In this episode, I invited Lisa J. back for an update because she has some exciting news. She lives in Australia with her husband Kirk on their large farm, and their two teen children go to boarding school. She takes care of the administrative tasks for their farm. She loves what she does but got overwhelmed with all the tasks. If you recall from her previous episode, she got relief with the Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox®. It’s not common for a farm in Australia to have more than one person taking care of the office and associated tasks. She took Lisa’s advice after being on the last podcast and has hired an executive assistant three days a week for the past 3 months. It’s going well and she is now looking more at the corporate farm structure. Family farm, one wife is usually taking care of the office. Corporate farm, there is a “team” doing all of the administrative tasks. She can see their farm going in the Corporate direction. 

The Lisas discussed what that may look like. Lisa Woodruff brought up the point that yes, there are a lot of tasks. Yes, you can hire help to get those tasks done BUT it must be in the name of growth. Or be aware that it may just simply enhance your lifestyle. Right? It will free up time that usually a business owner can then use towards strategy and growth. If you are content with where business is then just know you are paying for that extra time. And that is fine but Lisa made a brilliant point about hiring help in this respect. That being said, Lisa J. is in a growth mindset and since the last episode has been able to attend 4 planning days. She said the way Lisa W. breaks down the quarter really helps her. It helps her to spatially visualize what will be taking place. She likes to do a one year plan, break that down to one quarter, then one month, and lastly one week. The planning days help Lisa J. to do just that and accomplish goals.

Lisa J. has been able to transition some purple slash pockets to her assistant. Now that she’s in the thick of it, she and Lisa also talked about some blue and green slash pockets Lisa J. could hand over to her assistant. The Australian government has put a lot of paperwork back on the farms which has increased their workload exponentially. These are tasks her assistant can do, as well as handle technology and social media. Lisa J. was good to create slash pockets for her repetitive tasks and can now offload them one by one.

Lisa J. wants to share her organization with other farm offices. It’s usually the wife of the farmer. We all know mom’s wear a lot of hats and not all of them have the capacity or skill set to be #allthethings. Both Lisa’s agree the work that one woman is doing is easily the work of 5 people.  Just think of companies as big as Lisa’s farm and there are usually multiple people running HR, bookkeeping, administrative tasks, and more! The beautiful part about Organize 365® systems is that they are kind of like scaffolding and then you, the homeowner or business owner, can customize it to your needs. Anyone can apply these systems to their lives.

Drum rolllllll pllllllleassssse….Lisa J. is going to start a podcast to help other farm offices. It will be titled Farm Office Tool Box. She has a burning desire to help other wives/farm offices that may be trying to do it all and feel overwhelmed.  She wants to share how she uses the Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox®, or really how she had kind of combined them to stay consistent and feel in control. And she wants to normalize more people running a farm office. Lisa J. shared that being organized really helps her to feel confident. She trusts herself to make good decisions for the farm. Lisa W. pointed out that all farms, not just Australian farms, will be able to utilize and implement the tips and advice Lisa J. will be sharing. 

Lisa’s advice will be in her podcast Farm Office Tool Box Podcast…check it out!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Friday Workbox®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365­® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

I find it challenging, interesting and exciting to try to break down how I plan and win at home and work, which took me two decades to figure out. It's like working backwards with little Lego bricks that you can replicate to build your own productive and organized house. 

There are productivity courses and productivity gurus. For the most part, people who have learned to be productive have done so through a lot of trial and error, thinking, processing, and moving things around in their brains and in real life. Organization is essential for a productive life because if your physical space is disorganized, then it's harder to have enough mental capacity to organize invisible work - which is what productivity is. If your physical space is disorganized, then your productivity doesn't get enough traction to make enough of an impact in your life that you will persist long enough for it to become magical. 

The Sunday Basket® is the first step to becoming a productive person, because it moves you from day-to-day thinking to week-to-week thinking. Even if you only do it for 90 minutes on Sundays, it's a monumental lift because the day to day of running a household and being a homeowner is pervasive. There's an inherent, unending task of being a household manager. You can't systematize your house to the point that there's no work to be done. You can reduce your expectations, the amount of stuff you own, the size of the house you live in, outsource your meals, cleaning services...the list goes on and on. But still there's only so much you can automate in your life. You still need to buy clothing and take care of your body (shower, brush your teeth, etc.), eat, sleep, and the like. 

