Why You Might Hire a Professional Organizer

The following article is from realsimple.com. I found it via unclutterer.com, another excellent source of good organizing tips. One of the organizers quoted below is Annie Rohrbach, owner of Letting Go and Lightening Up, whose training I took last year. I'll be seeing her in April at the National Association of Professional Organizers conference in Reno.

Should You Hire a Professional Organizer?

Have you ever considered hiring a professional organizer? The reasons for hiring one are seemingly endless. They can help you find order in a specific area of your home or office (a bedroom closet or managing e-mails at work) or they can come for many sessions and help you with your entire space. At a recent conference for professional organizers, I met with some of the most respected professionals in the industry and asked them the following question: "What would you like potential clients to know before hiring an organizer for the first time?" Their responses were refreshingly candid and insightful. Here are some of their answers:

Before you ever pick up the phone, "consider your goals and motivation for hiring outside help. Have a rough idea of what you'd like to accomplish by working with an organizer, even if you don't know how it will happen. Ask yourself why you've not been able to do it alone, and communicate the answer to the organizers you contact. It will be helpful for them to know what your roadblocks are." -- Monica Ricci, owner of Atlanta-based Catalyst Organizing Solutions

"Personal organizers are not mental health professionals, but they still want to get to know you well so that they can help you solve your organization problems. Don't be surprised by the personal nature of questions on new client forms. An organizer may ask you if you've been diagnosed with ADHD or if you have a reading disorder. Clients obviously don't have to answer these questions, but the best solution for a person's needs may stem from truthful answers to these inquiries." -- Geralin Thomas, owner of Cary, North Carolina-based Metropolitan Organizing

A good organizer may meet with you for the first time and realize that there is another professional organizer out there who is more qualified for your specific needs. A great organizer will take the steps to get you in touch with that person. -- Annie Rohrbach, owner of San Francisco-based Letting Go and Lightening Up

If you're someone who is only looking for a little motivation or a new perspective to get started with an organization project, it may be worthwhile for you to hire a professional organizer just for an assessment. -- Kathy Waddill, owner of Orinda, California-based The Untangled Web

Other valuable points that arose in conversation:

Don't let price be your sole reason for choosing one organizer over another. It's important that you can work it into your budget, but there are other factors to consider such as the person's people skills and experience. You're hiring a person who will be delving into the personal and business areas of your life, so it's important you trust them and feel that they have your best interests at heart.

If you're a business professional who is nervous about competitors or clients learning about your need to seek outside organizing help, you can ask your professional organizer to sign a non-disclosure agreement and arrive at sessions without company branding on his or her clothes and car.

If you're choosing to work with a professional organizer for multiple sessions, you should expect to have homework between the sessions.

The most common question asked of a professional organizer is if your space is the worst the organizer has ever seen. Even if your space is the worst, they probably won't admit it. In most cases, though, your space is not the worst.
Have you used a professional organizer? Any tips or stories to share? To find a professional organizer in your community, check out the National Association of Professional Organizer's online referral system.

I Have a Picture in My Mind

I am sitting sorting through pictures, cards and memorabilia this morning trying to follow the advice I give my clients. Do I really need every Mother's Day card my kids gave me? Every picture of every trip no matter how out of focus or even forgotten? Now, where was this cobblestone street scene? I was prepared to throw out quite a few but my toss pile was embarrassingly short. And my enjoyment level very high.

I did create some order, even putting all the pictures of houses I've lived in, along with houses of parents, grandparents, even great-grandparents into one album. Till now they have just been collected in a bit of a jumble in large envelopes. Now I have an album for friends, one for trips, one for my kids, one for my husband and me in a variety of poses and countries.

I discovered a poem I wrote in 2003 in Suriname, where John & I were serving in the Peace Corps. We were riding on what we called the boom bus (for the loud, Caribbean music that played as we wove through the crowded streets) and I noticed a billboard with a little boy sitting on the floor trying on a man's dress shoe. Here's what I wrote:



I sit on the sofa icing my back.
"Does it hurt when you do that'?"
Yes.
"Well, then don't do that?
Dad wisdom or a joke he told about a man going to the doctor.
I thought of my Dad yesterday on the #1 bus
when I saw the picture of the little black boy
sitting on the floor putting on one of his Dad's
black dress shoes -- it looked like one of those
Bostonian wingtips mine used to wear to work.
The ones he loved to have me untie and pull off his feet
when he got home from work and sank into his favorite chair.
My 4-year-old feet half filled them as I clumped around the den,
making my father smile and reveling in his precious attention.
When he was feeling particularly relaxed,
he'd let me have a sip of his beer with the foamy head
from the wide-bowled glass; I always tried to get more.
I remember how he'd dance me around the room
while I stood on his feet and how he sometimes
gave my brother and me horsey-back rides before bedtime,
trying to buck us off as we clung to his neck squealing
until our mother told him to let us settle down or
we'd never go to sleep, but looking quietly pleased
that he was playing with us and giving her a few minutes for herself.
Then her bad back, which I learned later was really a deep depression.
It kept her from roughhousing with us and made her take long naps
in the afternoon, during which we had to play outside
or go to the neighbors or try very hard to remember to play quietly inside.

