Wayland Resident Creates Order in the Chaos

Gail Shapiro asks only two things of you when she comes to visit your home: Don’t clean up and turn on all the lights so the mess is apparent.

Before you cringe in horror, remember that you invited Shapiro in, and she is there to create order from the chaos.

Shapiro, a Wayland resident, is a professional organizer who spends her days sorting everything from decades old paperwork to antique furniture to the clothing stash of 14-year-old girls. 

She said that clients call her knowing they need her help, but still a bit uneasy about the organization process.

“First of all, it’s embarrassing to have a total stranger come into your house and look at your mess,” Shapiro said, adding that she goes into spaces not to judge them, but to bring to reality the beauty and efficiency she envisions. “It’s scary for a lot of people, getting organized. A lot of people are sentimental. It’s an upsetting process because it’s disrupting.”

Shapiro said she began working as a professional organizer before anyone knew to call her that. In the 1990s, Shaprio said, she would help friends and family members through organizing projects, and they encouraged her to begin charging for her services. 

“I worked with a lot of artists at that time,” Shapiro said. 

She left professional organizing to found a nonprofit community women’s center called Womankind Educational and Resource Center, Inc. Shapiro led the work at the center until 2007 and during her time there co-created an economic literacy training program for women.

When she finished her work with the center in 2007, Shapiro said she thought back over her years working as a grant proposal writer, organization leader, development officer, teacher and more looking for the commonality that would guide her to her next project.

In each of her positions, organization stood out as the common theme. 

So she returned to professional organizing and now runs a business through which she continues to provide consulting, but also offers on-site and telephone home and office organizing and time management. 

Most of her work comes from clients who need “situational" organizing brought on by a life transition such as a job change, new baby or death in the family.

Her services can be helpful for “Anybody who feels out of control,” Shapiro said, adding that most of her clients are either young working mothers or people in their 60s who are beginning to think about what kind of “mess” they could be leaving to their children.

While her work is systematic, it’s hardly repetitive.

“There is no one system that works for everyone,” Shapiro said, adding that creative people often want to see things out in the open, while her more math and science minded clients tend to go for color-coded files. “People feel they should be organized. There is no should … if your system works for you, it works. If it doesn’t, you call me.”

And for some people, it isn’t about a physical file system at all, but more of a mental one.

“Sometimes people think they have a paper problem, when they really have a time problem,” said Shapiro.

Shapiro said she finds her work gratifying and rewarding, but she is quick to point out that she doesn’t work magic. Those home improvement and redecorating shows on television? It doesn’t quite work that way.

“People think I’m going to clean their house in an hour and make everything right,” Shapiro said, adding that she does carry a dust rag so she can dust as she goes, but she isn’t a house cleaner. “The amount of time it takes to organize your home or your office is in direct proportion to how fast you can make a decision. The faster you can do that, the faster you can get organized.

“They didn’t accumulate this mess overnight and it won’t go away overnight.”

Shapiro is offering a free workshop at the Wayland Public Library to help people get started. She has invited participants to bring a stack of papers to her “Wading Through the Paper Mess” talk on Feb. 27 at 10 a.m. To register, call 508-655-4473 or email gail@gailshapiro.com.

Check back with Wayland Patch tomorrow when we’ll post Shapiro’s “Five Quick Organizing Tips” for working parents.