The final thing I want to reiterate is that the Sunday Basket® System moving you from day-to-day thinking to week-to-week thinking has a secondary benefit for your whole family. It creates this weekly cadence and this purposeful pause in requests and fulfillment of requests for yourself and your family. Being able to look at your finances on Sunday and then make decisions based on what everyone wants or needs helps you make better money decisions and also better time decisions. 

Next week I'm going to talk about why email is the laundry and dishes of work. Oh my gosh! And then in a few weeks I'm going to talk about how to move into season-to-season productivity, both at home and at work. What does it look like to take the Sunday Basket® and turn it into seasonal productivity? What about the Friday Workbox®? Why would you even want that? Stay tuned! 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Sign up for the Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

In this episode, I introduce you to Kristi L. who has two daughters at home. Rachel is a high school senior and Lydia is in 8th grade. After losing her husband to cancer, Kristi decided to move closer to family in Indiana. Kristi is a rare gem who found Organize 365® before the podcast!  It’s so fun to meet someone who has seen and appreciated the evolution of Organize 365®. Kristi started with my eBook in 2012, then grew her organizing skills through the Sunday Basket®.

Kristi relied heavily on the Sunday Basket® to stay organized while she took care of her husband. After his passing and trying to do it all, Kristi decided to sell the horse farm and move. It didn’t sell overnight. While trying to keep the house “showing” ready, she moved a lot of stuff into a pod for later organizing which was smart because it took 2 years.  

She decided the taxes were just too high and was tired of spending a lot of time mowing the lawn, just a quick 8 hours! When they got to their new downsized home with only two garages, Kristi took her time settling in. She could have continued to get COBRA health insurance forever, but her girls needed coverage going into 2019. So Kristi decided to go back to work. It was a good thing too because shortly after her daughter, Lydia, would be diagnosed with epilepsy and she’d be using the Warrior MAMA Binder more than ever. She already had the binder because Lydia has an IEP for ADHD. 

This is when Kristi decided they needed more structure and she knew the 100 Day Challenge (now The Productive Home Solution®) was just the answer. Shortly after, she added the Friday Workbox® for organization and productivity at work too. She realized a lot of tasks were assigned digitally so admittedly she let the Friday Workbox® go. But then in her review, she was urged to get more training done. It dawned on her they weren’t getting done because it was something the Friday Workbox® used to help with! She was happy to share that she went back to the Friday Workbox® and now has the next three months scheduled, which allowed her to delegate work to others (in different time zones) to help with different tasks associated with the training. She learned her lesson and is sticking with the Friday Workbox®!

Kristi now has The Productive Home Solution®. After having a nightmare that she was passing and her daughters were going to have to take care of things and she wasn’t organized, she knew she needed the binders for peace of mind. She pointed out that the Sunday Basket® serves to accomplish actionable tasks while the binders keep your affairs in order. She felt it beneficial to get both which are included in the The Productive Home Solution®. Kristi has a lot less stress these days due to the products and systems from Organize 365®.

One the most recent things Kristi treated herself to was the Paper Organizing Retreat! Kristi loved the 1:1 help she received with her paper and binders. She had such a fabulous time at the retreat, not to mention the night in the hotel where she was finally able to charge her car. More importantly, she got to “be” with all her paper that next day and make more progress on what she started at the retreat! Next time she’s bringing her mom! Her mom is 80 and has a lifetime of paper. Kristi likes the idea of being able to shred what she predicts to be 99.99% of that paper at the retreat! Lisa joked that either way, Kristi will be taking care of that paper. So it can be with her mom’s help now or later because it’s not going anywhere otherwise.

Kristi’s advice is, “start with the Sunday Basket®, then buy it all.” Kristi says to start with pink and take care of yourself first. Get you organized for two reasons; as a woman you need to get organized first and it’ll take a long time before it needs to be touched up-you’re the only one using your personal space.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day

• The Paper Solution®

• Friday Workbox®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365­® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

My "party trick" is being able to know what you're thinking; I've been doing it for over a decade. My obsession is figuring out how families and homes work. How to make visible the invisible work so ultimately we can spend more time with family and make more memories.

