When To Hire A Professional Organizer

When I began my career as a professional organizer, I was too enthusiastic. I wanted everyone with clutter to take advantage of my assistance.

In 2016 I was a graduate of one of the first courses offered by Marie Kondo to certify consultants in her KonMari method. I had read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy and I was delighted to learn Marie Kondo had just started the KonMari Consultant certification program.

I flew down from Canada and stayed at my sister’s home near San Francisco while taking the course. Upon finishing the course, I pitched my sister the idea of organizing and decluttering her entire house – a big ole Tidying Festival, saying – “Hey there are not too many of us (KonMari Consultants) around, you should totally take advantage while I’m here to KonMari your whole house!” What I failed to notice was that my sister had not asked for my help or shown an interest in decluttering. After some persuasion, she agreed only to organize her linen closet. The results were neither magical nor life changing, and I headed back home to Vancouver a bit disappointed and frustrated.

Fast forward three years: The same sister, a teacher, called and requested that I come KonMari her third grade classroom. We spent 20+ hours one long weekend decluttering and organizing countless books, papers, pens, art supplies, math manipulatives and binders – the myriad of materials and supplies housed in a third-grade classroom. Organizing around her teaching style and the needs of her students, we worked hard and accomplished a ton. My sister was over the moon with joy and extremely proud of the results.

She reveled in her newly organized classroom inviting colleagues and administrators to tour her space and she received enthusiastic positive feedback. The compliment that most thrilled her was from the custodian who, unsolicited, told her she had the cleanest classroom at school. The school principal, in the process of evaluating my sister’s teaching, had said the only area that she had planned to ask my sister to improve was in the classroom organization. After the tidying festival, when the evaluation came out my sister got a terrific evaluation with high marks the board.

The state of her classroom before our tidying festival had caused her ongoing stress and repeatedly cost her precious time. The organized classroom boosted her confidence and effectiveness in her chosen new career. The decluttering was indeed life changing.

Why the big difference between the two tidying activities I did with my sister? Mainly it was because she was ready to declutter her classroom, having both the awareness of a need for change and the desire to make a change. Awareness and desire are the first two stages of the ADKAR model for change management and provide helpful insight into the timing of hiring a professional organizer.

The ADKAR model is a framework designed to understand the stages individuals go through during any change process. ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement, and it outlines the five key milestones that individuals must achieve to successfully navigate change. Applying this model to the decision of when to hire a professional organizer can provide a structured approach to assessing readiness and need for professional assistance.

The first step in the ADKAR model is awareness. Whether it’s struggling to find items, feeling overwhelmed by clutter, or experiencing stress due to chaos, individuals must first acknowledge the need for change.

This could manifest as feelings of overwhelm, frustration, or simply an inability to maintain organization despite best efforts. Signs may include cluttered spaces, missed deadlines, or inefficiencies in daily routines.

Once awareness is established, the next step is desire. Individuals must feel motivated to address the issue and committed to making a change.

This could involve recognizing the benefits of organization, such as increased productivity, reduced stress, improved well-being or simply a longing for a more aesthetically pleasing space. Essentially, if you have a genuine desire to get organized you are ready for help from a professional organizer.

With awareness and desire in place, individuals need the knowledge of how to initiate and sustain change. This is where the expertise of a professional organizer becomes invaluable. Professional organizers possess the skills, techniques, and strategies necessary to transform chaotic spaces into organized havens. They provide guidance on decluttering, storage solutions, time management, and creating sustainable systems tailored to individual needs.

While desire and knowledge lay the groundwork, individuals need the ability to implement change. This entails not only the physical act of decluttering and organizing but also the emotional readiness to confront belongings and make intentional decisions about what to keep and what to let go. Professional organizers offer hands-on assistance and support throughout the decluttering process, helping individuals build their organizational skills and confidence.

The final step in the ADKAR model is reinforcement. A qualified professional organizer will help an individual store items in a way that supports ongoing order in the home or workplace, so that a tidy environment is easily maintained. And some professional organizers offer “maintenance check ups” for clients that need a reset, if they find they need some reinforcement. Tidying a space completely supports retaining order in any given part of a home or workplace.

The bottom line is that getting organized needs to be YOUR idea, not someone else’s. If you are motivated to get organized, you are ready to hire a professional organizer.