I have been feeling the tug to share my personal experience with depression for quite a while.

It may surprise you to hear that I have struggled with depression. I'm a pretty upbeat gal! Well, it surprised me too.

In today's podcast, I share my personal story with depression and how it affects every area of your life.

Here are 5 tips I gave myself and share with clients about how depression affects organization.

1. Give yourself grace.

I cannot even put into words how depression zapped me of every shred of energy to do ANYTHING. And the thought of tackling an organization project was SO overwhelming. My "will power" got up and went - AWAY!

2. Get a friend to help you.

Another friend's perspective, energy and motivation are contagious and can help you push through when you just want to watch TV. Used strategically, friends can help you get organized and stay functioning when your own initiative is low.

Over 50% of the Organize 365 clients call us in to help because they just can't do the organizing themselves in their depressed state.

3. Pick ONE area and COMPLETE it before moving on no matter how long it takes.

Slow and steady wins the race! Your home did not become a "mess" overnight, and it won't get organized overnight either. One step at a time.

Pick an area where you can get a quick win and start there:

• Your night stand
• Your dresser
• The car
• The Master Closet

The key is to MAINTAIN that area when you tackle area #2. The Productive Home Solution™ is ordered in a way so the areas you organize will stay organized as you move on to the next area of your home.

4. Acknowledge your limitations.

I know how frustrated you are! Knowing what I USED to be able to do made me even MORE depressed when I couldn't seem to tackle even the basics when I was depressed.

If it's a bad day... it's OK! You have time to get organized and take care of yourself.

And when your desire is beyond your physical ability - hire help.

5. Surround yourself with positive people.

I know it's easier to say than do, but I always felt better when I made myself go OUT and BE with people, even though I didn't want to.

I can't even tell you how many times we will be laughing with clients and then they say,

• "I can't believe how fun you make organizing!"
• "I haven't been able to laugh like that in a long time."
• "If I knew how quickly you could get this organized I wouldn't have waited so long to call."
• and our favorite. "I can't believe there are people who actually LIKE to organize!"

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• The Sunday Basket®

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Here it is, the first chapter of my latest book Escaping Quicksand. I thought it was necessary for the reader to understand that I too have found myself in quicksand and realized there was no rock bottom to hit. Through escaping “the quicksand”, I learned the lesson of the unpopular truth that you have to make yourself a priority. 

How Did I Get In the Pit of Despair?

I’ve always been a planner and organized. But the systems I brought into adulthood slowly started to break as the complexity of life increased by adding a spouse, a house, and children. I suppose it was around the time of the 2008 recession that life gave the final push into the pit of despair. My father had fallen which led to a decline in his health and ultimately his passing. My sister and I shared roles to care for him and then settle his estate but it was a lot financially, logistically, and emotionally. On top of that I had become a very negative person that no one really wanted to be around. The more I fought to not sink lower in the quicksand of the pit of despair, the deeper I fell. 

Grandma’s Car

As I was getting ready to turn 40 I realized that no one was coming to save me. If it was to be it was up to me! I remembered all the inspirational and motivational speakers I’d heard in the back seat of my grandma’s car and when I’d been in tow with my mother at events. Some of their one liners started popping into my head. It was at that point that I realized I needed to support myself in the same way I support my family members in their daily lives, with their diet, physical fitness, and education! It was up to me to fix my broken life. We are so busy taking care of everyone else that we get lost in the mix and never get put on the list. The first thing I did was organize my physical spaces and that’s when I wrote Organization is a Learnable Skill. 

Pampering Is Not Self Care

Yes, a pedicure is nice, but we need to do so much more to take care of ourselves. There’s child care and elder care — but when do we get to self-care? It’s not selfish. When I realized no one was coming to save me, I was not ready to assume care for myself. My life was a mess, and I remember thinking, “How was this my life?” I had taken care of my family, of course, but something clicked and I knew, “If it was to be, it was up to me.” That felt overwhelming because at that point I could only go day by day. I freed up time by quitting my job, and it became my mission to get out of the quicksand.

This book explains how I took care of myself so that I could better take care of everyone else. We all know the cliché truth that on an airplane you have to put on your own air mask before helping a child. It’s uncomfortable to focus on yourself — but you must.

