Thanks to the Columbia Daily Herald for the article, originally posted here.
Tina Plichta always enjoyed organizing, but it wasn’t until she and her family moved to Spring Hill from Chicago in 2013 that she turned her skills into a career.
“I’ve always enjoyed organizing — it’s something that’s helped me in my life and I wanted to be able to help others,” she said.
“There’s more peace in our home because we’re not scrambling around and looking for things,” she said. “I know when I have things around me that are organized — I find I can think clearer.”
Once Plitcha’s two sons were in school for most of the day, she established her business and built a customer base through networking and social media.
“Eventually it kind of comes around that people remember. They might not need that service right way,” she said. “I’ve been seeing people that I’ve met in the last year or so calling and asking for help.”
Plichta gives potential clients a free consultation.
“I ask them not to clean up, which is very hard for some people,” she said. Orderly Manner improves its customers’ state of mind, Plichta said.
“Some people are embarrassed to have someone come in and see how they’re living, but that’s why I do this. It’s because I want to help people, to make a difference in their lives so they don’t feel uncomfortable,” she said. “A person I worked with, she had so much in her home that she would actually go to her car to be alone and have some quiet time.”
After seeing the area clients want her to organize, Plichta develops a plan and discusses the price based the customer’s budget and availability.
“Some people just want to get started and then go alone from there,” she said. “And others say, ‘Okay, I just want this whole room done.’”
Plichta prefers to work with her customers, rather than by herself.
“It works better if I’m working with them because then I’m teaching as I go along,” she said. “I just kind of come alongside of them and give them help and suggestions.”
Plichta said she tailors her work to fit the needs of specific clients.
“If a senior maybe has some limitations, like reaching up high or bending down low, I can rearrange their house so its easier and not too strenuous for them,” she said.
“I have to limit my physical activity and the places I go. Which is hard because I’m a goer and a doer,” she said.
Plichta has visited her home for one three-hour session for the past several months and has organized her home office, pantry and closets.
“It is without flaw,” her client said of Plichta’s work in her home.
The customer said she is a former teacher and principal, and that her mother grew up during the Depression.
“Honey, I have been a pack rat forever. Teachers don’t throw anything away,” she said. “I don’t have the genes to properly dispose of things.”
“It looks worse before it gets better,” she said Plichta donates things clients no longer need to Goodwill and takes food from reorganized kitchen to charities.
“We just take out bags and bags of stuff,” Plichta’s client said.
In addition to helping organize rooms or sections of residences, Plichta also offers plans for moving, meal planning and time management.
For her client in Franklin, Plichta created a bill payment schedule and a detailed list of her medications.
“There was a lot of mental anguish I was going through that she eliminated,” the customer said.
Plichta said her service makes life easier for her customers.
“It saves time and money. I find that my clients are spending money buying things they already have, they just didn’t know where it was,” she said.
Plichta said she wants people to know they don’t have to take on reorganizing projects by themselves.
“There’s help. There’s someone that can come alongside them and help them when they’re feeling overwhelmed or don’t know where to begin,” she said.