If I stay at least 10 days ahead, I'll have a buffer. If you have a buffer, then it takes A LOT for you to get behind the 8 ball again. Here are the things you need to be thinking about that will happen in the next 10 days.

• Halloween: candy inventory and costumes

• Fall Events: pumpkin patch, festivals, trunk or treat, etc.

• Daylight Savings Time: changing clocks and circadian rhythms

• Election Day: how and when you will vote

As a business owner, I think about how these events will impact my employees.

The more you are the leader, the Household Manager, the CEO and COO of your home - you get to decide what YOU want. You get to ask yourself: "What do I want?"

How do I know what's coming next? I know because I observe my own life, look a couple of weeks into the future, and then I move backwards. I'm obsessive about what is coming next, what is coming next, what is coming next. Always.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Holiday Blitz

• Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Sign up for the Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365­® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU learn the skill of organization, too!

In this episode, I introduce you to Jayme H, a wife and mom of two. In 2016, Jayme was lucky enough to attend a summit where Lisa was a speaker. From there, Jayme went down the Organize 365® rabbit hole. When she found Organize 365®, she had two children in K-8 and was a teacher. Since then, she has been promoted to counselor and is now principal of her school. Jayme is a unique individual that has found so much success with the Sunday Basket®, that she is doing a pilot of the Education Friday Workbox® with the entire staff at her school.  We’re going to report back to everyone in January on the feedback and results. 

Jayme really loves the process of organizing. In her teaching years, she was stuck trying to be a perfectionist. But now that she’s attended three years of Planning Days and taken advantage of all the other Organize 365® resources, she knows functional organizing is where it’s at! She and Lisa discussed the importance of knowing when to organize and when to move on to doing what you are uniquely created to do. It’s funny, most people start organizing to get control of life and get time back. It’s advised to do The Productive Home Solution® at least three times. But then what? Keep organizing? No! You have earned the time to focus on you now. Many times people want to stay where it’s comfortable. The idea is to get your home to a place where you are not always starting from zero! The Productive Home Solution® gives you an assignment each week, right? If you feel good about that area, you do not have anything to do so go catch up on your show or use it to be uncomfortable growing in what you are uniquely created to do! You don’t have to focus on the whole house all the time, just that week’s assignment. 

She’s one busy lady with her family, her career, and now her side hustle. Jayme and Lisa also discussed household management like the management you see in the workplace. Jayme wanted her home to run as smoothly as work does. When you go to work, you don’t wonder who is going to clean the restrooms. But who is going to clean the restrooms at home? Roles are not defined. Departments are not defined. All of the invisible work in our homes has not been identified, broken down into “departments” and discussed who will take care of what. 

Jayme gained so much time that she has been able to grow her organizing business on the side. The first year putting The Productive Home Solution® into action she gained a chunk of time and then again around year 3.When she got motivated to do her binders, it was easy. She had already decluttered and had those papers in their places so she knew where to go for information! This year she finally felt like she could reply, on Planning Day, as feeling organized.  She uses her Sunday Basket® at school too and her actions have caught the attention of the Superintendent. When Jayme asked about the school implementing the Education Friday Workbox®, he asked if that’s how she’s always remembering to follow up (AKA bug him) about projects and checking on the progress. He quickly agreed and we are so thankful for the opportunity to run this pilot…can’t wait to share with you all in January!!

Jayme’s advice is, “Hold yourself to your own standards.” Stop comparing yourself to others and make the systems work for you. She has recently come to the conclusion that we all have different standards and capacities. You are one person, complete what you think one person should be able to complete; you can’t do it all. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day

• The Paper Solution®

• Education Friday Workbox®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

I am grateful that you are reaching out to share your stories and progress with me and with the Organize 365® community. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

I’m excited to announce that you can get 1:1 organization help!