If you loved hearing this chapter, then you’ll want to preorder your hard copy of Escaping Quicksand because you’ll immediately join the book club. I’ll be releasing the audio version one week at a time to allow you to process and implement the chapter. There will also be discussion questions for the community to chat about. I look forward to seeing you in the book club!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Preorder your hard copy of Escaping Quicksand

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

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I’ve been talking about a book I’ve been writing and I’m here to tell you all the juicy details and that you can preorder it now! In the end, I realized the world didn’t need a book on how to organize your home because you have no resources to complete the tasks. Escaping Quicksand will arm you with the tools to get your home organized and move to productivity!

Thought Process and Creation

This is my sixth book. I don’t tell you that to brag. I tell you that to share that I have published each book in different ways. Not sure if you have written a book but I always like to share my journey and thought process in case it’s something you have been thinking about doing too. 

I really struggled with feeling “set” on the book theme. I wrote two other versions of “the book” I thought I was going to publish. But one morning about 5am, it came to me. The first chapter was written in about an hour and it felt right. I finally nailed down what people needed. I wrote a book on shifting your mindset to accomplish your home organization goals!   I shared the first paragraph with my team and they unanimously agreed, yes this is the book people need.   I wrote it in two weeks. It was effortless and I felt passionate about what I was sharing. 

And when do people need it? In June of course. I insisted on having it released on June 23rd. Why? Because that’s when our year is “wrapping up.” The end of June is when I have our team week. It’s when school is wrapping up, we’re resetting, and dreaming. And July is a great month to read a new book. This is a thinking book. Secret: When you preorder, chapters will be released early!

What’s It About 

You will start reading the first three pre chapters.  I started by sharing my quicksand story. I realized when you have hit “rock bottom”, it turns out that you just keep going, like no end to the pit. You just keep sinking until the quicksand swallows you! I want to help you before you get too deep in the quicksand. Inevitably, it seems as though we hit 40 and reevaluate life; that come to Jesus conversation we have with ourselves.  We’ve had enough and know there has to be a solution out there somewhere. 

And what about us? When do we put ourselves on the to do list? So, the next chapter is about self care. How do we care for our whole person? Our education, spiritual care, health, and all the other aspects of a whole person. The third prechapter is the fact that our household is an economic powerhouse. 

And then we get into the meat of the book explaining Swiss cheese organizing, being a woman of excellence, morning and afternoon routines, letting go of housework expectations, taking “center stage” when doing housework, weekly planning, and from to do lists to productivity!

Get the Book and Join the Book Club

Who loves a book club? There are already over 1,000 people who have preordered the book and have the opportunity to join the book club. You can preorder the book through the Organize 365® website or through your favorite book retailer. Then just upload your receipt and you too can join the book club. I am planning on releasing the chapters early each week for 13 weeks. I will release videos and will be posing questions out there for all of us to discuss about the chapters and how it applies to you as a household manager. This will allow you to change your mindset in real time. It’s too easy to just keep reading and not take action. This slow release will give you a week to ruminate about what you read and what the community has said. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Preorder your hard copy of Escaping Quicksand

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

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Ok, the line leader for executive functions is working memory. Remember? At the end of the line is the higher level executive function of planning. Planning is the ultimate self care because it ensures high priority tasks will get completed and gives you peace. I’m explaining how getting your working memory and prospective memory to play nice, will allow Planning to have a chance to play a role in your life and finally free up your full cognitive bandwidth! 

TMP

Time management planning; plan for the day, prioritize, and set deadlines. You wrote your brian down on paper and you decided if it could wait. The items that could not wait need to be plugged into a time block in your week. This is Time management planning. The key to this is leaving a little white space for when life’s inevitable interruptions pop up. 

Contingency Planning

You uplevel your planning when you have a contingent plan. Choose which items, if need be, for tomorrow’s plan can be pushed to the next day or put back in the Sunday Basket®. We all know we will be interrupted but have you made a contingency plan, a back up plan, for the day you are planning? Studies show that people who have contingency plans get more done than those who do not. Those same studies show, mind you this is in the workplace, that even with support staff and a cleaning crew, they still only complete their to-do list, 80% of the time. At least one day a week they are not completing their tasks. Now I ask you, do you think we are interrupted more at home or at work? At home we are definitely interrupted more and we are the support staff and the cleaning crew. I hope this is giving you insight as to why you are not completing your to do list. There is a lot demanding our time.

