Can You Work With My Parents?

When I tell people that I am a professional organizer, I most often get one of two responses: "I would love to do that!", or "I really need your help." The third most common reaction is, "Can you work with my parents?"

As someone who grew up regularly organizing for my parents (whether they wanted me to or not), I completely understand this sentiment. Watching a loved one struggle with disorganization can be really hard! It is especially hard if you grew up with it and if you know that it will be your mess to clean up down the line.

Many clients hire our team after working through the challenge of dealing with the left behind belongings of a close family member - very often, a parent. They express that they don't want to leave their children with the emotionally, physically, and financially grueling task that they just went through.

It is natural to see this possibility in your future and try to get ahead of it. Wouldn't sending in the organizer you hired be a great way to start that difficult conversation? I wish that the answer was a simple, "Yes! Let's do it!" But human beings and their things are much more complicated than that.

The first step before booking an organizing session with our team is a phone consultation with our company founder and owner, Stasia. This call is to understand the scope of the project, make a scheduling plan, and "matchmake" with a member of our team. But it is also largely to understand where the potential client is coming from emotionally and mentally. If they aren't ready to take on the project — to go through a lifetime of things, to make choices about what matters to them moving forward, to dedicate time and energy to reckoning with their stuff — we don't move forward. Sometimes we give it a try, but it has never worked out well.

Like confronting any major life change, the active participant needs to accept that there is a problem that has made their life unmanageable and be willing and able to take the steps to solve this problem. As much as we may wish to, we can't force someone else to be ready to make a change.

So, to answer the original question... Yes. We would love to work with your parents! But only when they are ready to work with us.

If you want to give them a gentle nudge in our direction, you can purchase a gift card for our services here.