chi” (good energy, thoughts, and ideas). A Bagua (above) is the tool to identify specific areas of your space.

The bagua tool, if used as a template for getting organized, and can help sort out your stuff in a most beneficial and functional way. Check out the e-book “Organize your home with feng shui template” at http://www.i-deal-lifestyle.com/e-book.html to Feng Shui your own space.

Hold the bagua in your hands standing at the front entrance of your home to identify the 9 areas of your home. Visualize the bagua template placed over your floor plan, from the front of your home, where you enter. You will then be able to figure out if your front door is in the knowledge and wisdom, career, or helping people and travel area. If you are standing at your front entrance and the door is to the far left you are entering through knowledge and wisdom. If your front door is in the middle of the home, you are entering through career and if your front door is to the right of the home’s front then you enter through Helping people and travel. So if you can identify the bottom part of the bagua the rest of the floor plan will be easily identified, if and only if, you have a rectangular or square home. But here’s the thing, most of us do not have a perfectly rectangular or square home, and even if we do a second floor may have some part missing unless it duplicates the first floor exactly. So what do you do if some part of your home is missing a bagua area or over extends outside of the bagua area? Check out the e-book http://www.i-deal-lifestyle.com/e-book.html to find out how to solve the Feng Shui Faux Pas challenges of your space.

Placement of items such as furniture, trees, vases, equipment, family photos, books, chairs, desks, tables, lighting, artwork, electrical equipment, telephones, wires have to be thought out in order to protect the “chi” from affecting the inhabitants. Open doors must be protected if they are facing stairwells so the “chi” does not leave the space. Staircases that come down towards your front door let out all the good chi energy from your top floor. Putting a red carpet at the bottom of the staircase can stop the good energy from escaping out the front door and or letting in negative energy from the street. Windows or mirrors facing each other in rooms, or no windows at all keep energy keyed up. Landscaping faux pas, is a tree in front of your front door blocking any good energy from coming into the home. Furniture placed in a blocking way instead of open to the entrance of a room can impact you in a fierce way. A friend had his couch blocking part of the entrance to his front door (career area) and his business dropped in sales significantly. When I saw the placement of his couch I asked him if he was having business challenges and he asked “How did you know?” Well that is what a Feng Shui specialist knows! For instance when you walk into a room and the back of a couch faces you or the back of a chair or your desk’s chair backs to the entrance of a room, it is not only a block in that part of your Bagua, it symbolizes things that just keep coming up from behind, challenges that come “out of the blue”, and it is just poor decor in most cases. If there is absolutely no other way to place the couch, desk, bed, or any pieces of furniture facing the back of the entrance then you must have a mirror placed so that, when siting or laying down, you can look into the mirror to see the entrance or door to the room. Also your bed placement is so important. No bed should be in the path of your bedroom doorway. When your feet face an open door, while lying down or while sitting in a chair this is the coffin position and can result in the “D” Word. I don’t want to say the D word, but that is what the Masters of Feng Shui propose.

The colors of your walls interior and exterior, types of objects, odd shaped rooms, beams or sharp corners, where the bathrooms or kitchens are located, and what is painted in a painting, depending on where the painting is placed, can all affect the energy and prosperity, health, relationships, recognition, personally and professionally, for all who work or live in the space.

Going deeper into Feng Shui you would want to know the year your home was built, the direction it faces, and determine the best position for your bed by calculating your birthdate information. Which way your home or business faces, can determine fortune or misfortune, even if it looks aesthetically pleasing. Feng Shui can be utilized to correct most architectural, landscaping, decor challenges you have, while enhancing all areas of your self and space with the building or home.

Getting help from a Feng Shui specialist can help you with what you choose to bring into your home or what to get rid of. What kind of art you choose is your choice, but some pieces of art may not reflect the intentions of your space. Each piece of decor has different colors and is made of different elements and can be matched to the best area of your home possible. Plants and or trees in and outside of your home can be placed for better energy flow or symbolize positively or negatively based on where it is placed. What kind of furniture you choose can mean good or bad health to those that utilize the furniture.

