Divine Secrets of
the Ya-Ya Organizers
By Cyndi Seidler
09/02/06
Life as a
professional organizer has been pretty cool. It has a lot of
surprises, joys, fulfillment and rewards. It also has its
"E-gads, what was I thinking when I took this one on?"
I want to
give you the chance to get inside the mind of a professional
organizer (mine) and experience a point of view that might prove
helpful to some of you. I guarantee you that such insight is
similar to a majority of other organizers who are out there
risking their lives on a daily basis by tackling other people's
clutter.
By risk
factor, I mean you never know what's going to come out of a box
or from under an item you pick up. Therefore, one cannot be
weak-minded about getting into stuff.
One time I
was asked to put together a crew for a Pat Croce Moving in TV
show and organize a woman's living room. I went to the site
before the shooting date to look at it and assess the situation,
and found mounds of clutter and debris everywhere. It looked
bad, but I was confident that me and my team could get the job
done in a day.
My thinking
was, "It's just stuff." And, there didn't seem to be any problem
getting it all sorted, boxed up and cleared out.
The thing
is, when I look over a space overwhelmed with items of every
kind, I try to view it with a sense of defiance. This motivates
the self-challenge I'm about to embark upon.
It was this
defiance that carried me and my team through our ordeal of
discovering more than we bargained for at that woman's
apartment: bugs -- everywhere. Heaps of cockroaches jetted out
of stacked clothing, crumpled linens, boxes of papers, and every
other object we touched. We knew the cameras were rolling, so we
curbed our yelps of horror.
Now, I can't
tell you the kind of endurance level we experienced that day,
but I can guess it was at the top of the charts.
That's one
instance of a risk factor in this line of work. Having boxes and
items fall on your head in a closet or storage area is another
example. But, that's what Liability insurance is for, isn't it?
Usually,
organizers can just assess what the condition of an area is and
recommend solutions. Clearing clutter, reorganizing rooms,
closets, cabinets and drawers is a thought-out process of
observation, diagnosis and the cure.
There aren't
too many ways to do this. It's just a simple formula: See what's
there, evaluate what's going on, determine what the best
solution is, and get into action. Not a big secret. But, how do
you think we stay in business? I'll tell you: not everyone gets
to the "action" part of the formula.
You have to
let things like overwhelm and busyness deter you from the task
of getting organized.
The advantage organizers have over other people is that they
know how to deal with one area at a time; one thing at a time;
one section at a time. And, they aren't too busy to get paid to
do it.
So, if
people weren't overwhelmed with disorganization or too busy to
do anything about it, we probably wouldn't have flourishing
businesses. To top it off, we'll even push those buttons to move
them from despair to hope. "We," of course being their only
hope.
I've given
you some big secrets here. I'm not trying to run myself out of
business or anything, as I know there will be plenty more where
you came from. But, I just wanted to give you an idea of the
simplicity of getting organized, and let you know how we make
the big bucks doing it when you don't see it that way.
What you do
with this insight is up to you. I have a client to organize. She
doesn't know the secrets.
Copyright
2006 Cyndi Seidler. All Rights Reserved.
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