This OG YouTuber Is Now A Professional Organizer

At 16, Lindsey Hughes sat in her bedroom in Atlanta, leaning into her webcam to show off her favorite hairstyles for school. She braided her bangs, teased her front pieces up into a pouf, and showed how she perfected her messy top knot. The resulting YouTube video pulled in 436,000 views.

A year prior, in 2010, Hughes made her first YouTube video ever. It was a drugstore makeup haul that included CoverGirl mascara, Maybelline dream mousse blush, and Crest toothpaste. “It was so pure,” Hughes, now 32, tells Bustle. While she still makes content today, she’s also a professional organizer, and finds that balancing her online life and real-life job is a happy-medium that took years to find.

Today, some creators can earn enough from brand partnerships to make content full-time. In the early days of Hughes’ career, however, living solely off income from YouTube was even rarer. Regulations were less standard, which meant well-paying opportunities were scarce. Hughes remembers that some top YouTubers worried that their accounts would be randomly deleted.

Despite growing her online following while in high school, she always wanted to go to college. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in 2015 with a major in beauty industry marketing, which she felt she was already doing in a way through her videos. “I would never take it back. It was a pivotal time to find myself,” she says of her choice to pursue a degree.

“For so long, I was kind of anti-TikTok and anti-short form. I honestly felt like such a Boomer.”

During her time at school, Hughes noticed that YouTube content as a whole was shifting away from the kind of content she made — sitting in front of the camera for hauls and tutorials — toward vlogging, where people brought their cameras on-the-go throughout their day. As the trends changed, so did Hughes’ feelings about her post-graduation path.

“I kind of hit this plateau [with my subscriber growth] and had a quarter life crisis. It’s a weird experience of having success at a young age, being 18 to 20 years old when everything was kind of popping off. You put a lot of your self-worth in it too,” Hughes says. “You think, ‘Am I a flop? Should I quit this and go do something completely else?’ I was craving a change.”

At 21, Hughes moved back home to Atlanta for about seven months. She experimented with vlogs, and posted less consistently on her main page than she used to. Instead, she focused on figuring out her next career move, whether that was content creation or something completely different. She slowly transitioned from her tutorial and haul-style content to try and keep up with the growing trend of vlogging. Then, in 2017, she moved to Boise, Idaho, where she currently lives. There, she realized she wanted to work more IRL, and eventually found her passion in professional organizing after stumbling across an open position during her job search.

“I was craving something when I didn't have this job, but it took me a long time to recognize what it was,” she says.

Today, she continues to post lifestyle content, vlogs, and even organization hacks on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, with brand partnerships as her main stream of income. But she also works part-time helping clients professionally organize their closets, kitchens, bathrooms, and garages. “It can be very exhausting doing jobs that are more physically laborious, but it's soothing. I like having order,” she says.

Below, Hughes shares how she views creating content now, and what it meant to reimagine her career path from online to IRL.

Did you ever consider forgoing higher education for creating content full-time?

During the time I went to college was also when my account had popped off. Everything was going really well. I was growing so fast and I was probably making the most money I've ever made. But I still wanted to go to school to have that real life experience. I'm definitely glad I did because I feel like that adds a more relatable aspect to my videos versus living that influencer life.

There’s always another platform on the rise. How do you keep up?

For so long, I was kind of anti-TikTok and anti-short form. I honestly felt like such a Boomer. I didn't really even start posting until 2022, which looking back, feels too late. There's a reason that people are craving these short, quick, casual, realistic videos. I wish I pivoted sooner.

When did you know you wanted to pursue other kinds of work?

Three years ago, I was like, "I need to get out of the house one or two days a week and do something that's not all focused on myself." It's weird to understand, but when you get comments from random strangers and even constructive criticism from your own audience, it can be hard to not let that really weigh on you.

How did you land on professional organizing?

It’s how my brain works. I like that I get to have coworkers, a real boss, and people I interact with regularly. For almost my whole career, it's felt like I was in the driver's seat and now I can be in the passenger seat. It’s very nice to not always have to be in charge.

What does a typical organizing project look like?

I knew that I would have fun doing this since it was already one of my biggest passions. You take everything out of the space, go through every item, talk with the client about what they want to keep or donate. We space plan, so put everything away in baskets and bins using different systems. And then we label it all and do a final tour to show the client how to use and maintain the space. I loved it immediately.

Do you enjoy content creation or organizing more?

I definitely need both to feel fulfilled. I get to work on different things every week instead of every day being like, "Well, what am I going to do for the vlog?”

Do you feel that you reinvented yourself?

I didn't even want to initially brand myself as a beauty and fashion creator, but I think it was the box I was in at the time.I’m glad I was able to pivot out of that. Sometimes my page is really mundane, but I like to offer that comforting vibe. It’s essentially "I ended up staying at home. I was doing some stuff in the backyard, gardening, cooking, or talking about what shows I've been watching. This is the whole vlog."

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.