Is Hiring a Professional Organizer Worth It?

What do you actually get when you hire a professional organizer?

I see a lot of people asking for a pro, but what they really mean is “someone to haul away junk,” “someone to clean up,” or “a pair of hands.” Let me explain what we do and how to know if you need a professional.

What’s included in the price? Experience, an objective perspective, guidance, and system development. In my case, I also received decluttering training through Marie Kondo’s company KonMari Co.

Experience matters, and so does your knowledge base. Sure, Marie’s team trained me, but I also worked as an organizer before starting my own company, research myriad ways of decluttering and minimizing excess, attend regular continuing education courses, and have published articles on minimalism and its benefits. And, I keep a tidy home with three children as a result of everything I’ve learned. I’m not an out of touch picture of perfection, I’m a parent who has been where you are.

You don’t want your sister helping you edit when you suddenly realize she is directing your choices based on her taste, hoping you “donate” those jeans right into her closet or throw out the combat boots she’s always criticized. My objectivity is important so you learn to make decisions confidently on your own. If we don’t develop that skill, how will you keep clutter from returning once I leave your house?

Based on your personality and emotional attachment to your stuff, we’ll talk about sparking joy, want vs hope, necessary vs helpful, and all the “what ifs” and “just in cases.” There isn’t a one size fits all way to declutter, so I come prepared.

Why not just hire a house cleaner? You absolutely should, if what you want is a clean house!

Most of my clients complain that their cleaning crews toss all the loose ends in one basket or shove things in weird places while they clean. Of course they do! They are cleaning surfaces, not choosing a home for loose items. If that stuff had a home, that’s where it’d be. Some cleaning crews do organize for you, but if you aren’t there working alongside them, your input on what works for your family is the missing piece. And they certainly aren’t decluttering without you. That’s how we keep the surfaces cleaner to begin with.

How do I know if I need a professional organizer? If you’ve managed to keep your home mostly organized for long stretches and are determined to get things back in order, you may not need me. But if you called, we’d work on why it won’t stay organized so you don’t need to completely redo your work every year or so.

If you just need hands and a strong back to help you drag junk to the curb, but you’ve got a plan, a schedule, a date on the calendar, and confidence in your decisions about what to keep, you don’t need an organizer. You need a teenager to do the heavy lifting.

If you feel like you can make decisions fairly well, but shut the door on the mess every time you try, you might need to hire a professional. The lightest touch clients are the ones who know the problem, know it needs to be fixed right now, but don’t want to get overwhelmed and drown in their piles all alone. It’s like having a personal trainer for your stuff. You know eating vegetables and hitting the gym is good for you, but it helps to have an appointment and an accountability partner to make sure it gets done. Plus, working with an expert keeps you from injuring yourself on the treadmill, or veering off into a side room and starting multiple projects at once so the whole house explodes in a way that can’t be fixed by the time you get tired.

Organizers keep you on task, mindful of the scale and impact of the project, and reassured we will help you get through the mess. Just like a trainer, we keep the process as efficient and painless as possible so you cross the finish line sooner with the knowledge that you can maintain your decluttered and organized space.

There are houses that look organized, and houses that are actually organized and stay that way. We all need maintenance from time to time, but the system shouldn’t completely break down after one busy day. Buying bins won’t make you organized. Having someone organize without you present will give you a beautiful result that’s extremely difficult to maintain since the systems weren’t built with you in mind. And organizing without decluttering is just organized clutter.

If you’ve had to devote whole days to “getting organized” in the past, it’s time to hire a professional. Having an organized home is not one decision, it’s dozens of daily decisions, so let’s build a system that stands the test of time.