.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgleft-sidebar { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgleft-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgleft-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Her clients call her “Miracle Mary.”

She doesn’t fear digging through piles of papers and organizing them into files. She relishes developing a plan to tackle a big project. She loves creatively thinking of solutions to ward off chaos, all so her clients can work more efficiently and lead more balanced lives.

Mary Sigmann is one of a handful of people in Central Iowa who have made a career out of organizing. As business leaders, employees and stay-at-home parents try to handle more responsibilities and busier schedules, many have begun using professional organizers as a way to become more productive in their work, have more free time and save money with improved efficiencies.

Erin Smidt, who gave Sigmann her nickname, started working with her on archiving a major multiyear project in October 2004. Now the CEO of 3R PR & Marketing Inc., parent and community volunteer meets with Sigmann each quarter to work on time management, project planning and office efficiency.

“Her insight, organizational strategies and hands-on work provide me with more time and energy to deliver strategic and creative counsel to my clients,” she said, “and enjoy more downtime with our boys.”

Sigmann started her Ames-based business 11 years ago while attending Coach University, where she was encouraged to coach in an area of expertise. Growing up as a natural organizer and teaching in an elementary school, Sigmann leaned toward professional organizing as a career.

Since then, Sigmann has worked one-on-one with hundreds of clients, put on workshops, written articles containing tips for organizing and developed five workbooks covering professional and personal organization, downsizing to a smaller space, the spiritual aspect of organizing, time management and setting and achieving goals.

About 60 percent of her work is with business clients and 40 percent in residential settings. She has worked with a state department for three years, helping all employees within the department with organization and time management. Other clients include business consultants, a lawyer who wants to have a better handle on her workload and help thinking through assignments, and a financial services executive who needs help sorting through lots of paperwork

“I come in, help that person get organized, better manage their time and create a game plan for keeping on task and getting caught up. – Mary Sigmann professional organizer

When she first started, Sigmann said, most people had not heard of professional organizers, but now it’s becoming more mainstream.

A handful of people have started similar businesses in Des Moines, including Shari Hudson, who founded Organized by Design about nine years ago. Formerly a property manager, Hudson found that the new career matched her master’s degree in organizational management, which she said looks at “how to run a business from a more humanistic point of view.”

She has worked with departments in many large companies including Principal Financial Group Inc., Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. and Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., as well as smaller businesses, such as Cookies by Design. Her work can involve organizing spaces as well as looking at ways to make companies run more efficiently.

Lori Vande Krol is relatively new to the business; she started her company, Life Made Simple LLC, with custom painter, designer and seamstress Gina Fitch in May 2005. Together, they can organize any residential space from garage to home office and also decorate it.

However, because of her 13 years as an actuary at Principal, Vande Krol’s main interest lies in being a productivity consultant to companies. After stressing to clients the importance of having organized files to reduce risk in case of an audit, Vande Krol realized a large number of people needed help organizing.

Her goal with her business is to help clients realize that “every piece of information that comes into the office needs to be handled in some way,” she said.

She not only works one-on-one with clients to come up with organizational solutions, but she also is a Paper Tiger Productivity trainer and authorized consultant. In this role, she helps clients set up the Taming the Paper Tiger system, a computer program that allows people to index documents by title and key words so they can later locate them in their office. To get someone started on the program, Vande Krol provides an eight-hour organizing session and plan for the client to continue to process.

The groups showing the most interest in the program are health-care professionals, educators and banks, she said, but she would also like to work with more small to medium-sized companies.

The need for a professional organizer is broadening, Sigmann said. “People are seeing how the professional organizer can affect more aspects of their life than just offices,” she said. Those areas include time management, electronic filing and public speaking.

“Often a business will have one or two staff members whose lack of organization is the only obstacle to successful performance,” Sigmann said. “I come in, help that person get organized, better manage their time and create a game plan for keeping on task and getting caught up.”

Many businesses are finding that better organization can improve their bottom line; when they have a more efficient business and more productive employees, they save on the cost for supplies and staffing.

“Businesses really want to do what they can for their employees,” Hudson said, “They want to see their employees do well and not be stressed and provide whatever they can to help employees in whatever way they can, because if their employees feel good about their job, their business will thrive and survive.”

Individuals are seeing the importance in having someone help them “become more productive and lead a well-balanced life,” Vande Krol said.

“I have found that people, while they may read [about organizing], don’t do it,” Hudson said. “They just need a third party there to give encouragement and reinforcement to things they already know.”

Changing profession

The National Association of Professional Organizers introduced a test this year to qualify for a certified professional organizer designation. Sigmann was among about 250 organizers, and the first Iowan, to take the test and become certified.

Having this designation, she said, could help bring more professionalism to the career.

Vande Krol is interested in the designation, but said the requirements are tough to meet. One of the requirements is logging 2,000 hours of one-on-one consultation time with clients over three years, which doesn’t include the time she spends giving speeches, working with groups, or installing shelves and other equipment for clients.

The number of professional organizers also continues to grow. NAPO has nearly 4,000 members and Vande Krol said there is a group of Iowa professional organizers, which now has about 25 members, that meets regularly to work on raising awareness for the profession among the public.

Raising awareness seems to be the biggest challenge. Though Hudson has placed many advertisements in newspapers and on television and is listed in the yellow pages of the phone book, she said she hasn’t received a lot of business from them.

“I think the profession itself is more known,” she said. “I think locating a professional organizer, unless you know someone, is still a challenge.”

Many people will not contact a professional organizer until they are overwhelmed or stuck in their work, experts say, and they have to have a great deal of trust in an organizer to invite them into their personal space.

“A lot of them are embarrassed to have you come into their home and office and can’t get past that,” Vande Krol said.

The system

“Organizing is really an art,” Vande Krol said. “There’s not one solution for everyone.”

That’s why most organizers require clients to work with them to sort through their things and create a personalized system. “People want to be organized, and initially it takes time to do it and it takes an attitude,” Hudson said. “Without both those things, people generally fall back into old ways.”

After an initial session to figure out a client’s goals and obstacles to achieving those goals, many organizers determine what should be accomplished first to make the biggest difference. Then they spend a significant amount of time helping their clients become organized or looking into company efficiencies and suggesting changes. Many start with physical changes and then lead into time management and company processes.

To ensure that the systems are maintained and to make tweaks, many organizers also suggest meeting regularly with clients. Sigmann meets regularly depending on her clients’ needs; Hudson suggests meeting at least an hour a month.

The work does not come without a handsome price tag. Sigmann charges $65 per hour for a minimum of four hours to work one-on-one with a client. Vande Krol charges $60 per hour for individual consultations and $995 to install the Tiger software and work eight hours with a business client. However, both admit that rates can vary depending on the package, especially for a company-wide project.

Organizers claim their time is valuable. Hudson says when she starts working with a client, “I start with a handshake and come out with a hug.”

They also say that no situation is completely hopeless.

“Every situation is unique and certainly some situations are better than others,” Hudson said, “but there’s nothing that’s beyond hope. Nothing that can’t be remedied.”