Author: The Organizing Lady (Page 10 of 11)

A Room Makeover With A Professional Organizer

June 3, 2015 / The Organizing Lady

Bringing in a professional organizer to help clear the clutter in a home or office is a typical job in this profession. But bringing in a professional organizer who knows interior decorating is a major plus for those who want to change more than their cluttered room.

One of the reasons I like to refer to myself as an Organization Lifestylist is because I do both organizing and decorating to fit a person’s lifestyle, as well as help individuals make lifestyle changes.

There was one client who wanted to change the look of her home to fit her lifestyle and love for medieval times. Her favorite time of year was going to Renaissance Medieval & Pirate Faire and would get all decked out in costume whenever she attended. It was her love for Medieval times that finally drove her to do a home makeover reflecting her taste and lifestyle.

She called the right person when she called me. I happen to love medieval things – from its Gothic chandeliers to the old world furniture. Decorating this place was the most fun I’ve ever had, and I was most pleased to find them an authentic looking Middle Age wood-carved throne fit for a king.

image from thestylesaloniste.com

The only thing I couldn’t find was a desk with hutch shelving, so I designed one myself and had it made for them. After all, it wasn’t going to do them any good if everything fit into the theme except for the office area, now would it?

So I guess what I’m trying to say here is that anyone can decide to change their surrounding to fit their lifestyle or taste. If you don’t know your taste, maybe an eclectic mix of things would make you smile.

The end result should always be that your home surroundings smile at you and make you feel happy in it. If it isn’t doing that right now, it’s time to think about what can be done to make it so.

Some Of My Favorite Organizing Things

May 22, 2015 / The Organizing Lady / 3 Comments

Organizing gadgets come in all forms, sizes and shapes. And over the years I’ve been pinning my favorite organizing gadget things in my Stylish Home Organization Pinterest Board.

Here are some of my picks of the smart solutions I love on that Board that always give me ideas and inspiration:

For Home Office – Managing Paper

For Kitchen Organization

For All Those Other Places

Through The Eyes Of A Professional Organizer

May 21, 2015 / The Organizing Lady

Yesterday I found myself doing a bit of re-organizing in my kitchen. Not because it was disorganized, but because I had decided it could be better, and better is always good, right?

People sometimes think of us professional organizers as anal in the way we want things organized and maybe they are right. But anal (and one not meant in the biological sense, of course) is a harsh term so we would probably like it (the way we want things organized) to be referred to as a calculated, or somewhat meticulousness behavior.

When I experience something non-optimum or not pleasing in my own environment, I want to change it. Like when I was preparing food on my kitchen counter the other day and didn’t have as much counter space as I wanted to prepare everything. I knew stuff I had kept on my counter just had to go, and I already had the bare minimum on it. And although I didn’t know where it would go to at the time, I set in motion a decision it had to go someplace else.

And that’s all it took – a decision to change the space.

I stood back at eyed the room from a slight distance. From there, I stepped back in and let my eyes roam through my cabinet spaces and everywhere else in the area. Being one of the smallest kitchens I had ever had, it has always been a challenge, even after extreme down-sizing my kitchen stuff before moving in.

The solutions I found were there all along but I just didn’t realize it until I looked. That’s the thing with professional organizers – we can look at a space and find other, better solutions for it. I believe a lot of other people can do this as well once they actually look.

And I think that’s where our expertise comes in – in finding other, better solutions that others couldn’t come up with on their own. We can compare that to interior decorating or remodeling. We hire professionals to redecorate because we feel we don’t have the eye for it. And maybe some of us don’t.

The thing is, there are 4 simple steps in embarking upon changing a space:

Making the decision to change the space.
Looking at the space with new perspectives.
Calculating what you already have as available resources for solutions.
Trying out those solutions in the space.

So, I changed my tiny kitchen counter space and I’m happy for now. Who knows, it may need tweaking again sometime in the future. But for now, I have more counter space and that was my goal.

Here’s the side of my kitchen showing the counter space I put my attention on:

If I can help you with your organizing goals, just let me know!

What 21 Years As A Professional Organizer Brings

May 14, 2015 / The Organizing Lady

Recently I was reflecting on how I got my start in this business and where I’m at today. I’ve come a long way in building my professional organizing business, yet today I find myself at ground zero in marketing my services as The Organizing Lady. That is because I have a new company name and a new website and people are not finding me as easily as they used to.

See, starting HandyGirl Organizers in 1994 meant going to a lot of networking events, passing out flyers all over town, running ads and pounding the pavement visiting businesses to leave my brochure. It also meant putting a website on this new thing called the Internet of which I wasn’t sure anyone would find, let alone search for it.

For 19 years I had grown my HandyGirl business into a profitable enterprise until I had to retire from it due to body-health issues at the time, and turned the business over to my daughter who had worked with my organizing clients for 10 years. I focused my attention on my other skill sets – like web design, internet marketing and video production – all of which I learned on behalf of building my HandyGirl company.

It wasn’t until a year ago that I decided I was well enough to get back into “the biz” and established myself as The Organizing Lady to service the Valley areas while HandyGirl aimed at servicing the other Los Angeles city areas closer to my daughter’s location.

By this time, I’ve accumulated 21 years in the business of professional organizing. The rewards had always kept me going over the years, no matter how hard the work was. I knew I had made a difference in many people’s lives and wanted to continue making a difference. But my expertise and experience has not given me a leg up in the industry.

Times have changed and people seem to be shopping for professional organizers like shopping for a good pair of shoes, except the best fit isn’t always their choice. Often times the choice is about the lowest price. And many of the newbies in this profession start out below industry rate standards, which makes the competition more stiff.