As a female, mom, business owner, and head of household, I see all organizing differently. I see it through all those unique lenses. Despite what all the consultants have said, I just have to run Organize 365® in my own Lisa way. At the end of the day, I want to offer as many ways as possible to learn organization because we all agree it’s learnable and yet only 13% FEEL organized in any particular area. I want to offer what works for you so you can have more time to dive into what you are uniquely created to do.

Ok, you want a personalized organization roadmap? 

Now you can get your own customized, personalized organization road map. I know, with all the free content from the podcast and blitzes, what more could you need? Well, maybe within your business or your household The Productive Home Solution® leaves you with questions or it all just seems too overwhelming. Now all you need to do is email customer service and you will get a form to fill out to get a call schedule with Tanya, Stef or Monique. You can address all the burning questions you have that apply to your unique household or business. At Organize 365®, we understand how the energy of the season and big events impact the home and business. Book your call, get your roadmap from a member of the Education Team, and get to work. No obligation to buy one single thing!

You just need to decide:

• The time you can allocate for organizing 

• The amount of money you have to spend on organizing at the current time

Give this gift to yourself! 

Episode Resources:

• CustomerService@organize365.com

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

I had a huge revelation I have to share with you.

I'm going to equate my PhD journey to your journey and how you're getting organized with Organize 365®. Hang in there while I explain. 

How is what you're doing now getting you ready to get organized? In episode 501 ("Passive Organizing"), I talked about how things like listening to podcasts and doing free blitzes are passive organizing. If you're listening to this podcast and reading this email, then you're learning to become a person who thinks about organization, productivity, and becoming an organized person. You are starting to identify as a person who's learning the skill of organization. 

It's the same as when I was doing "passive academia" during the postbaccalaureate program to set me up for extreme success for the PhD program. In the 6 week time frame between being accepted to when the postbaccalaureate started, I didn't know what to do or where to start. The only thing I knew to do (since I knew no one at the university) was to search for PhD podcasts in my podcast player. Doing so helped me to assimilate into the world of academia. It helped me to identify as a person who was getting a PhD.

We are always in a process of passively doing the next thing, auditioning for the next thing, or actively doing it. You are so ready to be in the auditioning or active stage because you listen to this podcast and you understand the lingo. We speak the same language and you've been passively organizing...it's time to move to the next step!

Audition organizing is when you're investing your time versus your money. There are so many ways you can do this with Organize 365® - so many ways that I don't mention often enough. The podcast, blitzes, free week of The Productive Home Solution® - you can follow me for a long time and never buy anything and still get organized!! 

Is that going to keep me in business? NO. So that's where active organizing shows up. You actively organize with your dollars. You've tried with your time already, now it's time to try with your money. You start to take advantage of the paid things to move you forward faster. Do you want to get organized in a longer amount of time with less money or a faster amount of time with more money? 

When you have all the resources at your disposal, you make faster progress because you're not wondering how you can get the same effect without the item you need. You can get from passive organizing to audition organizing with the Holiday Blitz. You can get from audition organizing to active organizing with The Productive Home Solution®. If you've already done the Holiday Blitz but you're not ready for The Productive Home Solution® - then start with the Sunday Basket® or the Holiday Blitz Bundle. Try out a planning day by registering for the Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day! What would set you up best for running even faster and being even more prepared for when you're ready to take advantage of the next opportunity?

Everything is happening FOR us, not TO us. You're in the right place at the right time. If you are in the active organizing stage and you've made the investment in Organize 365® and you're seeing the transformation - THANK YOU! Please come be my guest on the Wednesday Podcast if you haven't done so. For everyone in our community app, thank you for nurturing everyone who is new to this journey and affirming and encouraging them along the way. Remember how you felt when you were moving from passive organizing to auditioning? Then auditioning to active? Reminisce on those feelings and use that as fuel to help others be successful the way you have. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Holiday Blitz

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Sunday Basket®

• Sign up for the Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365­® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU learn the skill of organization, too!

In this episode, I introduce you to Kathryn P. who found the Organize 365® Podcast when the paper became too overwhelming and she was looking for help. Kathryn is one of the most generous people. She is a mom to her 18 year old, a foster parent, and is also a teacher. In our conversation, it was clear she does not let any of her kids go without. She provides a safe space for them. Each kid comes with a lot of paperwork though. After Kathryn moved from her 2 bedroom apartment to a 4 bedroom home she now owns, there was just too much stuff and too much paper!

