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Mount Washington woman turns her skills at organizing others' lives into a business
Wednesday, February 21, 2001 By Carolyn Clossin
Patty Kreamer has turned a knack for creating order out of chaos for other people and companies into a business of her own. It's TimeFinders Inc. which she formed two years ago and operates from her Mount Washington home.
"Everywhere I worked, I seemed to be the organizer, decluttering offices and people's lives," says Kreamer, a Pittsburgh native and 1987 Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate.
She worked first as a marketing representative for Columbia Gas of Virginia, then in marketing programs with Insulectro in Arizona and Enterprize in California and Pennsylvania.
During 18 years with those companies, she always seemed to become the organizer because she was good at it and got a lot done in very little time, she says.
Eventually, when she had organized her job and each office was moving smoothly, she'd grow tired and move on.
But always, in the back of her mind, she'd think, "You know, you could do this for a lot more people and help them, too."
So, when she and her husband returned to Pittsburgh, she started TimeFinders.
Their large eat-in kitchen became their dining room, too, and the room that was the dining room became their office.
Kreamer says her husband, George, is her top priority, but listen to her for five minutes and you know her business ranks a close second.
"You have to have a burning in your body to put in 60 or 70 hours a week to make it work," she says.
Kreamer loves to help people find their way out of clutter. "I've seen desks that haven't been seen in months, sometimes years," she says.
She helped Ninamary Langsdale start her business as a marketing consultant and helped Sandy Goldstein organize her office at Coldwell Banker's Galleria location on Route 19 , where she is a Realtor.
After a recent meeting of Women's Business Network, to which they all belong, Langsdale and Goldstein praised Kreamer.
Both were excited about what they called the "Patty approach" to organizing anything and everything.
"What she does is categorize our needs and organize," Goldstein said.
"She also energizes you with her confidence," Langsdale said.
Kreamer uses her own three-step process in all organization jobs. "I tell every client to look into, look around and look out."
Then she says, "Look into yourself to determine why you are the way you are. Look around at your surroundings and the locality of everything you touch daily. And look out and dive into the actual organizing of how you work and what you do."
"Most people totally skip the first two points in this process," she says. "If you do that, you might as well forget [the third step in the process]."
The heart of her organizational philosophy is her "tickler file," which she uses with every job. It contains everything that needs immediate attention. Everything else goes into other files -- weekly, monthly or annual files that one will pull out when the time comes.
It's important, however, that one pull these files out regularly and update or discard them, she says.
Discarding files is another important step in Kreamer's process.
"If you don't need them now or haven't used them for a while, box them and store them someplace else in your home or office."
"I don't try to change people but work with their thought processes in developing what works for them," Kreamer says.
She and her husband are both organized people, she says. "I used to be even more organized, but now I'm more relaxed." That may be because she learned to play golf, but she said there's little time for golf now because of her busy schedule of clients, contacts, seminars and what she calls phone coaching.
"Setting your goals and identifying your mission are essential in your success," she writes in a brochure she distributes.
Her goal in TimeFinders, she says, is "finding time you never thought you had before."
Carolyn Clossin is a free-lance writer.
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