The Sunday Basket® shines at contingent planning. On Sunday when you are making the week’s plan, you can think through your meals, what if there is a snow day, what if a college doesn’t meet their deadline. But you must plan at the end. We realized, in looking over the 80 questions submitted for the Sunday Basket® webinar in late December, that most of you aren’t getting to the planning step. You should start with sorting index cards and going through slash pockets, then you do random tasks and managerial tasks, for me it’s CFO stuff. 

Lastly, PLAN!  I say it takes me 90 min to 3 hours because it depends on how much I do between sorting and planning. Pro tip: I plan Friday “in pencil.” I take all the tasks I need to complete and fill them into time blocks based on importance of completion. I know though, that by Friday, some tasks will have overflowed to Friday. Life happened all week. Some items will have to go back to the Sunday Basket® and some items will be pushed to Friday. There has to be white space for flexibility. That’s why we have to honestly answer, “Can it wait till Sunday?” This question may free up time that was already given to something you wanted to do not had to do. There just isn’t enough time to get it all done but there is enough time, if you plan, to get all the important stuff done through planning. 

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is the long term planning, like what we do on Planning Day, in the Productive Home Solution™. When planning, it is best to have uninterrupted time because it requires our working memory. We cannot change people so we modify the environment. We cannot eliminate distractions so we must have daily/weekly plans. Planning will never become a habit. But you can use things like the beginning of the school week to plan your weeks and the school year as a reminder to get some long term planning done. Strategic planning is how we get a grounding system in place to tackle the three types of planning; TMP, contingency, and strategic.  Planning is the ultimate self care.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution

• Register for Webinar Replays

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

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Can goal attainment really be effortless? Yes! How? I’m sharing a science backed and real life proven strategy to, yes, attain your goals effortlessly with environment modification. Last week I told you to write everything down. Now what? 

Your Brain On Paper

If you were a good lil student, you have started to write down all of your interruptive thoughts. Stop trying to remember everything, just write it down! Now you have all of these thoughts on paper, your brain on paper and you may be overwhelmed.  The next step, is to decide can it wait till Sunday? If so, pop that baby into the Sunday Basket® for safe keeping until it can’t wait. If not, add it to your to do list for the day. If you find you are always saying yes it can wait, but you don’t have a lot of motivation to get it accomplished, it’s ok to toss it. Our goals, energy, money, where we live, stage of family life, our house, and other factors change projects we want to do. You aren’t going to get it all done because you aren’t getting it all done now. Let yourself off the hook for projects you are not longer interested in finishing. 

Evolution of Systems

Our families are ever changing and I was reminded of this during my grand-turnity. Abby had her baby and I am home more helping to take care of her and my grandsons. I don’t cook. But I do make Thanksgiving dinner. I thought it would be nice  to make until Greg pointed out that had I just asked Greg to do it, he would have. I abdicated cooking many years ago. Greg is used to cooking and didn’t appreciate me taking up space in the fridge while the turkey defrosted. You see, back in the day saving money was the goal. My cooking and grocery shopping “reality” is from those days but our family has changed. I picked up a couple of turkeys while they were cheap around Thanksgiving knowing I’d be home after Abby had the baby. But I don’t grocery shop or cook anymore. I could have saved a lot of my time and money had I just let Greg do it if  I had just thought about today’s reality of my family dynamics and roles.

Ok the next thing to consider is your environment. First, do you still need the blender on the counter? You know it’s not about the actual blender, it’s just an appliance or thing you may have on the counter that you are no longer using. Smoothies may have been an everyday thing that is no longer. I moved ours to the basement, sometimes I forget, I should just pop a lil note inside the cupboard to remind me. I mean, no one is looking in my cupboards. Is your environment supporting your current goals? Could you modify your environment to better support your goals? 

Decluttering and Organizing Surfaces Thoughts

I realized when I wanted to start adding collagen to my coffee that my environment was not set up to support my goals. I had about 9 steps to make my coffee, I’d get to my car and realize I had forgotten the collagen.  If you are trying to lose weight, remove the cookies and put fruit in that same place. You can’t eat what is not in your house. And you can’t rely solely on willpower. AND it signals cues to your brain about your new goals. Science shows that when your environment is modified you can attain your goals effortlessly. As you realize what you want to modify you will need to declutter and organize that space. 

