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GO NEWS
BAPA Gets GO-ing: Gainer Organizing Donates a Thorough Makeover to Civic Organization
Courtesy of The Villager, April 2004
By Kay Sorich
How many times have you thought, "I’d save so much time if I were only organized"? One thing that may keep us from organizing our homes, our offices, our garages and our basements is that we don’t know how to go about it; finding time to do it can be another big deterrent.
To the rescue comes GO (Gainer Organizing), one of a growing number of businesses with the expertise to organize your work spaces so they are neat, efficient and attractive.
Maureen Gainer, a Beverly/Morgan Park native, was born to be an entrepreneur. After working in New York for Common Ground Community and for the Chicago Housing Authority, she decided a year-and-a half ago that it was time to start a business of her own. She began reviewing her skills, matching them with the public’s need for certain services. She narrowed it down to what she is doing now — helping clients get organized. She will work with the client’s budget, doing a single closet or an entire household. She can do all the work herself, or the client can pitch in, thus saving work hours. Gainer will even simply draw up a plan and let the client do the work.
"My services are usually used by people who are somewhat organized already," Gainer said. "The ones who are not don’t really care. It’s the people who value order but don’t have big blocks of time to work on it that come to me. It’s not a job you can do in small pieces."
Gainer employs three other consultants to help with her growing clientele. She finds that she gets a lot of repeat business — not because it didn’t work the first time, but because it usually works so well that a client will want additional spaces organized.
Part of what makes the business so successful is that Gainer doesn’t impose her ideas on a client. Instead, she draws her ideas from the client’s lifestyle. For example, if she finds a home where all the shoes and boots are dumped at the front door, she doesn’t designate a special "boot place" at the back door, where it might look better and then expect the client to train her family to use it. More likely she will place an attractive row of shelves or cabinets at the front door where the family will actually place boots and shoes.
Gainer recently re-organized the BAPA offices. Typical clients, the office inhabitants value order, but didn’t have the time to create it. Thus, for example, Styrofoam cups left over from a meeting were quickly stashed in whatever kitchen cabinet had room. Ditto plastic tableware, sugar and creamer. This storage "system" for supplies was repeated in various office areas simply because no one had time to designate a particular spot for each thing.
In re-organizing the BAPA office, Gainer used printed labels for every designated area. She said there is something psychological about seeing the words in print that help people put things where they belong. It also prevents something being put in an empty space when something else should be there. An entire closet is devoted to paper, instead of it being spread around in the nearest available spaces at the time of purchase.
"There is no mystery to what I do," Gainer said. "You know the feeling you get when you’ve had a really good, productive day? That’s the feeling I want you to have when you’re well-organized. The ‘feeling’ is the service."
For more information about GO’s service, call 773-388-2382 or go online to its excellently organized website www.gainerorganizing.com.
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