Who doesn’t shop the estate sale of the home you are buying? LOL! Kathryn was a smart cookie and did just that! Listen in as we discuss Kathryn’s move from the apartment to the home that was partially furnished due to that estate sale. There were also some renovations that were required. Kathryn used painting and other tasks as ways to teach and bond with her foster kids.  Kathryn also set up her “general store” in her attic. She knows where all the extra supplies are for each kid's needs like pencils, luggage, and stuffed animals. 

Being a teacher and a foster parent serves Kathryn well because she understands what these kids need in the school setting. She takes the kids to their doctor appointments, obtains the 504C’s, and of course an IEP for school. That equates to a lot of paperwork. She decided to make her own Warrior MAMA Binder for the kiddos to keep things organized. This is also where she keeps the sign in sheet for the social worker’s visits. While discussing the slash pockets, I got such a great idea from Kathryn; each kid gets half of a slash pocket. Yes! We are starting to work with a school on a pilot program and I was thinking they’ll need extra slash pockets, but this solution solves that dilemma! See, we all need a community to share ideas and encourage one another!

On another teacher note, we discussed the natural cadence of a teacher's life. We call them Golden Windows. Kathryn and I discussed her floors getting replaced. She was prepared, in her most recent Golden Window, to replace her floor until the contractor told her she was missing something. So now she just knows that it gets shifted to next year, same Golden Window, in summer. That’s why we do the planning days. Maximize these natural breaks the school year gives you and plan because then life gets going fast again and you don’t have that time to plan. The planning days give you an opportunity to think about the next 120 days, what needs to get accomplished, holidays/special occasions, prep for those holidays/special occasions, and establish what you want routines to look like. This helps Kathryn to focus on her classroom and her foster kids and not sweat things because she has planned for them.

Kathryn’s advice is, “Focus on one thing and find the joy in it.” If you look at the whole project, you will be frustrated that more isn’t getting done. Kathryn gives her time and attention to the kid(s) when she has them and organizes when she doesn’t. She chooses to focus on the positives. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution® Warrior MAMA Binder

• Education Friday Workbox®

• The Paper Solution®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

I am grateful that you are reaching out to share your stories and progress with me and with the Organize 365® community. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

Today on the podcast, we talk to Jacquie Denny - Founder of Everything But The House which is based in Cincinnati. She is a female business owner I met years ago when I was still doing in-home professional organizing. She and Co-Founder Brian Graves met at a tag sale and began EBTH in 2008. Their first online sale was $10,000. They were so excited that they took their spouses out to dinner!

Everything But The House began as a business to bring estate sales online in order to get better prices for their clients and reach a broader market and audience. They would go into a house, photograph everything, then invite buyers into the home to pick up their items. Within about 6 years, they changed their approach and now take all the estate items into a facility so buyers no longer visit the home of the client and potentially damage it or the surrounding property during the transaction.

Every single home has these 3 things: saleable, donatable, and disposable items. When Lisa first met Jacquie, she asked: "What about the paper?" to which Jacquie asked: "What paper? - We don't do paper." That's when I knew focusing on paper was the right business model for Organize 365®!

We talked about how the generations that Jacquie has worked with have transformed the market place. The Silent Generation stays in the same house their entire lives and never downsizes. The Baby Boomers are more apt to downsize or sell off their items before they end up burdening their children with them. Now Gen X and younger generations are far less interested in valuable items and would much rather spend money on vacations or life experiences. Jacquie says she's currently downsizing the largest generation in history - and they think furniture is their most valuable property. Not a lot of 20 or 30-somethings want the big, ornate dining room sets anymore!

Jacquie mentioned a few things she's learned over the years that she thought would be helpful for others to hear.

First: don't make the mistake of assuming that the longer you hold on to an item, the more valuable it gets. Everything has a 'shelf life' or a life cycle. So for example, if you have a signed Joe Burrow item - sell it while he's still hot! Don't hold on to it thinking in another 5-10 years it'll be worth more than it is now after he's no longer "at the top of his game".

