Meet Joanna
Me – a professional organizer?
Passionate spacemaker is still a more accurate description despite 14 years as a professional organizer. For me this work has always been more about soul than straight lines. It’s about making spaces that support your priorities and who you are, about systems that you can rely on to get you through.
As far as how I got into this work, you might say that I started organizing when I was four. I’d spend hours building farms out of blocks, then carefully placing the little plastic trees and the farmer family, plus horses, cows, chickens, ducks and admiring the result.
Growing up, I rearranged my bedroom every few months, and friends were always getting me to help them with their spaces. During and after college, each relocation meant discovering a new funky place and seeing what kind of magic could be done on a shoestring budget.
When I became a daycare teacher and director, the classrooms got the same treatment. Sometimes I’d end a day’s work contentedly straightening up a room or two in the doll house. After my master’s in social work, my therapy office became the new ‘canvas’. I loved hearing clients say, “Ahhhhhhhh- I feel better just sitting in here .”
In 1996, I turned my education, life experiences, and my space-making hobby into a business – Breathing Space! Hurrah! Fourteen years later, it continues to be the ideal mix.
I don’t think any degree of disorganization freaks me out, no matter how frustrated the person who has called me is feeling. I’ve experienced how over and over TOGETHER we can get to the other side of the chaos.
There’s a huge range of reasons why different individuals struggle with clutter. As I see it, my job is to acknowledge the reality and then help work out specific ways to make the physical environment more supportive.
I keep my feelers out for new concepts and solutions. Feng shui often provides a valuable perspective and recently Judith Kolberg’s work on ADD Friendly Organizing was extremely helpful.
Joanna – You are ALWAYS gentle, and sometimes even appropriately gentler. That fact has never lessened the necessity of what we’re doing nor the reasons for having to do it… Working with you, I have always “come out” the other side not only intact, but feeling better (actually experiencing that change IS possible & occurring, thus increasing my self esteem & confidence). O.S.
And now in 2010 I get to share this work with Sue which is such a boost! Much like organizing with a client – there’s a comraderie – a sense that together we are more than a sum of our parts. We look forward to helping you establish a space that gives you the time and energy to do what matters most to you!
Joanna Rueter, MSW
Member, National Association of Professional Organizers
P.S. You’re invited to visit my photo gallery just for the fun of it. Other joys – family, friends, gardening, travel, and a good novel. Suggestions always welcome.
