What is a Professional Organizer?

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.