The Productive Home Solution may bring light to spaces you want to modify and it will walk you through the decluttering and functionality of that space. There is a caveat here. You will have more success if you have the foundation of the Sunday Basket® established because you will already be in the habit of writing down interruptive thoughts. I went through the thought process of setting up a coffee station. In moving things around, it brought to light the cup/bottle situation for my grandsons. I wrote things down and will take action on a Sunday. The time you spend modifying your spaces to match your goals will give back time to your future self. Then the systems you put in place will simply need to be maintained. The synergy between The Sunday Basket and The Productive Home Solution will have you saving time, cognitively offloading, gaining support for your goals and making better choices too!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution

• Register for Webinar Replays

• 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

Ozempic is to food chatter as Index cards are to the invisible work of being a household manager. We write any thought down, cognitive offloading, and free up capacity to THINK. As household managers we aren’t struggling so much with the housework, it’s all of the invisible thoughts that interrupt what we were doing and now can’t remember what we need to do. We are constantly volleying between working memory and prospective memory!  Your working memory is your primary executive function. I want your working memory to serve its actual purpose, not just remembering to put the clothes in the dryer. What does that mean? Catch the full episode!!  

New Rules

Imagine you head back to school after break and the school says that’s it, no more backpacks, lockers, or computers. You must carry everything with you throughout the day.  That’s a lot to carry right? But we practice this everyday when we try to remember everything with no support staff, no help. And as soon as we think of something we need to do there’s a “ding”, a notification, a text, an interruption. So just like they gave new rules, I have a new rule for you…write everything down. It’s hard to keep trying to remember everything -that’s what working memory is - your brain constantly reminding you of what needs to get done.

There is science backing the idea that writing things down helps with recall.  One study I shared confirmed yes it’s better for recall and another study backed that hypothesis up with an MRI showing different blood flow when we hold a pen and write on paper than even a stylist to a screen.  May I point out that when you are pen to paper there is no notification or anything else interrupting your thought process other than other thoughts. Which if you write each one down they won’t interrupt your mindfulness. You can stay focused on your current task. I explained all of this when I gave the example of something as simple as trying to input a passcode. The amount of things that can interrupt you when you are simply “sending yourself a passcode” to then enter on an app, site, or browser that you need, is comical.  

I accidentally started using this system, which has proven effective, a long time ago of just writing everything down. And in this fast paced world with notifications distracting you continuously, it’s a system to record what you want to remember (Prospective Memory)…what have you got to lose? Go grab a 5 pack of index cards and let your brain’s flood gates open, then start writing them down. 

Got a Full Classroom?

Now imagine that you are the professor. Your working memory (the ability to hold information in your mind and manipulate it to complete work) is the classroom. It’s orientation day for over 100 freshman college students. Can you hear all that chatter of the students? Can you even think? All those students are your thoughts. Now, you can clear out that classroom by writing down each thought. You write down the thought, the student leaves the classroom, and you gain back some of your working memory. That’s why we write every thought down. You need to quiet your brain so you can think, not remember simple tasks like housework. Just because you are born a girl does not mean you innate know this skill. 

Do the System

A system works best when you do the system. If you’ve heard me say it once, then you’ve heard me say it a thousand times, write down every thought!  Pen to index card. Once you start to cognitively offload your thoughts (to move from your brain to your environment) you free up capacity allowing you to tackle much bigger tasks. Now that you have everything written down, there is no magic that all the sudden everything gets completed. Tune in next week because I am going to tell you the next step and explain why it works.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution

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I left you hangin’ in the last episode as to what the mindset shift is that you must have so that you can be a productive person. It’s Discipline. And discipline is my word for this year. "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment" - Jim Rohn

What is the definition?

-Some of you may have a negative knee jerk reaction to the word discipline. Ready for me to reframe discipline in you mind? It is…

-The act of gaining control with obedience and order (like holding yourself accountable to picking up after yourself.)

-Having behavior in accordance with rules (like the Sunday Basket®)

-Self Control - you can struggle or you can remove items from your environment that have you have effortless self control can’t eat a cookie you didn’t buy and bring home. 

-An activity you engage in regularly to train or inspire ones self.

-A subject taught or field of study (like the study of home management.)

