Tips from a Professional Organizer

Since fall is time to get ready for all the back to school papers, or get cracking on our business, we can easily find ourselves in a disarray about this time.  For me, I’m juggling four upcoming trips and I have clothes and papers everywhere in the house!  I decided to ask my friend Danielle Wurth, owner of Wurth Organizing, a professional organizing company based in Scottsdale, Ariz. a few questions to help us all stay organized at home. She was recently in Real Simple Magazine.

Her company offers free consult sessions to help answer any type of questions and offer solutions – through hands on sessions, including giving a tour of her own home so you can see just how a professional organizer lives!  I love her business tagline – Isn’t your life Wurth Organizing?  Meet Danielle and read some of her excellent organizing tips.

How did your passion for organization begin?  I always enjoyed creating systems as a child rearranging books and toys in my playroom.  When my grandparents were taking a nap they awoke and caught me once on a step stool in their utility closet trying to help organize and purge their unused items.  It was so funny looking back now.  The business really kicked off when I became a mother seven years ago.  I naturally created simple organized on my own. Being a mother was very overwhelming to me with all the stuff that goes with the responsibility.  It helped me to stay on task and focus on caring for my son and grateful having the skills to do it. It brought much calmness to a new life transition as a mother.  My heart strings pulled hard for women who didn’t have natural organizing skills.  I couldn’t imagine not providing a resource to help teach them and their family simple organizing skills to run a well organized home.

What room is the most popular room that you find your clients need help organizing?  Paperwork and the office.  We live in such a fast pace mobile world – working on the road, in our car, and at home.  We need simple systems to maintain in our home life otherwise things pile up quickly!  I call it the “Paperwork Virus” for  we often feel in spreads in the night and we can’t find a cure! The other challenge is that there are almost too many organizing products and digital tools to chose from which makes things more complicated.

Can you give a few basic tips for helping control the clutter? Be a “Good Gatekeeper.”  Truly think three times over when items you “need to cross the gate” into your home.  If you are out shopping and throw things into your shopping cart it is fine to take it for a “test drive” but doesn’t mean you need to cross the finish line and check those items out.  Step aside. Let the impatient people go ahead of you and really think about what you want and what you need. Write it down, the price, see if you have something similar at home or online.  The “Gatekeeper Concept” applies to items in our car, flyers in the mail, etc.  Once items “cross the gate” you now are responsible for taking care of them.

What usually happens when a person realizes they would benefit meeting a professional organizer?  They are excited and interested to learn more.  They are relieved to know there is hope that someone can help them or a loved one fill in the gap.  Some people don’t realize there is a service like a professional organizer to help assist them.  Once we understand their personality,  lifestyle, needs, and budget, our staff organizers create customized organized systems through our hands on sessions very quickly to meet those dynamic needs.  Life is so much easier, stress-free, and more enjoyable when things are organized, period.

Name your 3 most favorite organizing tools.

1. My iPhone – I am not a tech junkie by no means, but having a nice Smartphone is wonderful.  I maximize the use of the calendar, setting appointments and reminder the night before, birthday alarms which repeat yearly and digital photo albums by the season and year for easy reference.
2. Clear Protective Sleeves – They are so reasonable and have found them very helpful to protect documents when working in my office and  easy reference to pull things from filing. I also love them for storing my kids artwork in Craft Memory Binder Book.
3. Binder Clips – I love the retro chrome ones especially!  They come in so many colors, sizes and shapes.  They are  so helpful to keep important things in place vs. sliding of when a paperclip is used.  There are literally used in every room in my house:  Bathroom for my toothpaste roll, kitchen for bagging chips, office for documents and of course my car’s console for those on the go needs!

Find out more about Wurth Organizing by visiting her website and sign up for her free Teachable Tips newsletter.  She conducts monthly workshops and annual house tours in the Phoenix Valley.  You can also find her on Facebook.

Diana Elizabeth says one can never be too organized!  She loves labels, folders, and her label maker.  This reminds her it’s time to clean out some drawers in her office!