Find an organizer now at www.organizersnow.com

You may have  moved your furniture around as a child over and over.  You may have been the messy one who learned the hard way by your mother always telling you to clean your room.You may have been challenged with ADD and created creative coping strategies in order to be organized. You may just be a natural at home organization, organizing business, organizer systems, organizing people and helping other organize their lives.  Whatever reason you have for wanting to organize it doesn’t matter. It takes a special person to go into other people’s home and or businesses, get into closet organization, kitchen organizing, whole home organization and even garage organizing. Not everyone wants to go through other people’s stuff.

I belong to an Organizer’s network. We are all professional organizers and we meet once a month. You would have to laugh to see how excited we get while talking about organizing a pantry. You would think that we were talking about going to Paris or getting an Oscar. Only a Professional Organizer gets super excited talking about a cleaning out a garage or a customized filing system. By the way freedom filer is a great way to individualize your filing system without a lot of hassle and time.

It is one thing to want to be a Professional Organizer, and start handing out cards, and another to build a website, build a business without overhead, create a niche so you are seen as an expert and get your name and business on the first page of Google. It is also important for you to know your population that you will be serving.

Many people who call on a professional organizer may have emotional, and or physical challenges. If you do not have a background in working with people with challenges it could become an awkward and unsuccessful quicksand situation.  Learning about mental health challenges like ADD, ADHD, OCD, obsessive compulsive personality challenges, hoarding, collecting and acquiring and or over-collecting will be one of the most valuable courses you can take prior to becoming a experienced professional organizer.

The other part of being a successful and established professional organizer is to join NAPO, National Association of Productivity and Efficiency experts, which gives you a seal of approval. They also have wonderful conferences where you can learn oodles of information to help you learn more about the organizing business. Also NAPO has a really great code of ethics that they require you to uphold, and every item code is a good idea, and will help you cover your self and business.

The most important part to get started is to build a website and get yourself advertised.  Second part of being a great organizer is to get educated.  t is not rocket science to learn the best way to organize a children’s room, but knowing how your client works, helping them learn how to be organized independently, doing assessments to give great space planning, and following up takes experience. Why re-invent the wheel, when you can learn from the best in the business.

Organizers now will help you every step of the way to become an experienced organizer.  Marla Stone the founder of OrganizersNow has her BA in Psychology and a Master’s in Social Work. She is a retired social worker and therapist of 17 years. Currently she runs www.i-deal-lifestyle.com and is a national speaker for NAPO, and the Mental Health Associations.  She is also a mental health expert and consultant.  She was in private practice for 10 years.  Her MSW educational background, plus her creative ways of teaching, and writing have helped 100′s of organizers achieve their own successful businesses.

Home organizer Marla Stone, a retired social worker, figured out it is our language that is creating chronic disorganization, hoarding and even living in squalor. “We don’t use the word 'will' anymore.” Marla explains that we do not “Will” ourselves to do things. She states “People have replaced the word will with need, and everybody is needling themselves to death”. She insists that the phrase ” I need” is the most used phrase in all human languages. The other phrase besides “I need” is “I have to”. She is quick to remind that “needs” and “have to haves” are necessities. “Need has even changed in the dictionary to mean a 'want', or something desired, and it is an incorrect use of the word need".

The true meaning of the word need is necessity, which there are seven things that keep us alive. Air, water, food, sleep, elimination, shelter and sunlight are essential to staying alive, and if we don’t have them we will eventually die, sooner than later. Marla explains “these seven items are the essential things in life that keep us alive.” Some will argue surgery, or medications, but Marla has seen many a person not go into surgery or take their meds and they are still alive. So she explains that everything else in life is a “want or a don’t want”.

You either want to get organized or you don’t. Most people don’t wake up every morning wanting to do laundry, put away the dishes, and clear out the garage, but you can use a different language and say, “I don’t want to clean up and get organized, but I will because……” Marla says “figure it out, what you want, what you don’t want and this way you will start willing yourself to do what it takes to accomplish your daily and life-long goals". She is careful to add “When you say that you need to do something, and that something is not an actual need, the sub-conscious mind catches it, as a lie, and it will derail you from what you want to accomplish.”

