Busy Bees Picks Up the Pieces for Those Who are Overwhelmed by Clutter

Reprinted with permission of Glastonbury Life
by Mark Jahne

Everyone remembers the stern instructions they received at one time or another during their childhood to pick up their room and put away their toys. That look of chaos and disarray was clearly a source of irritation to the adults in the house.

But many of us as adults still have the same problem with clutter, disorganization andinefficient operation at both home and work. We know we have that piece of paper we need somewhere in one of those piles; we just don’t know which pile.

So we search, scramble, dig around and make an even greater mess seeking to find the sought-for document. Time is wasted, energy is spent, and now everything else is in total disarray, too. We’re probably angry and frustrated as well.

Enter Faith Manierre. She is a professional organizer by trade, the head of an independently owned business called Busy Bees which she runs out of her Fern Street home.

She assists homeowners with establishing filing systems for paperwork, making order of cluttered closets and in general organizing their homes for greater happiness and efficiency. She also sets up filing systems for small and home-based businesses and will even help people organize the packing and unpacking when they move to a new home.

While the term professional organizer may sound unusual, it is a serious business and Ms. Manierre goes about her work in an appropriate manner. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), which represents the growing number of businesses such as hers throughout the United States.

“I was an at-home mom for many years and I was always organizing something,” she said.

First it was PTO and Cub Scouts. Later, she met on a monthly basis with a group of friends who would combine their resources to tackle various projects. That eventually led to her establishing Busy Bees a year ago.

“I signed up for a course at the Entrepreneurial Center” at Hartford College for Women, she said. That helped her to solidify her idea and to create a business plan. It’s also where she met her mentor, Anita Taylor.

“It was an instant click. This is what I want to be doing,” Ms. Manierre said. “There’s such a need for it. It’s a very personalized service.”

Being organized in business can have immediate benefits, such a better time management and work flow. But that’s not the only segment she serves.

“I work with small business owners as well as residential folks who want to get organized,” she said. “We are inundated with paper work” in today’s world and it can pile up quickly, burying things in its midst.

Ms. Manierre noted that “80 percent of the paper work we file is never used again. The amount of time and energy that goes into looking for lost documentation is phenomenal.”

So even though 80 percent turns out to be worthless, the remaining 20 percent has some value. And at the time it is filed, it is not always clear which paper belongs in the 80 percent category and which belongs in the 20 percent category.

“There’s no right way to do filing, but it needs to be consistent,” she said.

Ms. Manierre also works with corporate relocations. But whether her clients are businesses or homeowners, there is always a bit of trepidation when she is first called in to make sense of a huge mess.

“There’s always a little fear,” she said. “I’ve seen amazing things... we are a society that is told to buy and purchase and consume.”

That leads to mountains of clutter. Many people have more clothes, more household items, more of everything than they will ever need or use. But the appeal was irresistible, especially when the items were on sale.

Do we really need eight sets of eye glasses, four irons, or a supply of shoes that would make Imelda Marcos proud? Probably not, but many people acquire goods in those amounts, and they have so much, they can’t find what they truly need amid all the clutter and chaos.

“It was on sale. It was a great buy,” are the excuses she often hers as justification for consumer excess.

“Life is cluttered. We need to focus on what’s important to us and where our priorities stand,” she said “We need to take back our environment.”

Piles of stuff exist in almost every setting today. The problem “is more common than you know. It’s sad that people live like that.”

With each client, Ms. Manierre starts by working with that person or business to set goals. What is it they want to accomplish? What are their priorities?

“We roll up our sleeves and work together,” she said. “One of the major things we need to do is find a home for your possessions.”

She added, “Some people are visual. They need to see it” to be able to find it.

It is not only important to put things away, but to know where they belong, and where they can be found. She may set up someone’s closet so that shirts are hung by color group,

While that may sound anal retentive to some, she said it makes it easy to find the color desired for the next day. That level of organization may not be for everyone, but for some it’s a lifesaver.

