FAQs

The following information is taken from  NAPO.net (National Association of Professional Organizers)

What Professional Organizers Do

Professional organizers use tested principles and expertise to enhance the lives of clients. By designing custom organizing systems and teaching organizing skills, they help individuals and businesses take control of their surroundings, their time, their paper piles, their lives!

An organizer’s services can range from designing an efficient closet to organizing a cross-country move. For homeowners, he or she might offer room-by-room space planning and reorganization, estate organization, improved management of paperwork and computer files, systems for managing personal finances and other records, and/or coaching in time-management and goal-setting.

In business settings, an organizing pro can increase productivity and profitability with improvements in paper-filing and storage, electronic organizing, work-flow systems, employee time-management, space design, and more.

Some professional organizers work with specific populations, such as those with Attention Deficit Disorder, the chronically disorganized, children, seniors or students.

Who Are Professional Organizers?

Professional organizers come from a variety of backgrounds and professions. Some have previous corporate experience, some are young professionals who made a career change and some are individuals who have chosen professional organizing as their first career. There are professional organizers who work solely in the residential arena, and those who focus on helping businesses. While experiences and business models may vary, there are some abilities and qualities common to all successful professional organizers:

• Ability to ask the right questions to understand what a client wants and needs
• Ability to listen and infer what a client means
• Ability to customize organizational systems to meet client needs
• Ability to teach and transfer basic organizing skills
• Ability to visualize spatially and see the big picture
• Ability to break goals down into manageable steps
• Ability to categorize and plan ahead
• Ability to use technology to support organizing efforts
• Physical and mental endurance
• Compassion
• Responsibility
• Professionalism

NAPO Code of Ethics

This Code of Ethics is a set of principles to provide guidelines in our professional conduct with our clients, colleagues, and community. As a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers, I pledge to exercise judgment, self-restraint, and conscience in my conduct in order to establish and maintain public confidence in the integrity of NAPO members and to preserve and encourage fair and equitable practices among all who are engaged in the profession of organizing.

Clients

Working Relationships

• I will serve my clients with integrity, competence, and objectivity, and will treat them with respect and courtesy.
• I will offer services in those areas in which I am qualified and will accurately represent those qualifications in both verbal and written communications.
• When unable or unqualified to fulfill requests for services, I will make every effort to recommend the services of other qualified organizers and/or other qualified professionals.
• I will advertise my services in an honest manner and will represent the organizing profession accurately.

Confidentiality

• I will keep confidential all client information, both business and personal, including that which may be revealed by other organizers.
• I will use proprietary client information only with the client’s permission.
• I will keep client information confidential and not use it to benefit myself or my firm, or reveal this information to others.

Fees

• I will decide independently and communicate to my client in advance my fees and expenses, and will charge fees and expenses which I deem reasonable, legitimate, and commensurate with my experience, the services I deliver, and the responsibility I accept.
• I will make recommendations for products and services with my client’s best interests in mind.

Colleagues

• I will seek and maintain an equitable, honorable, and cooperative association with other NAPO members and will treat them with respect and courtesy.
• I will respect the intellectual property rights (materials, titles, and thematic creations) of my colleagues, and other firms and individuals, and will not use proprietary information or methodologies without permission.
  Tip: If you are going to utilize a colleague’s established methodology in your practice, get their permission first before doing so.
• I will act and speak on a high professional level so as not to bring discredit to the organizing profession.