Q&A: How Did You Become an Organizer?

Minima receives lots of emails, so I’ve decided to share the knowledge via our new-ish “Q&A” series. We get this one a lot, and I recently had an indepth convo with an aspiring organizer so it’s fresh in my mind.

Question — How do I get started as a Professional Organizer?

I’m interested in organizing as a career and have been reading books about organizing, but I feel like that’s not enough. How did you get started?

Answer — The absolute best way to acquire Professional Organizing skills is to train with a Professional Organizer.

I was lucky and got hired by Katherine Lawrence with Space Matters in February of 2009 after attending a NAPO Richmond chapter meeting. I took her training class and she provided me with a list of required reading. I worked as her apprentice for three to six months before she sent me out on my own with clients. We had weekly team meetings (she had three or four employees at the time) where we helped each other with any client challenges we were facing. It was an amazing resource for me.

On that note, I highly recommend attending your local NAPO chapter meeting. It’s a great way to network with local organizers, find out if anyone is hiring, and see who you connect well with. If no one in your area is hiring, NAPO and ICD have great classes you can take.

The challenge with my job at Space Matters was that the hours were unpredictable and never full time, so I always had at least one other job. In October of 2010, I decided to branch off and form Minima. There were no hard feelings and Katherine and I still team together on large jobs.

Minima is not currently hiring (I get that question a lot), but we might be in the next year or so! I’m always available for coffee or lunch if you want to pick my brain — I’m very open about what I do and how I do it. Just shoot me an email via hello@minimaonline.com and we can chat!