With the beginning of 2019 comes the 10th anniversary of Order Your Life. In 2009 when I first started organizing home offices and kitchens for friends and family, it was after leaving an 18 year career in non-profit advocacy. Little did I know that this relaxing way (for me, at least!) to make some extra money would turn out to be a full-fledged family business with my husband as an integral part of it and a wonderful team that I have come to depend upon.
Organizing has turned out to be so much more than just a business for me. I am absolutely passionate about what I do and honestly can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. The name Order Your Life also turned out to be a prescient description of my company, as we do so much more than just organizing. Not only do we work with people to help them declutter and organize all parts of their homes, we also support people of all ages (my youngest client is 27 and my oldest is 97) with pretty much any aspect of their lives, from planning budgets to getting ready to move to preparing for end of life issues.
Here are a few examples of my favorite client experiences:
- Helping women who are going through divorce – crying, laughing, and venting with them, and most importantly helping them learn how to be independent and manage their financial lives just fine on their own
- Supporting clients who have been avoiding the reality of tax preparation – in one instance for almost 10 years – to get their tax documents prepared and (from now on) ready on time
- Encouraging clients to discover how easy it is to go paper-less by digitizing their documents using ScanSnap scanners, so they can finally climb out from under years of accumulated paper (and rediscover their desktops and counter tops!)
- Educating older clients so they can avoid phone and internet fraud schemes that prey on their vulnerability, and advising with their adult kids to set up ways to monitor their money and prevent it from being lost
- Assisting older clients to make sure that their family members know where all their important documents are kept
- Consulting with small business owners, from photographers to artists to healthcare providers, to help them set up systems that make the business side of their work flow more smoothly
- Teaching basic financial literacy skills to millennials so that they can keep better track of their money and start life out on the right foot.
As our clients range widely in age, economic status and technical proficiency, I have learned so much about different aspects of life from them, and I’ve made lasting friendships with many of them as well. Organizing is a very personal matter – I can’t think of any profession other than therapy, where someone has such deep private contact with almost all aspects of a client’s life. The level of trust has to be truly high, and I feel very honored and privileged to have this kind of relationship with my clients.
As Order Your Life enters its second decade in business, I hope to continue earning the trust and confidence that our clients have placed in us, and to keep serving them by making their lives simpler, better organized and more productive.
