What is the Full Process, Start to Finish, to Working with a Professional Organizer?

Episode 24

​When people hear that I own a home organizing company, they’re often confused about what the process of hiring a professional organizer is like. And while it differs from business to business, in today’s episode I’m going to give you a sneak peek into what happens when someone hires my team to come organize their home, classroom, or office to give you a little inspiration about how to use similar processes when organizing your home!

So the process of hiring us always starts with someone requesting a quote. But we use this opportunity to not only establish the most appropriate package and prices for our clients, but through our quote request process on our website, we ask a series of questions that help us determine the client’s goals!
So if you’re starting an organizing project at home, the questions we ask that would translate to your project are:

• What spaces or rooms are you hoping to organize?
• What level of organization are you hoping to achieve with this project?
• How much effort or involvement do you want to have in the organizing process?
• What is your budget for the entire process? We ask our clients to include both labor and new supplies in this budget question.
• Do you have any ideal dates or deadlines that this project needs to be completed by?

​After we analyze the client’s answers and the photos they submit to us, we have a phone consultation where we clarify any questions we have about the client’s response and then provide them with a quote.

If the client decides to book us, then we get to planning! We staff the project with our team members, create a project plan that includes client goals and how we plan to achieve them in the time allotted for the project, and shop for products that we discussed purchasing for the client so that we arrive on project day with everything we need.

We also make sure that our work bag is fully stocked and in order. This would include several of the items that I recently mentioned in our June 27 episode, What Supplies Do I need to Buy Before Starting an Organizing Project? In addition to those supplies, we also have some basic tools on hand that I would recommend anyone have, like a hammer and a screwdriver, paper towels, and PPE like latex and work gloves for our team. We check in with our client a few times, depending on how far in advance they booked, and make sure they have ample time and opportunity to convey changes in their project expectations or desires to us, but other than that, we take care of all of the behind-the-scenes prep work!

​On project day, our team arrives at our client’s space and we get to work immediately executing our plan—and while at this point it sounds like it might be kind of rigid, we actually plan for some flexibility and have a lot of fun on the job. I gave a lot of the steps we follow and the advice that we use in our April 25 episode, which remains our most popular, How to Start Organizing When You Fell Overwhelmed. But we really do just dive in and start doing the physical work of organizing the space. Our days are usually around 6 total hours in the client’s home, and we always take a solid lunch break to refuel and care for our bodies, so our projects are usually from 9-4. At the end of the project we always complete three essential processes that many people forget to do when they’re working on their own home organizing project:

1. We take out any trash to the bins or dumpster immediately.
2. We load donations into our vehicle and drop off immediately after departure.
3. We check in with the client to make sure that all of the systems that we have created make sense for how they think. It doesn’t matter if it’s Pinterest perfect if it doesn’t match the way your brain works. So please, consider that during your next organizing project!

​Finally, we check in with our clients a few times after the project is completed. We want to make sure that they’re loving their newly organized space—and also that they can find everything! We space these out so that if a month down the line a system isn’t working, they don’t feel uncomfortable asking us to come do a quick touchup on their space—we offer it instead. So don’t forget to give yourself a little time after a project to reassess if it’s working for you and is sustainable for as long as you need it to be!

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​I hope taking a peek into our team’s process has inspired you to realize that though organizing is hard work, it’s accessible if you follow the processes that are proven to work! If you have any questions about how to translate any of these steps into an actionable plan for you and your home, send me an email at hello@sortorganizationservices.com.