I don't think little boys in Suriname have black Bostonians to try on
but they probably slap around in their father's flip flops. Do they
sip from their dad's Parbo beer bottles? I know they learn basic English
from watching Amercian cartoons and they get their impressions
of how blacks live in America from Sanford and Son reruns.

Here I am in Suriname, waking with my mother's puffy eyes
from an allergy to something that blooms in the garden,
with a bad back that won't lead to a stay in a mental institution.
No, I'll ice my back and put on my own shoes and,
remembering my Saturday mornings watching TV in Iowa,
when Buffalo Bob asked, "Kids, what time is it?!"
I'll answer, "It's Howdy Doody time!!"
And I'll spend a day in South America with a pale white moon
hanging in a piece of bright blue sky
between the branches of my neighbor's mango tree.


Other treasures I discovered as I sorted: a screenplay my brother, Alan, wrote at College of Marin, a story my daughter wrote in college about his death when she was a freshman in college, the obituary my husband wrote for the newspaper. In it he mentioned that someone at Alan's funeral called him the gift giver and his son called him "the man who loved to laugh." Members of the softball team he managed said he brought them from the basement to the playoffs and insisted they have a team song: Finniculi Finnicula.

I'm working with a client in Sausalito now who lives minutes from the industrial building overlooking the water where Alan lived and I drove by the other day just to look up at his window and imagine him there. He got free rent in exchange for being night watchman and he and his son lived in a tiny space together. He was 42, on his way across the Golden Gate Bridge on his blue Kawasaki motorcycle when he hit a pothole and lost control on dangerous Doyle Drive. It was one of his favorite routes because it brought him through the Presidio and I remember driving it one time when we were visiting him. He told us his brakes were going but he thought they'd be okay. That was so Alan. He was optimistic no matter what the circumstances. He made jewelry, silver and copper bracelets, and sold them on the street in San Francisco.

Among the photos, I found some of him when he was a baby, three years younger than me. There he was rosy-cheeked in a high chair; wearing a coonskin cap; dressed in full costume as Rusty in Rin Tin Tin; sitting barefoot on the grass with two of our neighbors from across the street.

I'll put some of the pictures in albums, some back in the envelopes and then into a box to be looked at another day. Some things you just can't part with.

Zenhabits.net

One of my clients told me about a website that is changing my life. It's called zenhabits.net and it's a perfect companion to voluntary simplicity. It gives ideas on how to simplify your life in a beautiful way. For one thing, it puts a new spin on GTD, Getting Things Done by David Allen, which I've talked about. That's the idea of gathering all those "to dos" that are cycling through your mind on paper, turning them into physical actions and reviewing. While sounding simple, the system can get a little too daunting at times, so Zen Habits makes it even easier.

It also has articles on minimalist decorating with ideas like: clear the flat spaces -- put things away and rotate just a few things you love on table tops; eliminate things that you don't love or find useful; find a place for everything and store things there; declutter your kitchen counters, desktop and entryway. It's nothing new, but a slightly different, gentler approach.

I spent time yesterday helping C organize her music and books on tape. It was a kind of meditation, finding the cassettes and CDs that belonged in the right boxes, discarding broken CD cases and slipping the CDs into plastic sleeves in holders. Labeling shelves in her CD tower and sorting. We listened to music from Turkey while we worked and her cat joined us as an observer in a chair at the table. Much of the music will be burned into her music library and books on tape will be sold on craigslist.

C is a very talented children's book illustrator and she autographed one of her books for my grandson. It's a beautiful Christmas story and her orange cat makes an appearance. My reading to him from her book coaxed one of his brightest smiles. We're all still reveling in the success of his weekend lemonade stand (by invitation only to reduce the possibility of infections) which netted $26 for the Lymphoma Society.

Life is sweet.

Do You Yearn for More Simplicity?

Here is an article from thirdage.com that describes ways to simplify your life. Third Age is a website for baby boomers. I've long been interested in voluntary simplicity and I think this article explains it in a very, well, simple way.

What Is Simplicity?

Making changes to simplify certain aspects of life can be the antidote to living in such a complex society. But simplification is a very individual matter—what's considered simple and stress-relieving to one person might be burdensome and stressful to another. For example, you may eat convenience foods because they save you time and energy. Your friend, on the other hand, may find convenience foods expensive and rather "inconvenient" for her family food budget.

