We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carolina Del Carmen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carolina below.

Hi Carolina, thanks for joining us today. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?

I think most people in my industry disagree for our industry to fall under a type of cleaning service. I consider myself a Designer (of spaces!) which leans into Interior Decor & Design etc.. Organizing takes a creative eye to be able to not only organize, but to rearrange spaces, find space that isn’t visible to most people & curate. To me, organizing is my canvas and once the project is complete, it’s my masterpiece! It’s also life-changing for most people because people call me when they’re overwhelmed or have major tasks at hand that they know they need a special team for.

Carolina, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Carolina Del Carmen. I’m an entreprenuer & creative. I’m a Professional Organizer, Event Organizer & community connector. I have a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology & Sociology & a Minor in Spanish, which believe it or not, are all extremely relevant now that I’m an entrepreneur!

I’m an original Houstonian – born & raised here but also grew up in El Salvador in the summers. While attending the University of Houston Downtown, I worked in the restaurant industry and quickly found myself working in the fascinating culinary world of Houston! I ended up working on the catering & events teams of some of the best chefs & restaurants in the city! Being able to work with & lead these high-end events showed me the discipline & order needed to create these scale of events as well as the creative freedom when it came to staging food and organizing spaces of all sizes. I will always be grateful for everyone who believed in me and entrusted me to their clients, their events, food and their staff! It’s all made me who I am today!

Organizing didn’t come right after nor was it ever a plan.. It actually came many years later after trying out various endeavors of my own, helping with a family business and holding other administrative jobs. After having my daughter, I realized that I needed to be organized & quick! Before being a mom, I wasn’t as worried about being super organized but while “nesting” I just naturally became very organized with all of her things & to this day, my daughter is actually way more organized than I am! So I say that my daughter was the one who really made me value being highly organized as well as becoming an entrepreneur. Life just hasn’t been the same since that massive change in my personal life! Being so mentally stress-free has been very liberating!

Come COVID, I knew that I wanted to provide a service for people to help them after being trapped in our homes for so long! I had unknowingly already been organizing for friends & family and honestly almost stumbled upon the idea of launching my own organizing business. It started as a few pictures of before & after projects on an Instagram page I created with the name of “Organized For Me”! (The name had a tiny tweak but essentially stayed the same.) I honestly didn’t even know it was a specialized service – it was just so natural for me & it felt great to help people & be able to call it my work!

Now, 2 years in and many projects and clients later, I fall more and more in love with providing Professional Organizing services for people! I see the huge NEED for my services – from desperate phone calls to “can you come today or tomorrow” sort of requests to people opening up to me when they find out what I do – it’s a great joy and I’m extremely humbled to be allowed into so many people’s private spaces- it’s truly an honor.

So in case you don’t yet quite understand what a Professional Organizer does or why you may need this type of service, here’s what we do: we organize your home (or business) so you don’t have to! We will help you declutter spaces that have too much stuff in them or are not arranged in any way but need to be! We’ll help you purge through items that you may not need any more and even take the donations out for you and get them to local organizations that we work with. Once we’ve purged, we will find appropriate spaces or make the spaces for each category of items and curate them into their new special homes! The most frequent response to completed jobs is “I can see everything!”. That usually means I did my job right!

For larger projects, I will bring additional team members/professional organizers but of course, there are projects where I can work alone which is a lot of fun too!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

For me, being a single parent really pushed me to create the very best life for my child & myself. If you really desire the freedom to be your own boss, not be restrained to time that dictates when you can and cannot spend time with your children, family, friends, events, etc. – and you’re a single parent on top of it all – you just have to really go above and beyond and break out and find either an amazing flexible job that can allow you to do it all and afford it all – or go all in. I don’t think I would have pushed myself as hard as I have (and continue to) if I didn’t have my child or have such big plans and goals for us both. I push myself extra hard each and very day – make numerous sacrifices & investments of time & money & give up a lot to make everything happen. It’s not easy but it’s definitely worth it!

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Oh God.. There’s so many!!! Well, believe it or not, I started my professional entreprenuer life by going into Financial Services with a company that focused on entreprenuership! So I have to credit their founder, Patrick Bet-David along with some amazing mentors I had while there & the entreprenuer work-ethic & mentality that was instilled by him. His book “Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy” really helped me focus on planning ahead in business.

I could list out a ton of other books – but some of the other most influential have been:
“Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill
“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki
“The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peal
“#GirlBoss” by Sophia Amoruso (Founder & Executive Chairman of NastyGal) – I feel like I live a parallel life with this lady! They had a series on Netflix about her life & it helped me a lot too!
“You’ are a BADASS: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life” by Jen Sincero – really opened up my eyes to my potential & helped me grow when I really needed it!
& “Boundaries: When to say YES, When to say No, To Take Control of Your Life” by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend – becase boundaries are necessary as a human being and especially as a leader to make sure you don’t get taken advantage of, learnd to lead with confidence and just learn to be a fair person over all. Being an entreprenuer is a HUGE responsibilty – you really have to constantly work on yourself & read a lot of books – listen to a lot of audios, movies, network – you have do do it all!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.organizedforme.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/organizedforme/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolina.delcarmen.alvarez/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinadcalvarez/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/carolinahoutx

Image Credits
Visual Impact Marketing Carolina Del Carmen