Mentoring

Are you a business that needs accountability, guidance and support?

We’re pleased to be running a mentoring scheme whereby established APDO members, who are all business owners in their own right and run successful businesses, are offering mentoring calls to those who have a professional organising business or are looking for accountability and mentoring within their business (you don’t have to be a professional organising business, just have a business that you would like to move forward with).

What is a mentor and what do they do?

A mentor is an experienced and trusted advisor
Mentors provide guidance, advice, feedback, and support to the mentee, serving variously as role model, teacher, counsellor, advisor, sponsor, advocate, and ally, depending on the specific goals and objectives negotiated with the mentee

Topics that our mentors can help you with:

Defining your offering
Business setup & administration
Creating your website
Marketing & Social Media
Networking & finding clients
Communicating with clients
Growing your business
Confidence
Motivation
Goal setting
Boundaries
Overcoming challenges

The arrangement between mentor and mentee is private; APDO is simply providing a platform to connect mentees with mentors and will have no knowledge of, or influence on, individual mentor’s fees or methods of work.

Details of the five mentors are listed below. Please contact your chosen mentor(s) to start the conversation!

Sarah Bickers

Sarah has worked as a professional organiser since 2014. Having ADHD herself, she understands all too well the challenges that ADHD brings and now works mostly with ADHD clients.

Working collaboratively with her clients, she helps them develop a more ADHD-friendly approach, supporting them with challenges both at home and work using a combination of practical experience and listening / coaching skills.

Sarah runs the popular ADHD for Organisers workshop and has trained over 100 APDO members over the past 5 years to help them support their ADHD clients. Along the way, Sarah has also mentored other professional organisers, providing both one-off and ongoing monthly support.

She loves nothing better than encouraging and supporting people to recognise and use their strengths in both work and life, as well as helping them identify what is getting in the way of progress with clients.

Please note, Sarah does not provide support with marketing and social media or networking and finding clients.

Amanda Biggs

Amanda has been a self-employed business owner for more than two decades. She sold one business after building it from the ground up, remains a Director of another, and runs her own successful professional organising business. Amanda also has a background in Customer Service.

All of this has given Amanda a great grounding in the business side of business: from setting up as both a sole trader and a limited company, to finding and retaining clients. All the detail that goes alongside it, including accounts, VAT, self-assessment, and marketing are also part of Amanda’s skillset and experience.

As APDO’s Membership Director, Amanda values feeling part of a team and having colleagues while being self-employed, and works to ensure all members experience this too. She also recognises the power of networking and support to aid progression.

Amanda works with ADHD clients and welcomes applications from organisers who themselves have ADHD, or work with clients with ADHD.

A friendly, honest approach underpins Amanda’s mentoring style as well as a desire to help members thrive in their careers.

Katherine Blackler

Katherine had 15 years’ experience in the corporate world coordinating projects, people, and processes before setting up SortMySpace Ltd in 2016. During this time, she accrued practical business and administrative knowledge.

As the immediate Past President of APDO, Katherine was instrumental in developing a number of APDO's backend operations as it grew substantially from 160 to 400+ members during her tenure.

Katherine became the first person in the UK to gain the CPO® (Certified Professional Organizer) credentials in 2019 and is also a member of NAPO National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (headquartered in the US). She regularly attends overseas organising conferences to benefit from multicultural influences within, and for, the professional organising industry.

Since late 2024, Katherine has been studying with Coach Approach Training, an ICF-accredited programme with a particular focus for professional organisers and for supporting neurodiverse clients.

Katherine thrives on seeing others step out of their comfort zone and soar to new heights.

Caroline Rogers

Caroline launched Room to Think in 2013 and offers professional organising, coaching and mentoring services. Many of her PO, coaching, and mentoring clients are neurodivergent and/or experiencing significant life depleting challenges.

An experienced member of APDO’s training team, she developed and delivers APDO’s Effective Listening course. As an enthusiastic volunteer, she facilitates APDO’s monthly new members’ welcome zooms and helps organise the East London APDO meetups.

Caroline’s research area of positive psychology informs her whole practice. She authored and published academic research on the association between clutter and wellbeing in 2020 and keeps updated with current research on clutter and hoarding.

Your wellbeing – and your clients’ – will be foremost in a mentoring relationship. Many professional organisers that Caroline has already mentored are now established, flourishing members of APDO who work to their strengths, feel confident, enjoy their clients and make a living.

Caroline is naturally easy going, friendly, and informal. She doesn’t believe there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to be a professional organiser – only a professional, ethical, reflective and individual one. She will help you discover your own ‘right way’ in your own practice

Lynda Wylie

Lynda has built a stable and rewarding business over her 12 years as a Professional Organiser.

Currently volunteering as APDO’s blog coordinator, she also spent three years as part of the APDO conference team and four years as an APDO trainer, delivering the Starting a Professional Organising Business and Paperwork Simplified courses. Lynda’s role as a trainer has equipped her to navigate with you the questions, uncertainties and challenges of launching and sustaining a new business.

An encouraging, warm, and approachable outlook means Lynda will work diligently to create a safe, supportive space for you to reflect and develop your ideas. Her logical working approach will support you with creating clear working procedures and processes, planning effectively to shape and implement your next steps.

By building a trusting and professional mentoring relationship, Lynda will help you celebrate your unique journey and work toward achieving your plans with purpose and confidence—no matter where you’re starting from.