Background
I’ve had a lifelong fascination with organizing. I enjoy helping people regain control of their lives through the process of getting rid of clutter and creating customized systems to maintain order. I recognize that different people process information and approach space differently and I get to know and understand my clients so that together we can find organizational systems that work best for them. I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to organizing.
Since starting my business in 2005, I’ve invested a great deal of time and money in training. I have taken classes through the National Association of Professional Organizers and the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (formerly NSGCD), as well as four in-person training seminars and one nine-week coaching teleclass. In addition, I have attended six national NAPO conferences, three regional NAPO conferences, and eight ICD conferences. (See my Credentials page for detailed information on the training I’ve received.)
I have achieved two important certifications: I am both a Certified Professional Organizer® (CPO), a designation conferred by the Board of Certification of Professional Organizers®, and a Certified Professional Organizer in Chronic Disorganization® (CPO-CD), a credential she earned through the ICD.
I was honored to be a speaker at the 2009 international conference of the Australasian Association of Professional Organisers held in Brisbane, Australia. I was selected to be part of the prestigious Ask the Organizer panel at the 2012 conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers.
I serve on the national board of directors of the ICD as Marketing Director. I am the immediate past president of the St. Louis chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers, after being a two-term president, and have served on the chapter’s board since its inception, first as Membership Director, and then as Vice President, before becoming President in 2008. I was a charter member of the chapter. On the national level, I am the chair of NAPO’s Quick Poll Committee, was a member of its 2009 and 2010 Nominating Committees, and served on the website committee as well.
Prior to becoming an organizing consultant, I was a successful freelance writer, specializing in writing about pets. The author of seven books and contributor to four others (including Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover’s Soul), I have a great deal of practical experience in organizing large quantities of information.
In a previous job working on an international project for a Washington, DC-based non-profit group, I organized an international conference held at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya. I made the travel arrangements for all fifteen participants, from eleven countries, and, while in Kenya, handled all the conference arrangements and in-country travel logistics. And this was before the Internet!
While I have an organized mind and love setting up systems (especially for other people!), I struggle with disorder in my own life. I’ve succeeded in finding organizational systems, along with habits and routines, that work for me, but I know how life can get in the way of maintaining systems and keeping clutter at bay. I’m very familiar with the suffocating feeling that excess clutter can create and the pleasure of gazing at a neat desk or room. And I know how satisfying it is to maintain newly created order. I love helping people achieve that satisfaction. Since I’ve been through it myself, I never judge anyone else’s cluttered life.