Professional Organizing emerged as an industry in 1984 within Los Angeles. A professional organizer assists individuals and businesses to improve their organizing systems and process. This industry has been popularised by a number of television programs produced on the subject, beginning with Life Laundry in 2002. This was followed by other programs, such as Clean Sweep, Neat, and Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.
Professional Organizing is represented globally by the International Association of Professional Organizing Associations. Its members are not for profit membership bodies with at least 100 members and have operated as a membership body for professional organizers for at least 3 years. As at December 2019, IFPOA comprises the following membership bodies for industry professionals:
Brazil: Associação Nacional de Profissionais de Organização e Produtividade
Canada: Professional Organizers in Canada
Italy: Associazione Professional Organizers Italia
Japan: Japanese Association of Life Organizers
Republic of Korea: Korea Association of Professional Organizers
Netherlands: Nederlands Beroepsvereniging van Professional Organizers
United Kingdom: Association of Professional Declutterers & Organisers
United States: Institute for Challenging Disorganization
NAPO defines Professional Organizer and Productivity Consultant as follows:
A Professional Organizer supports evaluation, decision-making, and action around objects, space, and data; helping clients achieve desired outcomes regarding function, order, and clarity.
A Productivity Consultant supports evaluation, decision-making, and action around time, energy, and resources; helping clients achieve desired outcomes regarding goals, effectiveness, and priorities.
Certifications and Credentials
Certified Professional Organizers have proven industry proficiency by demonstrating they possess the body of knowledge and experience essential to professional organizing and productivity consulting. The CPO® credential identifies professional organizers who've documented a specific number of paid hours that include transferring organizing skills to the client, and passed the Board of Certification for Professional Organizers examination. The credential provides the organizing and productivity industry a way to elevate its professional standards. The National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals' education arm is known as NAPO University. Currently NAPO University offers two Specialist Certificates: Residential Organizing and Workplace Productivity. A third Specialist Certificate in Life Transitions will be launched in early 2018. NAPO University also offers a Resources Track to support Professional Organizers and Productivity Consultants in developing and growing their businesses.
Principles
Professional Organizers achieve the goal of creating and maintaining organizational systems by teaching others the basic principals of organization. Writer Julie Morgenstern suggests communicating these principals by using the acronym "SPACE", interpreted as: S=Sort, P=Purge, A=Assign a Home, C=Containerize and E=Equalize. The last step consists in monitoring how the new system that has been created is working, adjusting it if needed, and maintaining it. This principle is applicable to every type of organization. As one of their main jobs, Professional Organizers help clients reduce excessive clutter in the home or in the office. Professional Organizers offer a wide variety of services, from designing a functional closet, to organizing a cross-country move. For homeowners, a Professional Organizer might plan and reorganize the space of a room, improve paper management, or coach in time-management, or goal-setting. In a business setting, Professional Organizers work closely with their clients to increase productivity by stream-lining paper-filing, electronic organization, and employee time-management.
