I think we can all agree that there’s a significant difference between a basketball player that plays at his local gym 2-3 times a week and the relatively unknown pro player that plays for the Phoenix Suns. Both players are good, but one is significantly better and would win a 1 on 1 match 90% of the time. Why? Because that’s the pro player’s profession, they are paid to play the sport, they live it, they practice all day almost every day, and compete at the highest level. What makes the pro well, a pro? Is it their dedication to the sport or craft, the time and experience put into learning and doing the skill, or the simple fact that they get paid to do it? I’d argue all of the above. The professional organization profession is similar to basketball because a lot of people consider themselves organized, and very well may be the case, but very few are as good as a pro organizer. Professional organizers are also masters at helping those who are cluttered and disorganized become organized and efficient.

Professional organizers develop their knowledge and pick up tricks that most people wouldn’t know or think of along with the fact that they have also put in extra time and work. They also see and solve a lot more problems than someone who has only ever organized their home, they have simply put in more reps. Now, of course not every professional is made equal, however, more often than not, they will help you much better than you could help yourself. You probably wouldn’t install your cabinets yourself, you could, but there’s a good chance one would end up being slightly crooked. 

So What Is It That A Professional Organizer Can Do?

The quite obvious answer is that an organizer can help you get areas that were typically disorganized and cluttered into order. Common areas they can help address include closets, garages, kitchen pantries, and cabinets, refrigerators, laundry rooms, and drawer organization. A typical organizer will come to your home and look at the condition of, say a closet, then they will map out what you have in the closet and suggest some possible storage solutions and systems to create order within the closet. They will then likely go with you to the container store, target, or sit with you awkwardly while browsing amazon to purchase the bins, hangers, and holders to use to organize the closet. Depending on the pro, some will go with you to the store and some just give you a list of what to get, this often depends on whether or not you want to pay them extra to shop with/for you. 

Once you have the items purchased the organizer dives headfirst into the project. The likely begins by pulling everything out of the closet. Once that hunk of work is complete, with the use of the items purchased, they then start putting each thing in its respective place. The best organizers help you reduce and get rid of unneeded items as they go. The very best organizers really help you work through the strong emotions that arise while sorting through the items as you decide what to toss. Organizing and getting rid of stuff can be extremely overwhelming for some people and having someone there to help you keep a constructive frame of mind while helping you work through the process is extremely valuable and a touch underrated in the industry. Marie Kando does a good job of battling this by identifying what sparks joy and then thanking the item for being in your life before tossing it. It’s pretty fascinating how attached we get to things as well as the memories we attach to certain items. 

Once the last bra goes in its designated drawer and the last shirt is hung, the organizer’s job is done. Niceties are exchanged and the pro is sent on their merry way. What you’re left with is a pleasant experience whenever you open the closet door. At first, it will take a few weeks to remember exactly where everything is but, if the organizer has done their job well, you’ll soon be able to find and access everything much more easily. Having things labeled and categorized by shape, color, or type helps you to build mental models of where items are located, especially ones you don’t access very often. 

Here are some great questions to ask a professional organizer before you hire them to help make sure they are the right fit. 

• Would you please walk me step by step through your process?
• What would you do/say if I seem way too attached to something that I probably shouldn’t be, and I fight you on getting rid of it?
• Is the price of products added into your cost, or do I purchase those separately? 
• What’s a rough estimate of how long it would take to do x (ask to give you a range they can’t know for certain)
• What do we do if the final solution doesn’t work well for me? 
• Why did you get into professional organization?
• What about your process sets you apart from anyone else?
• Do you have fun organizing?
• What one small thing I could do right now to organize my space or life that could make a large impact? (Give it a try and see what effect it has one your life)

Is reliefkey A Professional Organization Business?

Partly, yes. Professional organization is an aspect of what we do, however, there is much more to our business. We primarily use the moniker because we’re at the crossroads of a few industries, but for simplicity and SEO purposes, we go with ‘professional organization.’ 

Thus, Instead of selecting items that more or less work to keep your space organized, we prefer to take it a step further. We see ourselves as makers and designers so we apply those skill sets to our craft. For instance, we offer free drawer organization, however instead of just going to buy plastic inserts that kind of work fine, we custom fit our inserts into your drawer to work perfectly with what you own. We use a nice birch wood that looks fresh and clean, but we can also paint it if you’d like a touch of color to light up your eyes when you slide open the drawer. 

Our business is at the cross-section of professional organizer, consultant, home automation, and custom industrial design manufacturing. We know, it seems like a lot, but it’s something old put together in a new way, but to an extent, it’s really a lot more simple than it appears.
We design and build custom products to fit your needs and life perfectly. Most products that you buy in the mass consumer goods market are just “good enough” they work, but it’s never quite exactly what YOU need. We want to make you exactly what you need for your specific situation so we can elegantly solve every frustration you face in your home. Organization is definitely a big part of helping with that, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. 

An area where we think other professional organizers fail is that they set you up and don’t think about your habits and behaviors. People often revert back to old ways of doing things because it’s a natural response and easier, not better, just easier. Change is hard, so we’ve designed our process to help you adjust and tweak the system along the way to help you develop new habits, and make sure the systems we create for you are of optimal efficacy for you. Our goal is to make the system/product we design and build for you as intuitive as possible. What we mean by that is you won’t have to consciously think about your actions when trying to access items in your home, it will be clear, it will be simple, and it will be second nature to you.

Conclusion

Our world will explode into a million little pieces if we don’t create something that works just right for you, that’s how important it is to us, and how dedicated we are to our customer’s satisfaction. If by the end of our process the solution we came up with isn’t optimal, then we’ll make adjustments outside of our process (within reason) free of charge until it is optimized perfectly for you. To us, it’s vital that we live up to our literal name… ‘up relief.’ We want to make sure we are increasing your daily sense of relief. We believe it’s an underrated, yet powerful emotion. Saving time is vitally important, but what’s more important is the feeling you get from the time saved or, the action that has become less frustrating. We wish we could send the feeling to you through the internet because it’s hard to convey without directly feeling it, it’s kind of like explaining love to a teenager who hasn’t experienced it yet. You can describe the intensity, the crazy things you’re completed to do, and the chill that washes over you, but they won’t completely understand it until they themselves have fallen in love. Only then does it click, and what happens? They beg for more and chase after it for the rest of their lives. 

Now it’s time to decide if a professional organizer is right for you. It can definitely help, however, they are not for everyone, and finding the right one may take a while. We know we are not forever everyone because we’re definitely on the more expensive side of an already expensive industry. However, we would be more than thrilled if you decide to work with us, but if you go with someone else that’s fine too, for us it is about helping you find the best solution, even if we are not the ones getting paid. Finding the right professional organizer is similar to finding the right dentist, therapist, or maid. It’s gotta be the right fit or else the relationship doesn’t work fluidly. 

Regardless of that fact, getting help from a professional organizer will greatly improve your life, and wouldn’t it be nice for the opportunity to play next to Lebron James or even the guy that plays for the suns who only plays 3 minutes a game? You can seize that opportunity when you hire a professional organizer.