Lelah with an h is growing!

**This post was originally published in my monthly e-newsletter, Lelah's News. Don't subscribe? Sign up here!
 

I have some exciting news: my husband and I are expecting our first child, a boy, in April. We're thrilled to be expanding our family, and I wanted to finally share the news with my amazing clients and supporters.

Impending parenthood has a way of putting thing in perspective, and it has tuned me in to physical and temporal limitations that I've never had to consider before. Therefore, I'll be transitioning away from hands-on organizing work at the end of March, for a while, at least. This means right now is a great time to put into action all your plans to get organized! After April, I will be growing my business in other ways. I plan to maintain my blog, newsletter and social media profiles, and I have wonderful, talented professional organizer colleagues to whom I will be referring new clients when I am no longer able to take them on. I'm always learning about new organizing methods, trends and theories, and will continue my education in this amazing field. Also, I'm hoping to expand the speaking area of my business, so I can share my knowledge with a greater audience.

Thanks for your support as I navigate these changes to my life and business!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Carly Franklin

Lelah's Email Coaching Special!

Email plagues us all. It's a wonderful tool but can be an enormous drain on our time. As a person who doesn't like to leave things unfinished, an email inbox filled with messages is a distressing thing, so I have a system for getting my inbox down to zero, every single day, and I've shared this system with many clients.

If you'd like to reduce the amount of time you spend processing your email, spend two hours with me; you'll make the time back tenfold after we implement a new, improved method for dealing with your email.

I will come to your Los Angeles area home or office for two hours of intensive, email-specific productivity coaching. Virtual sessions for those outside the Los Angeles area are also available. This is a special offer at a special price and is for a limited time only. Applicable to both existing and new clients. Call 818-269-6671 now to book!

Lelah's 2 Hour Email Coaching Special: $135

Need a professional to help you manage your email?

Call Lelah at 818.269.6671

or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Get Lelah's News

1000 Twitter followers and a special offer

I’ve reached 1000 Twitter followers and I feel like celebrating!

For a limited time, any new client who books a 4-hour session will get a 25% credit toward a future session! The subsequent session must occur before 12/31/11.

Sessions are immediately available. Call 818-269-6671. Visit www.lelahwithanh.com/packages/ for more information.

What would you like to accomplish this month?

• Get the stacks of paper off your desk
• Finally figure out how to use your smartphone to help you save time and paper
• Get help figuring out the boxes of bills, receipts and mail that have been accumulating over time
• Make your kitchen functional again
• Be able to park your car in your garage
• Unstuff your linen closet
• Get your guest room guest-ready

The sky is the limit when it comes to how organizing can improve your quality of life in just a few short hours.

I have never done a promotional event like this one before. Take advantage of it while you can!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

It's okay to ask for help

Sometimes I hear from my clients things like, "I really should have been able to do this organizing project on my own," or, "I don't know why, but it's so much easier to do what I need to do with someone else here." The first statement is said apologetically, the second is said with surprise.

The truth is, that even people with good organizational skills or tendencies need guidance and help from time to time. And it's always easier to go through one's stuff when you have someone impartial there as a supportive presence.

Professional organizers often act as "body doubles," standing by while our clients sort and make decisions about things. We often say nothing, just stay and encourage with our presence. It sounds simple, but it makes a world of difference to our clients, and it isn't that easy. Energy flows between organizer and client, and the more decisions that are made about the stuff, the more energy gets used and renewed.

There's no shame in asking for help and in many ways it's a more efficient use of time, money and energy to hire someone to help you get a project finished than try to struggle through on your own and never complete the task.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Escape from the storage unit

In June I went to Maine charged with the task of eliminating the need for three 10 foot by 20 foot storage units. It took three days. At the end of the three days, three enormous truck loads of items had been removed to the dump or for reuse or resale by the junk man. One smaller truck load of items had been taken to auction. Several silver items had been sold for cash to the auction man. A cargo crate of forty oil paintings had been shipped across the country. 27 small boxes had also been shipped across the country for one client's new home. A fair amount of things had been integrated into the other client's nearby home. And there was no more need for the storage units.

It looks so innocent.

One of the storage units on the first day.

The key to our ability to that quickly pare down to just a few items being shipped to my client's new home was all in my clients' frame of mind. They no longer wanted to pay for the storage units. They were starting life in a different state, and did not want or need the physical items they'd had in the past, so they were ready to let a lot go. That attitude combined with the wonderful auction man and his amazing associate, the junk man, who were ready to take away everything on our schedule was what made the quick turnaround possible.

A lot of trash.

Deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to let go of.

It was physically exhausting work, even though the long Maine summer days were complemented by truly perfect summer weather (no bugs!), and it was mentally and emotionally draining for my clients to continually make decision after decision all day long. But at the end, there was a palpable sense of relief at having accomplished our goal and a sense of freedom at being able to start a new chapter of life unburdened by the objects of the past.

A small pile of boxes to ship.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.