She also works with clients to help them decide what they want to keep and what they can do without. Most people have plenty of stuff they could throw out or donate to a charitable cause, but they get emotionally bogged down in hanging onto it all.

“Purging is something that we definitely strive to do,” she said.

That can involve making big decisions, especially with items which may have sentimental value. It’s not just a matter of loading the truck and sending it to the dump and the Salvation Army.

“Many people have difficulty disposing things that belonged to someone they loved,” she said.

That can be particularly difficult with elderly clients. These are people who lived through the trauma of the Great Depression and the lesson of that era was not to throw anything away because you never knew if you might need it again, and you might not be able to replace it.

Ms. Manierre said clutter comes in all shapes and sizes and is represented in all ethnic groups, cultures, races, and socioeconomic classes. It effects young and old, male and female, virtually everyone in American society to some degree.

That’s why there are some 45 NAPO members in Connecticut and their number is constantly growing. Most of these professionals work with clients on an ongoing basis, rather than one-shot deals.

A common task for Busy Bees is helping telecommuters and self-employed professionals set up their home offices. More and more, Ms. Manierre is helping these people reduce the amount of paper by entering the information into their computers.

“You should be able to easily access what you need” when working in a home-based office, she said. “ I also work with people who are down-sizing for one reason or another.”

If this all sounds like those parental lectures we all received as children, think again. While it’s nice to make things neat, that may not be enough.

“Neatness is not necessarily organization.” Ms. Manierre said. “Some of us never learned the art of getting organized” and may not have the good examples of organization growing up.

Things can be tidy, clean and stored in their place, but there is one more crucial step before one can call them organized. They have to be stored, stacked or filed in such a way that they can be easily accessed when needed.

Successful organization means “everything has a location, has a home, you know exactly where everything is. You don’t want to be consumed by looking for things all your life. The frustration is unbelievable.”

She tries to create a rapport with each client and understands that different styles and personality types will result in different ways of creating an organized life.

Ms. Manierre tries to help everyone find the balance that is right for them.

“More creative, artsy people are not happy with linear file folders,” but detail-oriented people love that approach, she said.

“That’s, what I love about it. There’s always that creative process” she added.

“Every client is different. Every home is different. Every pile of possessions is different.”

One of those clients, local resident Mary Anne Costerella, just can’t say enough positive things about what Ms. Manierre and Busy Bees have done to help her become more organized.

She began working with the company last October and calls the ongoing relationship “a very positive one.”

“It’s taken many forms,” she added. “She started to really help in the form of bookkeeping, light accounting, how to set up my computer system. She’s helped me out tremendously.”

Ms. Costerella said she needed someone to help her manage her household more like a business, to control her cash flow and provide a budget for the needs of the home.

Busy Bees took care of that.

When the two women first began doing business, Ms. Manierre was operating more of an errand service. She has helped M. Costerella plan and organize a party and a wedding as well as helping her with the details of placing a 94-year old uncle in a nursing home.

“She’s wonderfully human,” Ms. Costerella said. “I find her very easy to deal with, very adaptable”

Now Ms. Manierre is helping her with another new task, business networking. Throughout all of the changes, Ms. Costerella praises her as someone who knows how to respect the boundaries of working in a client’s home.

Another local client, Kathleen Humpage, just started working with Busy Bees a month or so ago. But she is already impressed with the progress she has made and with Ms. Manierre’s style and professional demeanor.

“She has helped me focus on what I’m ready to change and what I’m not ready to change,” Ms. Humpage said. “She never sits down. She’s always at attention looking and sorting.”

She appreciates the fact that Ms. Manierre goes about her work without passing any kind of judgment and with a sense of protecting the confidentiality of her clients. She is helping Ms. Humpage with organizing her personal belongings and establishing a file system.

The cost of the many services provided by Busy Bees varies depending upon the level of service desired. For more information call Ms. Manierre at 633-2541.