Today we’d like to introduce you to Mae Ling Strang
Hi Mae Ling, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Organizing has been a lifetime love of mine, whether it was as a child organizing my neighbor’s toys on a play date, helping friends declutter their closets as a teen, or creating organization systems for people’s homes as an adult. In 2020, a lot of people transitioned to working from home. When I’d videochat with my friends and family, many of them would say that they felt very stressed out by their clutter. Instead of being around it for a few hours in the evening after work, they were now surrounded by it 24/7. It was increasing their stress levels and negatively impacting their mood, productivity, work, and relationships with their families. Knowing my passion for organizing, they’d ask me for advice on how to tidy up cluttered rooms in their homes, what my decluttering criteria was for my own belongings, how to create more storage space in a small apartment, and if they should rearrange their furniture for functionality.
After a lot of these impromptu virtual organizing consultations led to tidier homes and less stress for my loved ones, it eventually dawned on me: Why not turn my unique organizing hobby into a career where I’m able to help others by doing what I do best? That realization (plus watching the entire season of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo in just 2 days) kicked off my decision to become a professional organizer. I spent the rest of the quarantine creating my organizing process called the “Mae Method,” as well as reading/watching/absorbing everything I could online about running your own business, established professional organizers’ careers, the latest organizing supplies, interior decorating, and then created my business plan.
I came out of the pandemic with a lot of knowledge and began testing out my Mae Method by organizing for friends and family in-person for free. Although organizing is an innate skill for me, I knew that I still needed to hone that skill because leisurely organizing with friends for fun would be way different than organizing for a client who is paying for my professional opinion and time. With each practice session, I’d get valuable feedback and tweak my organization process. After perfecting my Mae Method, building up my testimonials/portfolio, and getting the business side of things squared away, I launched my business on April 26, 2022 (aka National Get Organized Day). Since then I’ve been helping people achieve happier, clutter-free lives. I use my Mae Method to turn their homes into their own peaceful home oasis. My sustainable organization plans created for each client is individualized to meet all of their needs and fit their lifestyle, budget, and home decor aesthetic!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
As I’m sure many others can relate to, it has not been a smooth road to get here! My younger self had no idea that professional organizing was even a career option (this industry is still relatively new since it emerged in the 1980’s). There was a time when I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and pursue a degree in finance and accounting. Like many college students, I switched to a different degree that I felt aligned more with my passion at the time, nutrition. I earned a degree in dietetics and joined the Army in order to become an Army dietitian. After completing my years of service, I had completely lost my passion for nutrition and was unsure of what my next move would be.
Before I left, I had a pivotal conversation with the operations officer I had worked with. When he asked me what my post-Army plans were, my robotic reply about immediately pursuing a prestigious career made him take a deep breath and gently say, “That is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Promise me you will not do that. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Take some time off. Spend quality time with yourself and loved ones. Focus on your health. Travel, explore, and jump back into your old hobbies that you never have time for. After you’ve taken some time off, then you can start thinking about your next step. When you choose a career, choose it for yourself regardless of its status and how you will be perceived.” At the time I was living for others’ approval and in that moment I realized I was so concerned with aligning my life direction with values that weren’t even mine. I followed his advice and spent the rest of 2019 doing all of those things. There was a lot of self reflection and I identified my actual core values as: genuineness, helpfulness, compassion, comfort, safety, health, and friendship.
In 2020, I had planned to return to school to pursue becoming an esthetician as I had been a skincare enthusiast for most of my life and it aligned with my core values. However, due to the pandemic, the school I was planning to attend shut down indefinitely. I was devastated and realized that I needed to pivot once again. Fortunately, it ended up being what my Dad likes to call, a blessing in disguise. If not for the shut down, I would’ve never realized my true calling as a professional organizer. Although I enjoyed my other interests in life, decluttering and organizing have always been my favorite things to do. There’s a quote by the lettering artist and illustrator, Jessica Hische, “The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” Throughout my life, decluttering and organizing were my go to methods of procrastination. I called it productive procrastination. I understand that the majority of people dislike decluttering and organizing, and find it overwhelming and stressful. However, to me, organizing is extremely therapeutic and almost feels like a form of meditation.
Circling back to the initial question, “Has it been a smooth road?” The road to becoming an organizer was quite bumpy with a bunch of detours. However, once my organizing business was launched, it’s been smooth sailing! I’m coming up on my 3-year business anniversary this April and I still feel so much gratitude each day as Meticulous Mae.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I offer organization services for any space within your home, as well as commercial spaces for small businesses. All of my organizing services are provided with empathy, compassion, and patience in a calm, judgement-free environment. My organizing projects vary in size from apartments to houses and range from one room in a home to a full home makeover. I love helping my clients create their own home oasis. And by that I mean helping them achieve in their home that same feeling of pure bliss and relaxation that they feel while they’re on vacation. Whenever you step out of your home, there are bound to be things throughout your day that eat away at your bandwidth. Life is already hard enough as is, so why not create a space where you’re able to relax and recharge instead of returning to a home that stresses you out even further?
