Helping people to get their acts together

By SHELLEY HOWELLS

For Catherine Smith, being organised is more than wishful thinking or personality-type. It's a career choice.

As a professional organiser, her job is to get other people's acts together, so she'd better be on top of it herself.

She is, and the net helps her keep it that way.

As well as individual clients with home or office "chaos issues", Smith runs group workshops.

The web is her number one research resource when it comes to structuring workshops, finding new ideas and dealing with unexpected problems.

"I recently had an ADHD man at a workshop and turned to the internet to find the information I needed to help him," she says.

She has also had success finding new clients for her seminars and workshops by simply running searches for organisations that arrange events and guest speakers, and emailing them about her services.

As a member of the US outfit the National Association of Professional Organizers, she keeps in touch with professional organising news, tips and products through its website and others such as Get Organised Now, Organised You and various "organised" web-rings. She gets email newsletters daily.

"Signing on to website newsletters is a real time-saver," says Smith.

"They send you the latest, which saves you having to go through the sites. I subscribe to lots, from news to marketing info, business planning ideas and fun stuff.

"I use Hotmail to avoid in-box clutter and spam."

She writes a monthly e-zine (subscribe at catherine@spacesmiths.co.nz) of organising tips.

"My list of subscribers grows each month. It's been good for business and fun to do too."

Smith is often called in to help businesses get systems up and organised, especially those in transition such as moving from a home-based operation to a "real" office set-up.

Favourite sites for business organising ideas and news are Fast Company and Unlimited.

Many of her favourite sites are for and about hard-core organised people, such as the Professional Organisers' guru Julie Morgenstern, author of the seminal work Organizing from the Inside Out.

For organisational amateurs, DIY-ers and cluttered civilians, Smith suggests easing in with iVillage's annual Get Organised Challenge.

National Association of Professional Organizers

Get Organised Now

Organised You

Fast Company

Unlimited

Julie Morgenstern

iVillage