"Did you grow up with a particular skill set you assumed everyone else had? Professional organizer Sandy Linville thought everybody was organized. The youngest of seven children in Covington, Ky., her mother ran an orderly household. Today, her husband is an (organized) engineer and their three teenagers do their own laundry. "It's a life skill, and I want their spouses to know I have given them a gift," she said.
In May 2003, Linville organized two friends' garages and both of them told her she should go into business. "It never dawned on me that I could make a living with it," she said, as entrepreneurship didn't run in her family. "Why would someone hire an organizer? Don't they know how to do it themselves and like to do it?" She soon found out that no, not everyone knows how to organize a home or office, much less enjoys it. Her girlfriends helped her name the company: SOS. "SOS means help, and it stands for Sandy's Organizing Solution," she said.
After surfing the Internet and finding NAPO, the National Association of Professional Organizers, a 20-year-old organization with 4,000 members, Linville spent the second half of 2003 educating herself on how to run a business. She took teleclasses, attended NAPO's national conference and watched a lot of home-improvement programs on HGTV. "The more I watched those shows, I realized a gift I didn't have and the gift I did have," she said. "My brain says 'This would be more efficient here,' not 'Oh, these colors would be inviting and attractive.'"
Linville turned to the Small Business Development Center to help get her business incorporated. "My first investment was a $50 workbook from an organizing site." Then there was the $200 fee to join NAPO. "All of a sudden, I had expenses." She knew she was officially in business.
She doesn't work with corporations, but with individuals in their homes or offices. A typical project starts with a phone consultation, and she may ask if ADHD is an issue. "If you have ADHD, I have different systems for you," she said. "By telling me, it makes me perform better for you than if you don't." She attends a local chapter of CHADD, Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit Disorder, every week.
Linville has a degree in psychology from UK and puts that knowledge to work in her business, as there are many people with hording and clutter issues. "I am not there to judge," she said. "I'm there to help. What happens with Sandy stays with Sandy."
Her definition of being organized is when you can find what you want or need in less than a minute. She's very respectful of individualism because everyone organizes in different ways. "Except refrigerator food goes in the refrigerator." It's all about having a place for every item that makes logical sense to you. "If you're organized, you have a clear brain," she said.
She previously charged by the hour, but now works in three-hour sessions. During the school year, her sessions run from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. Garages, one of her favorite things to organize, usually take a Friday and Saturday. "Garages and paperwork have the most positive impact," she said. "Our parents never taught us how to file because they haven't done it." Especially with the amount of paperwork we have today.
What's the perfect filing system? Linville recommends a few broad categories, instead of many narrow ones. "Alphabetical means 26 files," she said. "In the grocery store, you don't find the apples next to the books next to the candles, but rather in major groups." Broad categories for home files would include family, health, taxes and transportation.
Tickler files, numbered 1 to 31, are great to keep up with bills. "If it's due on the 10th but you mail it on the 1st, put it in the 1st," she said. When making a to-do list, keep similar tasks together: a list of phone calls and a list of e-mails, instead of mixing them up.
Once she sets up a filing system for clients, she has them make a daily entry in their planner. "You're not going to file miraculously," she said. "You have to make an appointment to file." She tells them to block out a 15- or 30-minute appointment every day, then every other day. "Then you can write it in once a week, until filing becomes a habit and you don't need to write it down." Paperwork never goes away. "It's like laundry and dishes," said Linville. "You have to take care of it or it's on top of you."
For more information on Sandy Linville's professional organizing, speaking and coaching services, check her Web site at www.sosorganizer.net.