Another part of the language discovery for improving concentration, motivation and follow-through is ceasing all indecisive language. Indecisive language is “I’ll try” (the second most used phrase in human language), maybe, perhaps, if, someday, sometime, might, but, I’ll think about it, we’ll see, sounds good, sure, I can’t commit for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I don’t know (very popular statement). There are hundreds of other indecisive language phrases we use daily, without even knowing we are doing it.

“The most important and the saddest part of the destruction of our human language is that we no longer use 'feeling' words, or adjectives”. Marla explains that we make statements such as “I feel like” or "I feel that” followed by a not well thought out thought, completely skipping over the actual feelings. There are literally 200,000 plus adjectives in the english language, and we only use about two or three per week. The words frustrated and pissed seem to be the most popular feelings, followed by upset and depressed. Marla explains that people have “not stopped feeling lonely, pathetic, disengaged, trapped, misunderstood, empty, sensitive, indignant or for that matter enthused, joyful, ecstatic or enraptured. We just have stopped using all these wonderful adjectives to describe what is happening emotionally, and it is making us robotic like people. We are afraid to feel. When we do feel deep or dark feelings we push the feeling away with statements such as 'I feel that he doesn’t understand me' or 'I feel like this is not going to happen', and this is the main problem facing civilization". The idea that you would say “I feel”, without an actually feeling word (adjective) is improper english. Listen, and count how many times you say 
"I need", only to prove to yourself how attached you are to the word need. 

“The idea behind all three of these language challenges is that we are extremely needy, indecisive and robotic. This language barrier to our own inner processes is not allowing us to get ourselves, homes and lives in order. Marla’s theory of how language is creating and perpetuating chronic disorganization is one of a kind. “When I went to do research on indecisive language, need versus want, and the lack of the use of adjectives in human language there was hardly anything about this, almost zilch. I was astonished. Even extremely well thought out people, doctors, attorneys, scientists, professors, and highly educated researchers are all using poor language and defeating their own dreams and goals. This is not just a colloquialism challenge, this is the destruction of our being human, and having verbal expression, and then being motivated by our expression.

It is truly sad that, as human beings, there is a loss of will to thrive, and be productive, loss of our ability to communicate our feelings, a deep neediness for everything. 

Marla thinks that chronic T.V. watching, electronic game playing, long bouts of internet use, and mindless romance or thriller books have a lot to do with our losing our excellent language skills, and ability to communicate. People are so absorbed in these “non-living” activities that they stop living their own lives.

Marla Stone, MSW, Lifestyle Coach, Professional Organizer, Décor and Feng Shui Specialist helps people unlock OCD, ADD, ADHD, Chronic Disorganization and Hoarding Behaviors

,Are you in your own business?  If not grow one on www.organizersnow.com    If you love helping people declutter, sort through their belongings and creatively design garages, closets and whole homes and businesses, then you may consider becoming a professional organizer. If you already have a business helping people to become more organized then advertising on the internet is essential to making a living at it.

There are not enough people in the industry to help people with hoarding, OCD, ADD, ADHD and mental health challenges, that contribute to chronic disorganization. People who suffer from such challenges normally do not seek traditional venues such as therapy and psychiatry.

More and more people are turning to professional organizers, Feng Shui, life coaching and even interior designers who go into the home to help people change their environment and their lives.

OrganizersNow is a professional free, and premium paid listing site, and directory that allows you to be discovered by people in your area who want whole home organizing, organizing their business, and organizing their lives.

If you provide life and or business coaching, are a professional organizer, interior designer and or a feng shui specialist please advertise your services on www.OrganizersNow.com for free! You are one of the disciplines who can help people feel more organized!

Also get involved with www.OrganizersNews.com  Just another place to bring your business to the light and on the first page of google and yahoo searching.

It takes a village to cure hoarding and chronic disorganization and serious mental health challenges! It takes a brave client to come forward and ask for some help.  OrganizersNow is where help begins.