The most important part of the simplification process is introspection—taking an honest and in-depth look at yourself and your life and then identifying things that can be changed. Simple enough? Yes and no. That is, some changes can be relatively easy to make. You may decide to unclutter your house by throwing out items that you really don't need and scaling back on your consumption. On the other hand, you may find that you need a major overhaul to find a simpler life—a change of career or financial goals, a geographical relocation, or a change in perception through intensive psychotherapy.

What makes the concept of simplification difficult for some people is that it implies that you must give up something. But many people derive invaluable benefits from simplifying their lives—more time, freedom, self-expression, and a chance to live with more clarity and meaning. Simplification is a deeply personal endeavor and should be approached with the following things in mind:

* Values/Priorities. What is most important to you? What would you have the hardest time living without—your health, spouse, family, friends, time, creative projects? (This can be a tricky one. For example, you may say that you value money, but by looking deeper within yourself, you may find that what you really value is freedom, self-reliance, time, friends, or self-esteem, which you think money will buy for you).
* Identity. Who are you? What talents, skills, activities, and types of environments bring you the most enjoyment? Are you living authentically—speaking your truth and living according to your own values (values that you've examined and owned) or someone else's?
* Time/Pace. How do you manage time and pace yourself? Is your natural pace 100 miles per hour or a bit slower and more reflective? Examine your current pace and your energy levels. If you're feeling exhausted or burned out, you may need to slow down, or at least change where you are focusing the majority of your energy.
* Purpose. What do you most want to do with your life and are you doing that right now? How do you wish to direct your talents? Are you living purposefully?
* Vision. What is your ideal lifestyle and environment? What would your life look like if you could design it exactly the way you wanted? You can't always "have it all," but think about how close you can get to that vision now, realistically.

Ways to Simplify Your Life

The list of things you can do to simplify your life is probably endless. Big changes will require a good deal of thought and planning. But there are many small changes you can make to simplify your life right now, such as:

* Buy a simple car—one that has fewer gadgets to fix.
* Do your shopping all at once, and preferably in the same place.
* Reduce the clutter in your home and office. Throw out things that you don't use.
* Buy classic clothes that don't go out of style.
* Donate your dry cleanables.
* Shop during off-hours.
* Get a simple, low-maintenance hairstyle.
* Downscale to a smaller home or less expensive car.
* Find a way to turn your hobby into your primary source of income.
* Make a conscious effort to reflect upon and appreciate the simple things in your life—those things that you may be taking for granted.

Simplifying your life isn't always simple, but something as easy as getting more organized can be a big help. As some of the complexity decreases from your life, you may find greater clarity and peace of mind.

RESOURCES:

National Institute of Mental Health
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/

National Mental Health Association
http://www.nmha.org

References:

Adams C. The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life. Harpercollins; 1998.

Aumiller G. Keeping It Simple: Sorting Out What Really Matters in Your Life. Probity Press; 1995.

Orem S, Demarest L. Living Simply: Timeless Thoughts for A Balanced Life Health Communications, Inc; 1994

St. James E. Living the Simple Life: A Guide to Scaling Down and Enjoying More. Hyperion; 1998.

Sock Monkeys

I'm putting my faith in sock monkeys. I've had two for about 25 years. I've never named them but they have little sweaters and one wears my sorority pin. When my five-year-old grandson came to spend the night Thanksgiving Eve, he brought his sock monkey, Henry, along. It's something that transcends age. When I was a child, I was convinced that my stuffed animal collection talked to each other after I fell asleep. And I still believe they might.

Sock monkeys were originally manufactured out of work socks in a factory in Rockford, IL. I don't know what it is, but there's something very magical about them. They have partially filled the void created when my children left home. Not that I put them in an infant seat and take them grocery shopping (like childless friends of ours did with their teddy bears), but I do know that as much as I simplify and give things away, I will never let go of these old friends.

I'm taking One to One lessons at the Mac store in Emeryville and I learned about photos today. So I wanted to share this portrait. I'm counting on Henry and my sock monkeys to accompany my courageous grandson on his journey to healing.

I'm Learning About Faith

At my last dream group, one of our members suggested a good way to check in and catch up after several months of not meeting. He asked us to share three or four things we could tell the group about, without actually saying too much. So my share was something like this.

I could tell you about the inside of the Stanford Hospital Pediatric unit where our 5-year-old grandson was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma. And I could tell you about the many people whose prayers, I think, helped him respond so well to the chemo.

I could tell you about having to wait seven years (2 of treatment and 5 more) to see if we can call him cured.

I could tell you about the Solstice gathering we attended where a group of friends and strangers laid down pine boughs in a labyrinth illuminated by candlelight.

I could tell you about the wild turkeys that paraded through our friends backyard during the Super Bowl party and how the sun turned their feathers iridescent.

I could tell you what I'm learning about faith and how it turns fear to love.