Blessing McKenzie I had the fantastic opportunity to have Blessing McKenzie, a high school Junior, job shadow me yesterday.     Blessing is considering a career as a professional organizer!     I think that speaks volumes to where our industry is headed.     She also interviewed me for her school project and agreed to let me blog about her questions and my answers. What are some of the biggest challenges that you face for this job? If you are a business owner, I would say the biggest challenge you face is finding clients, or rather clients finding you.  That’s the simple answer.  The fact is, the biggest problem is having the education and experience to work with chronically disorganized (CD) clients. What is one thing that surprised you about this career? What surprised me about this career was discovering people are chronically disorganized rather than situationally disorganized.  When I first started my career, I thought I woul...

Happy fall!  As I reflect on the past 14 years of training new professional organizing business owners, I thought it might be interesting to share with you some facts about the Institute for Professional Organizers: We have taught new professional organizing business owners since 2004 400+ participants have completed our  training program All but 2 participants are female From 17 countries Whose average exam score is 88.8% From our training evaluation survey, 100% of our participants said they would recommend our training program to new professional organizing business owners We've held 50 live seminars and  client practicums In 2009 I wrote the book  Get Rich Organizing  for the sole purpose to provide information and education during the economic downturn when it was not financially comfortable for some people to complete the full training program. I don't have exact book sales because it sells through many channels.  I do know the book ...

Meet Laurie Wolpert and Shauna Ellis, both from Oregon, who Certified by the Institute for Professional Organizers August 8, 2018.

What's the secret to effective multitasking? Not doing it. Any time you do more than one thing at a time, you delay the completion of both tasks. The key is to focus on ONE thing and ONE thing only, until completion.  If you're in the habit of multi-tasking throughout your day, I challenge you to go for one day focusing on one thing at a time--and observe how much more productive you actually are, and, how much more you get done. Try it and see how much more you check off your list today. Leave a post and let me know if you were more productive by not multitasking.

Accountability Activity - to get you refocused on what needs to happen now to plan, launch, manage, grow or leverage your profitable business. Sometimes we move so fast as an entrepreneur, doing so many different things, that we tend to not notice how much we've actually accomplished in a particular span of time.  When we don't acknowledge our accomplishments and successes on a regular basis, we have the false assumption that we're not actually getting much done, which in turn affects our self-confidence (and then THAT affects the way we take action.)    Take a moment to look back at what you accomplished this week. List 5 things you are grateful to have worked on, or successes you experienced: 1.  2.  3.  4. 5. --> -->

Accountability Activity - to get you refocused on what needs to happen now to plan, launch, manage, grow or leverage your profitable business. Have you ever allowed fear to stop you from taking action on opportunities that you've asked for? Although your fears seem real, they don't actually exist! They're manufactured by the ego to keep you within your comfort zone - and if you buy into those fears and accept them as real, you'll actually end up manifesting what you fear.  List 1 specific opportunity you said 'no' to because of fear and what you will do differently to act in spite of those fears going forward.   1. 

Accountability Activity - to get you refocused on what needs to happen now to plan, launch, manage, grow or leverage your profitable business. Procrastination creeps its ugly head into everyone's business once in awhile. This is simply resistance, and the only way to get past resistance is to act in spite of it. Getting clear is the first step.  First, list three tasks on which you've been procrastinating below. Next, prioritize them in order of which ones will get you the highest return on investment first.  Next, realize that you may be procrastinating because you're anticipating that each task will take longer than it actually does. Therefore, next to each task below, allot how much time you'll actually need for each, then schedule it on your calendar.  No more excuses--just get it done. 1.  2.  3. 

Accountability Activity - to get you refocused on what needs to happen now to plan, launch, manage, grow or leverage your profitable business. Believe it or not, every day we're presented with opportunities that are right under our noses - yet, we either don't recognize them, or we use excuses to not say  YES  to them. What are the top 3 reasons you have for not saying  YES  to the opportunities that show up in your life every day?  List them here. 1.  2.  3.  If there is a will, there is always a way. How badly do you want it? It's time to ditch the excuses. Write out the top 3 opportunities that are available to you  RIGHT NOW . Toss the excuses aside and go for them. Make it happen.    1.  2.  3. 

Accountability Activity - to get you refocused on what needs to happen now to plan, launch, manage, grow or leverage your profitable business. What is  ONE  thing will you delegate today that you haven't delegated before so that you can focus more on the money-generating activities in your business?   1.  Have a great day! We can't wait to hear about your successes! 

Accountability Activity - to get you refocused on what needs to happen now to plan, launch, manage, grow or leverage your profitable business. Strategic Alliances are people who like and respect you and who come in contact with enough people on a daily and weekly basis to regularly refer you to the right people. They are some of the most influential people you know, natural networkers who seem to be connected to everyone, and who love putting people together, just for the fun of it.  Strategic Alliances are people who like and respect you and who come in contact with enough people on a daily and weekly basis to regularly refer you to the right people. They are some of the most influential people you know, natural networkers who seem to be connected to everyone, and who love putting people together, just for the fun of it. Strategic Alliances are people who like and respect you and who come in contact with enough people on a daily and weekly basis to regularly refer you ...

Accountability Activity - to get you refocused on what needs to happen now to plan, launch, manage, grow or leverage your profitable business. Of all the things that are on your To Do list for today, what BIG THREE things will you do before the end of the day to get closer to your BIG goals? 1. _________________________________________________ 2. _________________________________________________ 3. _________________________________________________ What is ONE action you've been delaying that you know will get you results? How will it feel at the end of the day to have completed that ONE action? Post your responses here.

We frequently receive inquiries and questions from people across the globe about how to become a Professional Organizer and is it the right career path for them.  Questions range from "How did you get started in this business?" to "How do I get certified?" While I'm always willing to spend time answering basic inquiries, I usually recommend that you start by reading my book, Get Rich Organizing .  It will answer the majority of your questions.  Then, if you want something more in-depth, I recommend our Fast Track Method Training Program ™  as it is fast, affordable, and extremely comprehensive. To get started I'll answer some of your burning questions: 1.  What is the trend in the professional organizing business? Professional Organizing is one of the fastest growing service businesses today.  People have an abundance of stuff and not enough space or time to declutter.  And, due to the number of television shows like "Hoarders," ...