With the economy the way it is today, who can blame them? But to lessen the value of my service is something I have not been willing to do. Because my 21 years of experience, knowledge and skills is what I bring to the table for my clients and my rates are actually way below the value in that (since other veteran organizers charge $100 /hr or more).

Writing this is more like therapy for me, since I’m not even sure people will be reading this. After all, my new website hasn’t climbed to Google’s page one ranking (yet) and people are not finding me as easily as they used to. But if you are reading this, you may gain a little more understanding of my roots and where I started and will know me a little better. After all, knowing me better is liking me better. I hope.

$85 Off Home or Business Organizing Services

May 1, 2015 / The Organizing Lady

Get $85 off for organizing services!

This is a good opportunity to get started in your organizing project now and achieve your desire to be better organized.

This special limited time offer is open for home or business organizing. It includes any / all of our organizing services and is a great way to see how the Organizing Lady works her magic!

You could start with an organization consultation that will put you in the right direction in the process of organizing.

This is offer is valid through May 31, 2015! Minimum purchase of 2 hours organization services. Must be within our service area.

10 Ways A Professional Organizer Changes Someone’s Life

April 27, 2015 / The Organizing Lady / 0 Comments

This is an article I wrote about professional organizers and how they make a difference in people’s lives.

The rewards of the professional organizing profession are numerous and professional organizers are often called “miracle workers” after they put order in.

Source: 10 Ways A Professional Organizer Changes Someone’s Life |

As a professional organizer since 1994, I’ve seen incredible results with clients whose lives are transformed after order is established. It’s one of those benefits of this profession that make it all worthwhile, no matter how laborious it can sometimes be!

The reason I wrote this was to show my students starting out in this career how much of a difference they will be making for people. That’s why it is posted on the Professional Organizer Academy site.

But I realized it is also something that others should know – that the expertise of a professional organizer is something they can count on to help them improve their situation or lifestyle. And that’s why I’m sharing this with you here.

Spring Clean Your Closets

March 27, 2015 / The Organizing Lady

When it comes to Spring time, it’s typically signifies a time to do some home maintenance and organization. I like to start with closets, beginning with the clothes closet.

During the year while we’ve accumulated more clothing, closets can become jammed and unmanageable, so start with clearing out the clothing you haven’t worn or will not be wearing.

If your closet is too jammed to view what you have hanging up, just remove some of the hanging clothes and put them aside so you can have a good look at what is hanging.

Try not to spend a lot of time thinking about each clothing item. Just take it out if you are not loving it anymore. Anything in question, leave it hanging because you’ll do a second sort after you’re done with the initial sort. Or, take it out and put in a “think about it” spot.

When you’re done sorting the second time, you should now have some space where you can start grouping like clothing together – shirts, slacks, dresses, and so forth. For even more appeal and to make it easy to select your clothing to wear, hang by color within that grouping.

Here’s some closet organization ideas from my Pinterest Board on Closet Organization Ideas …

Get Ready ‘Cuz Here It Comes

October 28, 2014 / The Organizing Lady

Drum roll please …

Coming up is the National Get Ready For The Holidays Month! Whoohoo, yipee!

That’s all I have to say.

Have fun!
Cyndi Seidler
P.S. I’m known for helping people get ready for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays!

Organizing Lady Advice Featured In LA Times

October 15, 2014 / The Organizing Lady

In a recent article published in LA Times and Chicago Tribune, it features my advice on cutting clutter out of your life. It is titled, “Lose it: declutter your way to an organized, happier you”.

Here is an excerpt of this article:

No matter how it all got there, reducing the stuff of life is not an easy task, but it is a necessary one.

Even if there are no plans to downsize, getting rid of clutter is always a good idea says professional organizer Cyndi Seidler, founder of Handy Girl Organizers and The Organizing Lady, two Los Angeles based firms specializing in dealing with the “stuff.”

One sure sign that something is not needed is when it is placed in the garage.

“I call the garage the resting place before final burial,” says Seidler. “It’s the place you put things that you don’t want in the house, but you don’t want to throw away.” Seidler says important “belongings” become insignificant “stuff” once they have been unused for years.

Seidler admits that saying goodbye to one’s belongings can be emotional. “Everything can’t be saved as memorabilia,” she cautions. “Keeping the shoes you wore when you first met your husband — shoes you can no longer wear and that you have not looked at in 25 years, is not memorabilia. It is stuff,” says Seidler.”

And, further along in the article …

It is a good idea to declutter now instead of later,” says Seidler. “If you don’t do it now, your children or relatives will have to do it if you become disabled or pass away. Do you really want them to have to go through all your clutter and wonder why you kept these things?”

Well, there you have it! The Organizing Lady is in the news!

The Fun of Facebooking

October 3, 2014 / The Organizing Lady

I just love posting daily updates on The Organizing Lady’s Facebook page. It started out with some nice pictures from my Organization Pinterest Boards and quickly moved to daily “Funnies”.

In my Internet search for “mess” and “disorganization” and “clutter” I found some really funny images. And, I just had to share these findings on Facebook, of course.

What I’ve found is that people are loving these images and commenting on them every day. The problem is, they are commenting on my personal Facebook account where I’ve shared the post to my network. So my Organizing Lady page doesn’t get much action (especially with less than 100 page Likes so far). Well, everything new has to build its way up in time, I suppose.

If you’re readying this, I hope you’ll visit my Facebook page and “Like” it to follow my daily postings of fun stuff … ORGANIZING LADY FACEBOOK PAGE