Do you catch your breath and need something to hold on to when you walk into a hopelessly disorganised space? Does clutter kill your mood? Are you the kind of person who enjoys organising other people’s desks, offices, and bookshelves, etc.? If you are, you might be perfect for a career in professional organising! Professional organising is a field that has grown as a result of today’s hectic professional lifestyle. Few people have time to keep their homes and office space well organised on top of their family needs – enter the professional organiser.
What does professional organising entail?
Professional organisers break down clutter into several categories that cater to a client’s specific needs. These can include office-commercial and office-home, and sub-categories like kitchen, attic, basement, time-management, paper work/filing, and photographs, etc.
Some organisers choose to specialise in a specific area, for example, private residences, commercial offices, or packing for business or private moves.
A good organiser will always engage with the client to find out what methods of storage and organisation suits their access needs and time constraints. It is best to tailor your organisation strategy to the client’s lifestyle in order for them to maintain the level of tidiness achieved through the organising process.
It’s also recommended that you teach your client some basic skills in prioritising – this is something that might come very naturally to you, but is totally foreign to others. Clients need to decide what items are essential to their everyday needs, what items are used less often, and what needs to be thrown out. It is important that the trash gets thrown out very soon! Some clients find this very difficult, but once they experience the freedom of clearing out old rubbish, they often change their hoarding habits for the better.
You can also devise ways of teaching your natural organisational skills to others at seminars or commercial businesses. Time management and the reorganisation of work processes are also skills that are highly valued in corporate environments and can be taught to employees.
If you are interested in psychology or caring for people with special needs, you might steer your professional organising career towards helping kids with ADD and ADHD, helping clients with OCD, helping the elderly, or helping people who hoard compulsively.
Getting started
Although it isn’t strictly necessary, a background in management or a diploma in the field might help you sell your skills more effectively. The most important thing you need to do at the beginning of your career is to get your name out there. Most people do not yet consider a professional organiser as a necessity in the same way we do with plumbers or teachers. If you can start working with other professional organisers first to gain experience, all the better. If you want to go on your own, make sure you market yourself very well, and to the right people.
Here are five tips to help you market yourself:
- Get a website. Make sure it is exceptionally well-designed and easy to navigate, as this will be your potential client’s first experience of your business. If they find it difficult or illogical, they might not have much faith in your organisation skills.
- Link a blog to your website in which you give storage, organisation, time management, and other advice. Your prospective clients will be dying to know more.
- Offer consultation meetings where you assess the area that needs to be organised and advise the prospective client on the best way forward, not forgetting how much it will cost.
- Always act professionally and make sure that every job you finish is of an excellent standard. This is a niche field and most of your clients will probably find out about you through positive testimonies.
- Take some courses that will help you manage your small business and give your clients a greater sense of confidence in your abilities. These could include things like small business management and financial management; just seeing a certificate in ‘something’ management on the wall can do wonders for clients’ confidence.
Organisation doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean they like living in cluttered disarray. Professional organisers who also make it easy for people to stick to the new organisational systems are long overdue. So if you like to bring order to the world, perhaps you should get in on the ground floor of this new career.
Featured images:
License: Royalty Free or iStock
source: http://office.microsoft.com/en-za/images/results.aspx?qu=occupations#ai:MP900382784|
Louisa Theart is a freelance musician and writer with very little time on her hands; as a result she is in desperate need of a professional organiser.