5 Years of Life In Jeneral
Time flies when you’re having fun. It may be a cliche, but it’s exactly what the last five years have felt like for our team! Over the years, we’ve transformed the lives of thousands and have been fortunate enough to help people from all around the world. From a team of one to a team of 25, we’ve grown and flourished in more ways than founder Jen could’ve ever imagined when she first started Life in Jeneral. To celebrate this milestone, let’s take a look back and reminisce on how we’ve gotten to where we are today.
Year One
Founder and Chief Organizing Officer, Jen Robin has always loved organizing and creating systems. Before Life in Jeneral, she worked as a celebrity executive assistant, mastering the art of to-do lists, time management, and efficient systems. After coordinating more than 7 full home moves, as well as planning and managing the personal life of a very busy celebrity, Jen naturally developed and implemented systems to make each move run more smoothly than the last.
In the process, Jen realized that it was about more than organizing, it’s about transforming lives for the better. After seeing the impact her systems had on an individual’s life, she was motivated to spread her knowledge and apply her systematic and soulful approach to clearing stress and clutter from people’s lives.
Life in Jeneral was born in 2015 to fulfill this mission, and it’s been Jen’s dream job ever since. She teaches clients and followers that life is more than all the things we collect, store, and pack away. It’s about simplifying your stuff, keeping and organizing only the things you love, thus living the best version of your life. Life in Jeneral was founded on the belief that, creating space and owning less helps you live a more fulfilled life. Surrounding yourself with only things that bring joy is a priority. A stress-free, healthy and happy lifestyle begins at home. Aesthetics and functionality create beautiful spaces you can breathe in. By purging distractions and decluttering, you elevate your lifestyle. Maintaining a simplified organized lifestyle is possible with the right systems in place.
Year Two:
Once Life in Jeneral had found its footing as a small business in year one, we really began to streamline our process. This meant we established how to most efficiently organize systems internally & externally for our clients. We utilized these ideas as the framework for how we would organize clients’ homes:
Create a routine.
Say goodbye to old habits.
Establish systems.
Automate everything.
Get rid of duplicates.
Give everything a home.
Create a home calendar.
Get more personal.
Delegate tasks.
Prepare for the unexpected.
Streamlining and simplifying were at the core of our systems, and Jen’s mission of creating the life you want by only keeping the things that you love, need, or use came to life in this second year. Of course, this couldn’t have been done without the help of a growing team! Company culture is crucial to create team morale and provide the best service to clients, which is why in this year, Life in Jeneral’s team grew from one to 10.
Year Three:
In our third year, we became masters of technique. We had our processes and efficiencies down to an art, but there was room for improvement. After mastering the basics, Jen began implementing more granular techniques. Hello, color coding and file folding! Not only are methods like these aesthetically pleasing, but they make it easier for clients to place items back in their spots and maintain. Adding these aesthetic touches helped us to hit some major social media milestones in this year. Overall, combining functionality with decorative touches became our recipe for success!
Year three was also an exciting year for Life in Jeneral in terms of clientele. In 2018, we began organizing for some high profile clients like Kristen Bell. Over the years, this list has grown and we’ve organized for clients including Jenna Dewan, Sophia Bush, Shay Mitchell and Kate Bosworth.
Year Four:
2019’s focus was on maintaining and growing the business. Now that the Life in Jeneral method had been in practice for a few years, it was important to keep up the momentum. To make this possible, our internal team grew, and we added on some new incredible organizers to the team! This made it so that Jen could also focus on launching our sister company, Closets in Jeneral. Closets is a custom cabinetry line that designs and executes the creation of your dream closet/any custom cabinetry. Jen saw a need for a custom cabinetry line early on in her organizing career. Building out a space around the inventory a client has, rather than making product work within drawers, shelves, and cabinets elevates the overall simplicity within the space. Launching Closets in Jeneral was an easy decision for Jen because it meant helping her clients out even further to deliver them a dream home.
Year Five:
In our fifth year, Jen decided it was time to open up an office. The company had blossomed since 2015, and to continue serving people in the best way, we needed a space to call our own. The Life in Jeneral office and showroom were opened in January in El Segundo, CA. We began building out our showroom to give local followers and existing & future clients a place where they could see the Life in Jeneral way of living! Jen dreamed up the showroom as a place for Closets in Jeneral’s cabinetry work and our unique organizing methods to be fully experienced.
Life in Jeneral’s white glove customer service and work for our client continues to be of the utmost importance as we grow. Of course, 2020 has thrown a major curveball our way: the COVID-19 pandemic. As a small business that has thrived for four years on in-home organizing, we’ve had to completely shift our strategy to maintain the business. Most importantly, we've rerouted to virtual organizing sessions until we can be fully up and running in people's homes again. In these one on one we work closely with clients to help them tackle organization the best they can on their own, holding their hand along the way. We’ve also realized the best way to help as many people as possible during this time is with some written direction with our how-to guides. We created these to help people around the world, and especially to support them during the pandemic. We’ve also grown our brand with the launch of our highly anticipated handmade labels! We’ve been getting questions about the labels we use in clients’ homes for years, so we decided that expanding our services was a great way to help people while they’re staying at home.
As we continue to explore what our new normal looks like, we have some other exciting new things in the works! Transforming lives and bringing people joy is at the heart of our being, and we are continuing to find new ways to do this regardless of physical boundaries. Whether you’ve been with us from the beginning or have only recently discovered the Life in Jeneral way, we want to thank you for your support! Stay tuned for more from us--the best is yet to come!
Our Best Selling Items Over the Years
We have experimented with so many containers over the years to give our clients the best end result. Some products have been consistent since the beginning--these are the top products we’ve linked that our followers have absolutely LOVED year after year!
