Kathy Druffner, owner of Druffner Professional Organizing, helps people adjust to a new life

Most people are familiar with professional organizers through shows like Hoarders or Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.

While showcasing people as they organize spaces can certainly be entertaining, organizing isn’t just about straightening up, though, at least not to Kathy Druffner, owner of Druffner Professional Organizing. It’s about helping people adjust to the next stages of life. Druffner, a longtime professional organizer in the Dayton area, aims to help people simplify, protect and reclaim their spaces.

Druffner approaches her work with some of the same anti-clutter messaging as those on TV, but with a greater emphasis on growth and change. It’s from this that Druffner first found her passion. Following the death of her husband, a friend of Druffner was left confused and overwhelmed. With her experience filing paperwork for the government, Druffner decided to help her friend get her life in order.

“[It was like a] light bulb went off,” Druffner says. “Other people may need this, because we all have either been taken care of, are taking care of our own or taking care of someone else.”

Since beginning her full-time organizing work in 2009, Druffner has taken this philosophy into each home she works on, helping people of all ages adjust to a new lifestyle and maintain their independence. Working mainly with seniors, she finds that her work also carries some emotional weight as people begin to require new additions to their lives to help them keep their independence.

“There are many times when you’re hitting a new phase. I mean, if we never changed our environments as adults, we’d still be sleeping in our cribs,” Druffner says. “We don’t think anything about upgrading children’s spaces … but suddenly, after teenhood, it’s like it shouldn’t change.”

It’s this ideology that Druffner hopes to bring to her clients’ minds to help make these life changes a little bit easier. “We help [children] get independent and we need to do the same for our seniors. They’re sliding back, but that doesn’t mean we have to shove them back into dependence; we can do things to help keep them independent as long as possible.”

Druffner hopes that as she comes into homes, she can offer some fresh perspectives that people aren’t granted when it’s their family helping them make decisions. Working with everyone from seniors to children to empty nesters, Druffner says her process “is oftentimes just simplifying life.”

She notes the emotional weight that can often come with the job, which requires sensitivity and cognizance from Druffner. “They feel bad about giving stuff up. But I always say this stuff serves its purpose. It’s no longer helping you, but it could help someone else. Pass the blessings along.”

It is this idea that underlines the work that Druffner does. Downsizing or readjusting doesn’t have to be world-shattering; it can be a natural next step in life. Druffner believes that with her outside perspective and expertise in organizing, she can help people create spaces that help them live fulfilling, satisfying lives. “Your environment needs to change with you and that’s OK,” Druffner says. “Stuff carries stories. My role is to honor those stories, but also to help people decide what serves their life now.”