HAVE you ever looked at a room in your home (or your entire home) and wished you could wave a magic wand to make it tidy, peaceful, and organised?
Plenty of people do.
Some call on the services of an expert to help them turn chaos into peace.
We caught up with Wokingham declutterer Gemma Burgess, who runs The Sorting Company.
A member of the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers (APDO), her clients describe her as a ray of sunshine who has helped them turn their lives around.
She can help people at various times and life stages.
“Every piece of work is different, because every situation is unique,” she explains.
“All sorts of people need a helping hand to cope with clutter; older people downsizing, busy parents who just don’t have time to sort things out, bachelors struggling to keep things organised, high-flying business people who don’t have a spare minute outside of work, and people needing to declutter and organise in order to move house.”
Gemma’s role requires empathy, compassion, and a lot of trust, as she helps clients sort out their treasured possessions.
“It can be an emotional and exhausting process for people,” she says.
“I spend time with my clients over a cup of tea to give them a chance to get to know me, and to help me understand exactly what they need.
“Together, we move from room to room, and area by area, noting the most difficult areas to organise, and deciding where to make a start.
“Some people find it very difficult to let go of things that are weighing them down, and for them we start small, perhaps tackling just one drawer to begin with.
“Other people are very keen to get to grips with things, and will just say ‘off you go,’ leaving me to get on and clear a whole room in a morning.”
It was after 25 years working in events, office management, and marketing, that Gemma took the plunge to pursue her dream to become a declutterer.
“I just love tidying,” she laughs.
“I really do love the satisfaction of transforming a room and making it look beautiful.
“I’ve always been tidy – actually, it runs in the family – we’ve been natural declutterers my whole life.
“My dad was in the military when I was a child, and we moved house every year or two, so we were often packing and moving, and we always had to keep a tidy house.
“Each time we packed we would declutter so that we didn’t take any excess stuff with us – it’s just something I’m very used to.
“I’m not a minimalist, but I am very organised; I look for the potential in things to help people make the best of what they’ve got.”
Why is getting rid of things often so hard for people?
“If you’ve lived in one house for a long time it’s easy to accumulate,” she says.
“You’re never forced to get rid of anything, so it can really build up over the years.
“The more you accumulate, the harder it becomes to do something about it.
“And people can attach great importance to all sorts of things; there can be a story or a memory linked to everything in the house.
“Even a scrap of paper on the coffee table can have meaning, so sometimes decluttering can take a really long time and we do a lot of talking on the way.”
How do people find the process?
“As we go along the journey, I actually find that people start to enjoy it and learn to let go more quickly.
“They start to see the change in their home, and realise it’s making them feel better.
“Clutter really affects your mindset and your mental health, but with a little coaching and encouragement, I can really help them turn things around.”
What happens to the clutter?
Gemma is a fan of charity shops.
“It’s important to me to be more sustainable as a person and in my business,” she says.
“So, once people have decided what to keep or sell, I donate as much as I can of what remains to charities – my car boot is nearly always full of things to distribute.
“Things that are broken or unuseable I have to take to the tip, of course, but everything else I recycle.”
As well as tidying and organising homes, Gemma can advise clients on suitable storage options, provide an inventory of packing to make it easier to find things, and prepare rooms for attractive photos if a property is to be put on the market.
She can help businesses too.
“A lot of businesses just need someone to come in and help organise them,” she says.
“For example, I can manage filing cabinets, or archives that have been left for years – the sort of job everybody knows needs to be sorted, but which no-one actually has the time to deal with.”
Is there a particular hunger for tidying now?
“I think so, yes,” she says.
“We’re suffering more with mental health issues.
“So much is going on, and these days we need a more organised life just to be able to function better.
“My motto has always been,’tidy desk, tidy mind’, and you can apply it to anything.
“We all need to de-clutter our lives.”
Gemma’s clients sing her praises:
“People like Gemma are incredibly rare. She has the ability to talk to people of all ages, and to make them laugh, really laugh.”
“She exudes an infectious energy that makes you feel better about yourself – and the world in general, actually. Gemma deals with people in a way we would all love to be treated: respectfully, kindly; firmly and calmly – quite literally taking them by the hand and showing them the way.”
“Her drive, tenacity, attention to detail and vision are, without wishing to sound daft – inspirational. Seeing how she transformed a mountain of clutter, storage boxes, and junk of all kinds, into a sleek, organised, functional, tidy and usable work-space was… well… words fail me.”
For information, and to contact Gemma for help with decluttering, people can visit: thesortingcompany.co.uk
