Blogging For Pro Organizers: A Year Of Seasonal Content Ideas
As I say on IGTV all the time… you just don't have to do a bunch of free or cheap jobs for people in order to get the ball rolling on getting clients.I believe in giving your expertise away and showing off your aesthetic online, because your blog can be like Tinder for your business. In just a post or two, your potential client can fall in love with you and forget other organizers ever existed, or... swipe left and forget about you forever.Your writing style, your ideas, and the photos that go along with your professional organizer blog can go a long way in building your brand and speaking to your future clients, even if you aren't a full-time organizer. In fact, if you are working another job right now (or staying at home with your kids), one way to plant the seeds for a future career as a professional home organizer is to just start blogging.
You don't need permission to start publishing your Professioanl Organizer Blog with ideas and demonstrating your vision.
Even if your client isn't necessarily actively perusing the websites of organizers in your area, her significant other or her adult children may definitely be doing so. They are just as likely to see a "match" between you and their loved one by getting to know you through your blog.Another reason you might want to blog is for the local journalists looking for their next expert contributor to feature on organizing, decluttering, or productivity.Your blog may also open future doors for expansion toward a specific organizing niche or a skill such as decorating, staging, or real estate. It might also be the way you realize you have a heart for helping hoarders and want to get certified in advanced methods of helping clients with mental disorders. These are all lovely reasons to blog, right?Confession: I have never consistently blogged as a method for getting clients -- but I have YEARS worth of notes on blog topics.
I even have my blog post ideas organized by month and season, because the need for purging and organizing literally never ends.
If you decide to blog as a professional organizer, you will NEVER run out of topic ideas. And we all know at this point that blogging can be a business all on its own.Are you concerned about sharing your ideas with the world, thinking that you'll lose business?I never worry about sharing my expertise with anything, especially with people who have issues with disorganization, because they can't (or won't) implement my advice anyway.Think of it like you're a personal trainer that publishes workouts a few times a month. Literally no one decides to just piece together a training plan from a blog post here and there when what they REALLY want and need is to be all-in on a customized workout routine.Blogging is the way to build up your authority even when you don't have time to take new clients.And the way to keep it up consistently, like all things, is to have a {doable} plan. I put all of my blog idea topics & notes from the past few years of organizing clients together as a resource originally meant for my Inspired Organizer students. Since it didn't end up fitting perfectly in any of the modules, I'm sharing it for free with you here :)Allow this epic post to inspire you, to trigger your own ideas and thoughts, and get you started in planning your blog content for the next year!
JANUARY:
RESOLUTIONS & GOALS
- What drives you insane with jealousy? These maybe indicate your real goals. Thought: If there was an app for taking yourself from exactly where you are to where you want to be, it would still just be a checklist of action items. You can actually do this for yourself.
- Extreme advance planning (like for when you’re 85)
- Checklists
- iCloud/digital storage
- Labels and tags:
- Label maker, how to name things, tagging
- Physical and digital types
- Perfectionism
FEBRUARY:
RELATIONSHIPS
- Planning ahead is love
- Being present with relationships - magical mom, legendary wife, lifelong friend
- Can you say no to a significant other? An insignificant other? Can you say no to yourself?
- Do other people listen when you speak? Do you listen when others speak?
- What compliments do you wish you received on a daily basis?
MARCH:
PRODUCTIVITY
- To-do list = everything on your plate, PLUS how you feel about it (those are future to-do items)
- Eat the frog
- Determining priorities - what do you want to be known for?
- You don’t have as much time in a day as you think, if you’re keeping up with everything.
- Need routines for work, home, personal care, planning, and relationships
- Take notes on EVERYTHING - internet, conversations. Use voice record
- Is everything you’re doing either highly pleasurable or highly productive?
- GTD
- data entry, edit, search, collect, highlight/favorite, publish, show up, pay, planning
- How and why to say no
- Wunderlist how to
- Calendar setup
- Family inbox
- Specialized planning: vacations, holidays, birthdays, back to school, summers
- Daily blank agenda and the “real” pre-filled version because honestly most of your time is already spoken for
- My favorite tools: Google calendar, Wunderlist, paper
- Things that suck time- social media, scrapbooking, clubs
- What do you want to be known for? What’s your personal brand?
- Create a productivity workshop
- How much time do you spend every month doing things neither exciting nor productive? How much money does that cost?
- Has someone more focused than you walked away with something you should have had?
- Do you have a long to-do list? Do you schedule time to do the list?
- Is there a difference between goals and appointments?
- Do you sleep well? Do you know how you spend your 168 hours a week?
- What things in your life cannot be outsourced?
- Do you work smart? Do you like to be busy?
- Can you afford your procrastination habit?
- When’s the last time you reconsidered your hobbies? Your habits?
- Is having your shit together a big deal to you?