Second: things that will almost always hold value are jewelry, art, and luxury goods (such as purses and shoes).

Third: what you paid for something or how much it means to you has no influence on what you'll sell it for...it's all about the market!

Fourth: the biggest sin you can commit is this - hanging onto an item you aren't emotionally ready to let go of, putting it into a storage facility where it’s forgotten until someone else finds it after you're gone. The diminishing return on that item while it sits there month after month is harder to swallow than letting go of the emotion attached to it, selling it while you still can and using that money for something else.

Some people let go of things to pay for expensive vacations. Some people sell things to pay off medical bills. Greg and I ended up selling our gold class rings in 2008 to keep the kids in school, and selling other items that our families had bought for the kids when they were very young (remember layettes?) in order to pay medical bills and other expenses. Sometimes you have to give up things that you think are valuable in order to survive!

Want to find out more about Everything But The House? Browse their "Marketplace For The Uncommon" and see if you can find a treasure, or reach out to them to sell a treasure you might already own. Remember, everything is something to someone!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Everything But The House

• Free Consultation (online)

• Call 888-965-8672 (or listen to the podcast for Jacquie's number!)

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365­® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU learn the skill of organization, too!

In this episode, I introduce you to Jacquie Denny, a Cincinnati native and Founder of Everything But The House. I remember calling Jacquie many years ago to have breakfast to talk about Organize 365®. Jacquie had discovered her own successful business through settling her father’s estate and I was looking to pick her brain. She watched as the auctioneer sold her father’s items for pennies on the dollar and thought there just had to be a better way. She also knew that children or loved ones settling an estate likely have full time jobs on top of trying to settle an estate, which is like a full time job of its own. She stumbled into solving a large need for people in her surrounding area by sharing her lived experiences to make others’ lives easier. Now Jacquie finds herself becoming like a family member, almost like a therapist, to families as they navigate this difficult time.

Jacquie was an empty nester for 18 months till Jacquie’s dad got a cancer diagnosis. Caring for your parents is so much different than caring for your children. You don’t know how long they will be with you. You may not realize all the appointments they now have, prescriptions that need to be picked up, unexpected lengthy tests they may need. You may even need to cook for them, possibly feed them, and assist in daily hygiene. Unfortunately over the course of 10 years, Jacquie and her husband said goodbye to all of their parents. Jacquie really shared a lot about what it takes to care for loved ones and the toll it takes on the caregiver. And in the end, all of the arrangements that need to be made during an emotional time. Nowadays it's common to not live in the same state as your parents or siblings. Often, parents have remarried and we find ourselves as executors of multiple estates. As their decline begins, it’s a good time to discuss with siblings, or whomever will be helping with caregiving, what the expectations are based on convenience, what your job will allow, and proximity to the loved one. 

Jacquie had been a stay at home mom when her father passed. After settling one estate after another, her family defaulted to her because she was a stay at home mom and had done it before. Settling an estate is an all consuming process! Jacquie’s business filled this void. She started working her business on the weekends while her husband traveled for work. Little did she know that her business would explode when she went online, with the help of her business partner Brian in 2008. At the end of the day, one of the things that helps Jacquie with her families is organization! Things are going to change and be unpredictable, but with organization it’s easier to pivot. Jacquie’s hope is that all of us will use our experiences and hand down advice to our children on how to survive it better. Do as we learned, not as we did.

Jacquie’s advice is…

• The more organized you can be, the better off you’ll be because things continually change.

• Utilize a lot of communication and patience to sustain sibling/other caregiver relationships.

• Don’t assume your support system knows what you need in your caregiving role. 

• If your loved one is not in a facility, contribute how you can remotely with:

• Sporadic visits where you assume a lot of the daily responsibilities to give siblings or whomever a break. Do some deep cleaning or make freezer meals for when you head home. Help them run errands or pick up their kids (your nieces/nephews) from sports or activities.

• Cold hard cash to cover the meals, gas, prescriptions, personal care items of your loved one.

• Be creative on how you can lighten the load and show you care.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

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