Meet Alejandra
Hi! I'm your organizing coach, Alejandra.
If you're looking to get organized, I'm grateful you're here! I've been helping people clear the clutter and create order for 14 years.
What makes me come alive is helping people realize their goals, specifically in the areas of decluttering and organizing.
I believe all the answers are already inside us. Sometimes we just need help finding the path back to our own inner wisdom. Think of me as your guide for helping you rediscover your most organized self that already exists.
Over the past decade, our community has grown to include members in 132 countries who are decluttering and getting organized. Both men and women. Kids or no kids. People of all ages and life stages.
I'm grateful to have shared my organizing expertise on national television shows such as Today and Good Morning America who called me "The Decluttering Queen" and HGTV which selected me as 1 of the 5 "Most Organized People in America".
I'm also grateful to have shared my organizing expertise in over 50 media outlets including Psychology Today, The New York Times, Woman's Day, GoodHouseKeeping, Redbook, Real Simple, Parents Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Today, Inside Edition, and through my YouTube videos (100+ million video views), at live events, over the phone, in-person, and through my step-by-step training programs (SimpLESSity & the Power Productivity Program).
Good Morning America visits Alejandra's home for an organized tour!
Have I always been organized?
Yes and no. As a teenager, I was always seeking comfort and safety as I often felt anxious and depressed.
At school, I was always a slow visual learner in a fast-paced auditory classroom. In gym class, I was always the shortest, slowest, last picked person. And with classmates, I was always the shy awkward computer girl who was teased for my big nose.
I found my comfort and safety in organizing my room. Organizing numbed the pain.
From about age 12, I would re-arrange my color-coded bedroom almost monthly. I'd re-organize my craft bin under my bed regularly. At age 7 my desk was neat and tidy with everything having a home. I found joy in sorting my Halloween candy by type after trick or treating with my older sister. And if you hired me to babysit, you'd always come home to an organized playroom.
At Virginia Tech, my dorm room was orderly and I often stayed home on Friday nights just to clean. When I lived with roommates, I quickly became "the organized roommate" with trackers & lists, constantly re-arranging the fridge and common areas.
But I wasn't organized all the time...
Since I was young, I’ve always struggled mentally and emotionally. Though you couldn't tell from the outside, I know depression and anxiety all too well.
When the darkness showed up, things got abandoned. My room looked like a tornado went through - piles of clothes on the floor, bed unmade, messy backpack/binder, nothing put back. If you know what depression feels like, you know the smallest things feel hard to do.
It wasn't until the mess became so uncomfortable that I was motivated to get back on track (organize the mess). The shaming all-or-nothing cycle (messy / organized) can be difficult to break-free from without the right tools and strategies.
My depression and anxiety continued in my 20s as I transitioned from college to adulthood, moved to my first apartment, got into my first romantic relationship (with my now-husband, Ed), and started a stressful corporate job as an IT auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Thus, I became really good at organizing as an outlet for finding calm.
Starting a business & finding my passion.
It was the end of 2007 when I realized I had a real passion for organizing. Not only was I good at it (and loved to do it), but it helped me feel calm and centered. I wasn't anxious about tomorrow. I wasn't depressed about yesterday. I was present, in the moment, using my creativity, doing something productive for my future self. Likewise, I quickly learned that other people needed help getting organized. Little did I know at the time, but the combination of finding something you're good at, that you love to do, that other people need, and that you can make a living from, is a recipe for success that the Japanese call IKIGAI. It was a couple months later that Ed and I decided to start our organizing business which would forever impact our lives and the lives we were reaching.
While entreprenuership has been a wild journey of ups and downs, starting a business has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's led me to share my gifts with the world while also leading me to discover my truest most authentic self.
Moving forward, stronger.
Fast forward to today, I still love to organize as much as I did when I was younger. However, I now see organization differently. What was once an outlet to numb pain is now an essential way of living so I can focus on what matters most. While I'll always be managing my mental health, I've found that owning a reasonable amount of possessions combined with having effective organizing systems in place makes it easier to keep up with things when the darkness shows up.
In other words, when life gets hard, that’s when it’s critical to have organizing systems in place so our homes can support us through the chaos of life. Meaning - when we’re not feeling well or when we’re going through a major life event (illness, surgery, death of a loved one, moving, empty-nest, divorce), we need tasks around our home to be easy, we need to find things when we need them, we need our homes to be comfortable, so we can simply function and take care of ourselves (let alone take care of others).
In the hard moments of life, the last thing we need is to shuffle through endless piles of clutter. Clutter just adds a 2nd layer of “pain” on top of the pain of whatever is going on in our lives. While we can’t always control what happens to us in life, we can control the clutter.
When I'm not organizing...
I'm an analytical intuitive INTJ, highly-sensitive, empath, curious human. I love thinking, deep conversations, spreadsheets, visiting National Parks, Indian food, laughing, animals, puzzles, and reading books on human potential.
My husband and I live in Virginia with our red toy poodle, Mojo.
If you need help finding order, I hope you'll stick around because I would love to help you discover your beautiful, most organized self!