My favorite spaces to organize are closets, bathrooms, and kitchens. Besides getting to see people’s sense of style, skincare and/or makeup product preferences, and fun kitchen gadgets, I love getting to make a positive impact on people’s daily lives through organizing these areas. When people are getting ready in the morning, these are the top 3 spaces being used. By getting rid of the pain points in those 3 core spots, I’m able to streamline their mornings, simplify their lives, and help them be set up for success every day.
My organizing process is called the Mae Method and it starts out with an intake form that I send before the initial in-home consultation. During the consultation, we review the completed form together. Then I take reference photos and videos, as well as measurements of the spaces. Afterwards, I work on creating an individualized organization system for those spaces that fits your needs, lifestyle, decor aesthetic, and budget. Once the plan is completed, I return for the in-home decluttering and organizing sessions. Decluttering must be done together, but I’m able to organize together or independently depending on your preference. Each organizing session includes the haul away of 1 trunkload of decluttered items (not including large furniture) to be donated to the nonprofit of your choice.
Something that sets Meticulous Mae apart is my recycled organizing supplies program. In my opinion, home organization is one of the best self-care investments someone can choose. The right to live in an organized home is something that should be accessible to everyone. Organizing supplies can get pricey, so I created my free recycled organizing supplies program to provide my clients with a budget and eco friendly option. At the end of an organizing session, sometimes there will be some old mismatched organizing supplies in their decluttered items donation pile. I’ll ask my client if they’re willing to donate their unwanted organizing supplies to my program and I’ve never had anyone say no before. Once I’m home, I deep clean and sanitize those supplies, and store them with the rest of my free supply collection. Whenever I have a client with a tight budget and/or desire to be eco friendly, I’ll shop my collection to find useful supplies for them.
Something I’d really like y’all to know about my brand/services is that I will never judge you for having a cluttered and disorganized home. So many of my clients tell me that they didn’t reach out for organizing help sooner because they felt embarrassed about their homes and were anxious about being judged. First off, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. I would never judge someone for something they’re struggling with just because that thing comes easily to me. I may be good at decluttering and organizing, but my weaknesses are that I’m not tech savvy, I’m long-winded, and the cookies I bake never turn out well. That said, I do understand where my clients’ hesitation with reaching out is coming from because unfortunately there is a stigma around cluttered, disorganized homes. However, society fails to acknowledge the root cause of the mess. People with disorganized homes are not lazy. People have disorganized homes for a myriad of reasons: ADHD, depression, hoarding disorder, moving to a significantly smaller home, grieving the loss of a loved one, chronic health condition, major life transition of becoming new parents, recovering from a severe injury or traumatic event, shopping addiction, not having enough time due to a demanding work schedule, etc. As an empath and as someone who has been through some very rough times, I promise you that our organizing sessions will always be a judgement-free zone.
What does success mean to you?
To me, success is living a life that aligns with your core values. One of my favorite quotes is from Dr. Maya Angelou, “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” My core values I mentioned earlier: genuineness, helpfulness, compassion, comfort, safety, health, and friendship are all values that promote self-love/self-development, are intertwined in my Meticulous Mae business, and are the foundation for how I move through this world.
Every day is an opportunity to live your definition of success. To me, that is having genuine interactions with others whether I’m talking with my clients, neighbors, friends, family, or complete strangers. It’s the absolute joy I get from helping others through acts of service like helping out the stranger who just dropped one of their grocery bags or running an errand for my friend who is a busy new mom or my client now getting to have a sit down dinner with her family for the first time in years after decluttering and organizing their dining room. To me, success is living true to my comfort value where I practice daily having a healthy work/life balance and treating myself well. This carries over into my health value where I focus on both mental and physical health.
I could go on forever talking about core values, but I’ll end it with this. Every day I feel immense gratitude for getting to live as my authentic self and spending my life doing something I genuinely love, something that uses my strengths like empathy and organization skills, and something that helps others lead happier lives. The fulfillment I feel every day is priceless, and to me, that is success.
Pricing:
- Let’s transform your home into your own home oasis. Book your $20 initial in-home organizing consultation today!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.meticulousmae.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meticulousmae
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meticulousmae
- Other: meticulousmae@gmail.com
Image Credits
Paulin Conde, Shanna Badon Dellomes, Cakeybrands
