Why I Changed How I Work With Organizing Clients
I have been organizing inside people's homes for years, and I have truly loved the experience. Early on, I noticed that my clients fell into two broad categories. Some needed an extra pair of hands to tackle a big project during a busy season of life or a transition, like a move or a new baby. For these clients, the work followed a fairly reliable formula: identify what can be purged, create clear categories and homes for what remains, and reorganize everything according to how it actually gets used. It was satisfying work, and useful to the people I was helping.
But there was another kind of client. One for whom the struggle with clutter and organization wasn't situational at all. It was longer-term, more persistent, and more complicated. For these clients, the standard formula wasn't enough, because the root cause of the disorganization was different.
It was less likely to be about a busy season and more likely to be connected to a brain-based difference, or to gaps in foundational skills and habits that had simply never been learned. Helping these clients was inherently more challenging, and far more rewarding, because it required partnering with them much more closely. We had to figure out what would work for how they think, move through their spaces, and relate to their things. If the systems we created didn't fit how they thought or operated, there was no way they would maintain them once I was gone.
Over time I also started noticing something else: for many of these clients, I wasn't the first organizer they had worked with. The “done-for-you” approach, which is the dominant model in the organizing industry, hadn't been the right fit. They needed something more. More attention, more patience, more genuine curiosity about how their minds worked.
Many of these clients disclosed that they were navigating brain-based conditions like ADHD, autism, depression, or anxiety. I wanted to be able to serve them better, so I began learning more. I started an intensive coach training program with a focus on home organizing and neurodiversity. And the deeper I went, the clearer it became that this was the work I wanted to focus on.
I want to be clear that I truly enjoyed my tidying work. It is incredibly gratifying to leave a home lighter, to watch a busy parent exhale when the clutter is gone and the systems are in place. That work matters and there are many talented organizers who do it beautifully. But I came to understand that my particular gifts are better suited to helping people who need extra support.
What Coaching Taught Me
When I started my coach training, I assumed a coach was someone who told you what to do. I had encountered plenty of people who called themselves coaches over the years, but what I came to understand is that most of what passes for coaching is actually mentoring or consulting, and those are different things.
Mentoring is when someone shares their personal experience and hard-won expertise so a less experienced person can benefit from that learning and avoid common mistakes. It's an incredible gift in the right context. Consulting is when an expert shares their knowledge and recommendations. As a home organizer, I’ve received and provided mentoring, and I have consulted every project, drawing on my experience to help clients understand their options.
Coaching, I discovered, is something else entirely. It’s a partnership designed to help someone tap into their internal expertise and arrive at their own answers. The coach provides structure, accountability, and reflection, but the wisdom lives with the client. And when I understood that, something clicked about why my work with neurodiverse clients had always felt different. My best thinking about how to organize a space frequently wasn't a good fit for them. What they needed wasn't my answers. They needed better questions, and the space to find their own.
My organizing practice today is a blend of coaching-informed discovery and consulting. I don't approach the work assuming that my expertise alone is sufficient. It helps, absolutely. But my clients are the true experts on their own lives, and I treat them accordingly. That shift in perspective changed everything about how I work.
It also sparked something larger. The more I immersed myself in coaching and neurodiversity, the more I wanted to bring that lens beyond organizing altogether. I have since launched a separate coaching practice primarily for neurodiverse women navigating change in midlife, which has become its own meaningful thread of work.
Why I Added Virtual Home Organizing Services
When I first started organizing, I couldn't imagine working with clients virtually. I did everything for them. I often told them to sit back and relax or go do something else, while I handled it. For my busy, transitional clients, that was a gift. But for my chronically disorganized clients, it didn't work at all. They needed to be involved every step of the way if they were going to gain anything lasting from the process.
What I eventually realized is that my gift to these clients was my partnership. And that partnership didn't require me to be the one physically touching and moving the items. That realization is what opened the door to virtual organizing for me.
To anyone who thinks of home organizing as a “done-for-you” service, the concept of a virtual organizer might seem pointless. But for the client who has tried every approach they know and is desperate for something that actually sticks, working virtually can be just as effective as working side by side in person. Because the point of our work together isn't simply to edit possessions. It's to change how a person thinks and relates to their things. That's the real work. And that can happen just as well over Zoom.
What Working Together Actually Looks Like
Every new client engagement begins with a virtual strategy session. This is separate from the introductory call, which is simply a chance for us to establish fit and decide whether to move forward together. The strategy session goes much deeper.
It's a full hour on Zoom where we talk through what's working, what gets in the way, what the biggest challenges and hopes are, and what is truly motivating change right now. I use this conversation to establish our priorities and create a rough plan for the work ahead, whether that work will happen in person or virtually. We return to these takeaways again and again throughout our time together.
From there, each subsequent session tackles a specific part of the overall project. Most clients come with a range of problem areas in their homes, and a significant part of what I do is help break that down into manageable, meaningful pieces. I help people get started, maintain momentum, and end each session feeling accomplished rather than overwhelmed.
Throughout all of it, I take a coaching-informed approach: asking questions, staying curious, and helping the client see for themself why something will or won't work for their particular brain and life.
One thing I've added that is new to my organizing practice, borrowed directly from my coach training, is the concept of between-session action. In my earlier work, I never asked clients to do anything between sessions, and they generally didn't. That was part of the appeal; they only had to think about it when I was there. But I've come to see that in order for the insight and awareness gained in our sessions to truly take root, clients need to carry something forward into the time between our meetings. Small, specific, realistic actions that keep the project moving and the learning alive. This is where the real change happens.
Who This Is For
If you've found your way here, you are likely someone who has struggled with organization for a long time, but not for lack of trying. You have read books, sought advice, tried systems. Nothing has stuck. It is affecting your quality of life and you are tired of carrying the weight of it.
You may have begun to recognize that this struggle has something to do with how your brain works, and you're open to exploring that. You're not looking for someone to come in and tidy your space while you do something else. You're looking for something more lasting.
This also matters: many people who come to me are self-conscious about their homes and their habits. They have spent years being their own harshest critics. I want you to know that I don’t judge you. I genuinely believe when something isn't working, it simply means you haven't found the right approach for you yet.
My job is to get curious about you. To help you see yourself more accurately, including everything that is already working in your favor. To understand how your brain prefers to operate and use that understanding to build something that fits your actual life, not the idealized version of it.
That's the work. And if it sounds like what you've been looking for, I'd love to talk.
