Career of the Day: Professional Organizer

Anyone familiar with my teenage bedroom would be surprised at this one. It's actually easy to organize other people. After all, those needing organization keep so much useless crap around -- far different than one's own important crap. I've always been sort of an organized mess. I like to organize from the ground up, not front to back like in a file cabinet. When I need something, 98% of the time I know exactly the pile in which to find it.

This drives the Anti-Clutter Nazis (who spend a lot of time preaching on Oprah and The Today Show) bonkers. To them, there's one way to do things, and it's the linear way. Which would work great for me, were I merely linear. (Being multi-directional has worked well for me. My inability to do things in a straight line is probably what got me out of mowing my dad's lawn. I know it drove my mom nuts when I vacuumed in circles.) But I digress.

Working with lawyers, I've spent a lot of time doing professional organizing. (They reduce it to "filing" so they can pay less for it, but I know better.) So when my well-careered friend Jane called to ask for my OK to recommend me to one of her clients needing lawsuit organization help, it seemed like a good fit. Her now-my client references her checks "Document Management" -- even better :-)

I don't know how what I do compares to the work done by trained and accredited professional organizers (except that they make $40-$200 per hour), but so far I haven't been asked to do anything I can't do, except get MS Word for Mac to act something like MS Word for PCs. And my sweet client pays me at the end of each work session. Can't beat that with a stick.