Jill Flemmings, owner of
smart Organizing Solutions,
welcome on the business brand.
Honey, I appreciate it. Good to see you.
It's exciting to have you till you
start the business back in 2013.
Helping people organize space in their
homes or offices with the fast pace of
life these days and how quickly things
accumulate at home and in the office,
I can only imagine just how many people
could actually benefit from getting help
getting organized and staying organized.
Tell us a little bit about why
you got started in this business
and how is demand these days.
Well, Ryan, I've always been an organized
person and I spent 27 years in the
corporate world doing marketing and
creative and when I decided to leave it,
I was like what am I going
to do when I grow up?
And I've I've always loved
organizing for myself.
I wasn't sure if I would enjoy
doing it with other people,
so I practiced on some friends and
family and discovered I really loved
helping people declutter and create calm,
relaxing spaces that they can enjoy.
And for me,
the best reason to get organized is so
that you can enjoy the time of your
day to go and do things that you love.
Doing instead of like worrying
about your house.
And let's face it,
most of us have too much stuff and
it's it's very satisfying to make a
an impact in someone's daily life and
their daily routine and take a space
that they just couldn't stand being
in to something that they they love.
Showing off to friends and family.
So that's it's a really good feeling.
I'm really happy to make an
impact in people's lives.
That's you know,
so positive,
you know, I love about you, know this.
Economy is that you know,
if you find something you love to do
and and and people need that service,
you know you can actually
serve business for yourself.
And I think you know what you're doing and
helping people and impacting their lives.
As you said jealous is is really
inspiring to see a small business
woman like yourself taking something
you love to do and helping make
a difference in people's lives.
I can only imagine,
as I said at the outset,
there are a lot of people
increasingly in need of a little
bit of help organizing their lives,
at least at home,
and particularly these days in the office.
Where to get back to that in
just a second now.
You describe yourself as
professionally as an organizer,
but what I find very interesting
is that you don't just help
people declutter and organize,
but you teach your residential
and office clients to create
systems that work for them.
Tell us more.
So most people think that you know
organizing is about, you know,
purging everything, getting it out
of the house and then tidying it up.
And you're done.
And people call a professional
organizer for many different reasons.
Yes, I have chronically disorganized clients,
but really, most of my clients are going
through some kind of life transition.
You know, they're getting married,
so all of a sudden,
they're combining 2 households of stuff,
and they've got to figure
out how to keep it together.
Or, you know,
child is going off to college and mom
now finally gets to have, you know,
the craft room she's always wanted.
Or Dad gets the gym that he's always wanted.
They're having a baby,
and so it's helping people
reimagine their spaces to use them
the way they want to use them.
And it it's really about
teaching them good habits.
Being a conscientious shopper,
you know why did you buy this?
Why do you want this?
Why do you need this?
Why are you keeping it?
I really need my clients, their input
because it's not a one size fits all.
No person thinks like everybody else.
We all have our own quirks and
the way we like to do things.
And so I need my clients there with me.
They're invested in the process because
I want them to be able to maintain that.
Newly organized space.
Once I've left the house,
it's really important to me
that it works for them.
You know,
there's lots of different ways
to set up a home filing system.
What works for one person might
not work for another.
Some people are pilers.
Some people are filers,
so you've got to figure out.
Like if if a client is like it.
If I put it away,
I'm going to completely forget about it.
Well,
then we need to figure out a way
to make the pile system work so
that it doesn't look like there's
just stuff scattered everywhere.
And it's helping people create
those new habits to maintain the
space and it it takes, you know,
30 to 60 days to make a habit,
feel like it's natural.
You know people ask me all the
time you know well how often.
How much time do you spend
organize your own home?
And the answer is 0 minutes and it's
really because my husband and I are
in the habit of instead of putting
something down, we put it away.
And that's a system that works
for us and it's teaching people,
you know how to be a conscientious.
Shopper be mindful of what
you bring into your home.
You know just because it's on sale
doesn't mean you have to buy it.
And make them really think about.
The way they live and what
they truly need to be happy,
and I think we have found that we can
actually be happier with a lot less,
because for most of us our
stuff stresses us out,
that's for sure.
I love those are some great tips by the way,
for folks who listen to this segment,
I hope they take at least one or two or
three great pieces of advice you know.
I heard a lot in there.
I need to be a little more
conscientious about now.
Now demand for home and office organization
services could seemingly expand as
more people opt to work from home.
So home is home,
but home is increasingly also the office.
These days there are estimates
that there are thousands of
people who are facing challenges
with just staying organized.
Because of this.
What's your take on your view?
Rather Jill on how this will affect the
need for organizing services like yours.
Really probably the biggest
uptick in my business.
Ryan has been in helping people
set up their home offices.
You know, in the last two years with COVID,
you know for a while there it was.
It was, you know, mandatory,
to work from home,
but a lot of companies are allowing
their employees to continue that.
And it's it's important for people to
realize that just because your office is
at home doesn't mean you should work 24/7.
So it's not just about helping people create
that physical space for a Home Office.
It's also creating that mental
emotional habit of just like if you
had to go to the office, you know you,
you leave home, you drive you.
Hopefully you take a lunch.
Do you leave at the end of the day?
So in setting up a Home Office at home,
you have to kind of get into
those same habits. You know it's.
Drop what you're doing.
Go into the office.
If you're lucky enough to have an actual
dedicated room that can be in Home Office,
that's fantastic because you can shut
the door at the end of the day and say
goodbye to work and hello to your family.
It creates that actual physical barrier
that lets you and your family know.
OK, I'm in work mode now.
If you're if you have a smaller space,
say your dining room table has
to suffice as your Home Office,
you know it's not ideal,
especially if you have other people at home.
But then it's setting up that system
to make that Home Office portable,
so that at the end of the day,
you can easily gather everything up
and put it away so that you do get
some separation between home and work.
It's it's really about.
You know what kinds of thinking
about the things that you need.
You know steady Wi-Fi, you know.
Reliable Wi-Fi office supplies.
You know, people get all excited.
Oh,
I get to go buy office supplies
and they go crazy.
And it's like you,
you can probably get by with
a lot less than you think,
because when you think about
having to move it around,
if you have to make your
Home Office portable,
you want to be smart about the decisions
that you're making of what you bring
into that you know Home Office.
It clearly you know, I'm thinking that with
this trend only continuing to pick up.
That is more people working from home,
even if they're remote you know or hybrid.
If you are working from the office in
the office, if you will, so to speak.
Part of the weekend and from
home from the Home Office.
The other part of the week.
There's going to be, I think,
increasing needs for those of us who do that.
By the way, I'm an entrepreneur
and a business owner myself.
I totally get that for the help
in being aware, aware of of,
of of how we organize ourselves
both at home and.
In the office at home as well so Jill
Fleming with smart organizing solutions.
Thanks for coming on the business, Bree.
Thanks so much for having me Ryan.
I hope you have a great rest of the day.