-An institution

If you are listening to the podcast, odds are that you are learning discipline in the area of home management. But you do not get the results from the work you do not do. You must do the work. 

What Does Discipline Look Like? 

Setting and achieving goals is changing your own actions and disciplining yourself to being the person who has already achieved what you want to achieve. So I gave the example of me working out. I used to want our whole family to get healthy and work out together. Not gonna happen. So I have decided to do it for myself to achieve the goals I have for myself. And along with working out, I have changed the way I eat. My husband would prefer a meal that “makes sense and ‘matches.’” A lady at work introduced us all to ingredient eating. Basically you cook the protein, pull out all kinds of things from the fridge like fruits and veggies to compliment the protein and eat what you like.  This would be my preference! So I workout and eat like the person who has already accomplished my goal and support my family in other areas rather than meal preparation and working out with them. 

And the more you do those things, the easier that discipline is. If you ask a productive person how they became that way, they may not be able to tell you. Because they disciplined themselves in one area till it got easier and then moved on to another area.  And know, once you get a system in place, it will change. It will change with your family and phase of life you are in. 

Time Blocks = Confidence

So you see why you need to be disciplined in the time blocks if you want to be a productive person. Time blocks are just these guard rails to keep you on track and systematize your time and responsibilities. Discipline yourself to do the work and it will become easier. I shared some stats to help you see this is not a “you thing.”  This is a field of study, a discipline, to learn how to train ourselves, bring control to, and impose order in our housework and home management. Discipline yourself to process your Sunday Basket® so that you gain confidence in this area. Discipline yourself to start watching the videos to the programs you have purchased. Do you know people who are organized are perceived as more confident? And you know what else? People feel more confident when they are organized! Dave Ramsey said “You can wander into debt but you can’t wander out of it.” And the same is for disorganization you can wander into but you can’t wander out of it…you must discipline yourself. You must have a mindset shift. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

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Who remembers defragging your computer to make it run more efficiently? I’m talking about defragging time confetti into time blocks today. “What is time confetti?” Yes, thank you for asking…it’s all those little 2 or 5 minutes that are free and sprinkled throughout your day. How can you most effectively use your confetti time to conquer the never ending, always evolving list of essential time blocks that you must complete as the mom, wife, and/or household manager? 

4 Essential Time Blocks

Let’s start with what demands our time. We have some mandatory tasks (time blocks) that our homes and lives demand from us. After surveying 1000 people, it became very clear that Americans define housework as laundry, food, and cleaning.  I explained how I like to defrag or consolidate my cleaning and laundry to the same day and time. Saturdays are great for this for me. I get my machines going and clean till about Noon. I auditioned being available for Abby and the grand kids on Saturdays. But, I have realized I like my Lisa time on Saturdays, so I’m keeping it that way to stay sane. And food, good Lord does it take a lot of time to tackle the food part of life. You gotta plan it, buy it, process it, and then prepare it!  It takes time. How can you most efficiently schedule those housework tasks into time blocks? Consolidate like tasks in one time block to efficiently and productively conquer housework. And then there’s a 4th essential time block that life requires out of us. 

Block 4: Household Management

The 4th essential time block to this human experience is…household management. Thank God for the Sunday Basket® that’s all I can say! On Sunday’s I process all the administrative and actionable paperwork for the house including the mail. I look at all the communication for the kids, texts or DM and emails that are family related. Then, I decide where our money is going for the week. Instead of paying one bill here and one there and them each taking 3 minutes. I decide in one setting which ones need to be paid and when I’ll do that. In the past, this has been a game changer. When we didn’t have a lot of money, it really helped me to best manage our money. And then plan my week; my time blocks. I look at all the similar tasks and put them in one time block. Like an errand time block(s). The Sunday Basket® helps you to systematize your house management. The Sunday Basket™ allows delayed procrastination till Sunday and that allows you to productively cluster or consolidate like tasks into one time block. All those invisible tasks we do - we get to visualize them and then schedule them at the optimal time.