- Is there a book you could read that would make up for the time you’ve wasted being indecisive?
- Ultimate benefit is always freedom
- Benefits of having systems in place - more money, productivity, relationships, health
- I (the pro organizer) AM the system, or I help you make a system
- Pinboards you need
- You do need a trusted system and it's NOT having everything spread out in front of you.
APRIL:
SPRING CLEANING
- Moving
- Decluttering
- Re-staging
- Selling things
- Donating things
- Simple housecleaning routine (please outsource though)
- Recycle electronics
- Cleaning checklist
- Get rid of duplicates
- What you paid for an item has no bearing on whether it has a place in your life
- Purge, then infrastructure
MAY:
HEALTH
- Exercise and diet; tools
- Meal planning
- Your body is not a trashcan
- Beauty
- Sleep/exercise/water
- Imagine the future (motivation), not just goals but future regret or pain
- Guide to simple cooking
- Shopping templates
- Long term self discipline
- Saying no
- Inspiration
JUNE:
MEMORABILIA
- Scrapbooking
- Photos and memorabilia
- Display ideas
- Systems for everything
- Family heirlooms: give away unless it has greatly increased in value while you've owned it such as artwork or vintage car
- Family yearbook printed
- Getting pics scanned
- Getting pics from other people
- Affiliate ideas: scanning services, photo book services
JULY:
MONEY
- Stop couponing
- Cheap ways to stop looking broke
- Budget setup
- Get rid of storage unit
- Stop DIYing -- it's not returnable
- Starting a side business
- Aim for mid-range stuff
- Why you fall for the bulk discount trick every time
- Tool: resume. Protects your future self
- Tool: saying no
- Facing your budgeting fears
- Getting out of debt
- Creating savings
- Things to save money on
- Handling a financial emergency in style
- What to say to friends and family
- How to ask for help
- Crash course in self-discipline
- You know why they call it Target right?
- No pressure to squeeze value out of a package deal
- Buy quality, only what you need
- Save money by not falling for schemes to save you money
- Wasting money on solutions that may not work.
- Cheap is expensive in the long run; so is settling
- Being unsatisfied + going without never really works
- Chronic dissatisfaction takes up valuable brain power
AUGUST:
BACK TO SCHOOL
- Family organizing
- Personal education goals
- Guide to organizing kids
- Paper and digital filing systems
- Guide to going paperless
- Managing email flow
- Paperwork info and timeline - Make infographic
- Filing motivation
- Child friendly aesthetics
- Mantle is a drop spot for our clutter - because they can't reach
- Don't put their things away
- Emergency contact info
- Clipboard frames or bulletin boards for artwork
- Closet organization
- Everything should be teachable to the kids
SEPTEMBER:
HOLIDAY PLANNING
- Epic holiday planner
- KonMari your Christmas plans
- Gift ideas for all types
OCTOBER:
HOME DECOR
- How to decorate when you don't live alone (2 words: GALLERY WALL)
- Decorating is married to organizing
- Styled vignettes - Definition: a vignette is a brief but powerful scene; may be a piece that's complete in itself or one part of a larger work; gives a trenchant impression about a character, idea, setting, or object.
- Hanging art and photos
- Does your home drain you? Do you care?
- Begin to achieve a natural elegance as you embrace simplicity in your decor and personal style; "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication";
- Gallery wall layout - need frames, need photos printed
- Help with decisions and design - need a design friend
- Investing money and time
- Low commitment- use picture ledges, gallery wall, ribbon boards, bulletin boards
- Renting. Need to love where you are
- Often disorganized because we want to decorate, but can't afford what we think we want.
- Please embrace your wants. Write them all down, Pinterest everything. It's all in the “some day” category, not “never”
- DIY trap - costs more time and money than buying on sale
- Coffee table books, changeable pillow covers, plants - Dinosauras rex, fiddle leaf fig
- Organize first
- Can visualize the end result, but it festers without finishing
- Using objects as to-do reminders - why this is problematic
- Making lists, batching like tasks
- Lack of motivation
- Too many ongoing projects - put some away. Very powerful
- Shelf styling
NOVEMBER:
CLOTHING
- Personal branding
- Shop better! Spending too much, or too little
- Resale value - especially accessories
- Out of date counts as SLOPPY
- What does elegance and simplicity mean to you?
- Keep classic
- What does your personal style say to others?
- Do you care about quality?
DECEMBER:
SIMPLIFYING
- How to shop better
- Saying no
- Why we keep stuff? Sentimental items are hardest (past) - objects as wishes; some represent promise of transformation (future) - again, keeping objects as wishes
- How to just embrace and get seriously good at email as the new standard for communication: sincere sendoffs; really good thank you’s; following up
- Simplify and make room in your life for transitions: breakup, new job, death, moving, new baby