Time for Defragging All the Confetti

THIS is a skill set that is learned over time WITH a mindset shift. You must first make the mindset shift to start to practice time blocking. I hope after hearing all of this it makes sense why you would want to defrag your time to cluster like tasks into one time block. But you need time to learn how to do it right? Where will that time come from? Planned neglect and lowering your expectations of what clean and done means my friends. You are going to choose a suggestion or two that I offered to free up some precious time. Like how Saturdays used to be a free day and we ate fast food. You may want to consider outsourcing your cleaning or laundry. I know it costs money to do what you can technically do for free, but in really overwhelming seasons of life, it’ll save your well being and sanity.  It can also free up time for you to learn and begin to practice how to consolidate all the things and place them into time blocks. Productive people habitually think in time blocks. They have made a mindset shift and appreciate the time block “rigidity” over the chaos of time confetti and inefficiency. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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

Ok, it’s another peek into my brain. I’m sharing the things I want to follow me into the new year and things that I’m leaving in 2025. I thought it would be beneficial for you to hear my thoughts behind these decisions and get you thinking about how you want 2026 to look for you. Planning provides a lens of calm. Somehow when a plan is in place, even if it changes, it is not as jarring as when you have to react to change with “emergency energy.” 

What will be joining me

As I think about 2026 approaching, there are some significant changes happening in my life. Abby will have baby number two soon and the PhD is not consuming as much of my time. So, I am looking at the extra time. I want to be intentional with showing up for Abby, taking care of my body, and due to circumstances not yet resolved, looks like I will be doing a lot more housework. 

This next 120 days I’m viewing as my “grand(ma)turnity leave.” I am excited for Planning Day, where I take the time to really look at my time and plug in my priorities of being a grandma and think about how I want to use all this time I am getting back. When it comes to my housework I plan to run the vacuum robot more frequently after getting some listener feedback and tips. And I will run the dishwasher daily which is more frequent than we currently do. I am looking at the time I used to give to the PhD and filling it with my new goals. I am keeping the Tovola that is in alignment with eating healthy. But will likely add in a little meal prepping to accommodate how I want to eat and Grayson’s egg allergy eating regimen. So, on Thursdays, I’ll be doing mid week laundry and some housekeeping. And on Saturdays you will find me at the gym with Grayson. You will find me with Grayson a lot in the next 120 days “sucking up all my time.” And I wouldn't have it any other way. 

What will get left behind

Sit down. I’m leaving Culver’s in 2025!!  Never did I think this day would come but I want to build a healthy body, I still have 46 years to live and I'm really looking at my food right now. Doggy Daycare is closing and the house keeper won’t clean with Hunter home, so no housekeeper.  I will be home longer in the mornings so no more coffee and breakfast at the office. And I’m ditching ithe Oura ring. That thing was frustrating me. I disagreed with it too much. And I want to wear my nice jewlery! I’m ditching my gardening shorts and Organize 365® v-necks for clothes for workout clothes that better match how I identify; as a person who works out. Late night bedtimes are going away too because I want to have plenty of energy for the Abby, Grayson, and working out.

My Golden Window is Ending

I have been spoiled getting to take two luxurious hours each Sunday morning to process my Sunday Basket® upstairs and with little Grayson in tow pretty soon, I will not be able to. I have my Sunday Basket® upstairs and another in my kitchen which is basically Abby’s Sunday Basket®. I plan to break my normal processing time into two different 1 hour chunks. I think I’ll read all the things while Grayson is bathing which will account for about 1 hour or a little less. And I’m auditioning other time blocks for the remaining hour I will need for thinking, planning, and billpay. I will solidify this likely in Planning Day. Now is the time to go into your 2026 Sunday Basket® and grab all those ideas you wrote down and bring them to Planning Day. Those are the ideas and intentions you wanted to consider for the new year. Yes, this community is planning 2026 already. This community does not think you are weird. When you plan now, you get to execute on Jan 1. But if you want till the dust settles in the new year, it’ll be the 5th - the 9th before you start planning let alone executing. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

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Happy New Year! Which resolution did you choose; to lose weight, get outta debt, or get organized? Those are the three most common resolutions. But with any good goal you must have a way to execute an action plan otherwise you will have the same environment just different desires. 

Tame the Toddler 

Sometimes it feels like there is a toddler running around in our brain, right? It is constantly reminding us of future things you need to do. You are just trying to do a task like write an email but your brain is constantly bombarded with things you want to do as you look around your office or wherever you are. I got so tired of that, that I started to write everything down. Your Sunday Basket® comes with index cards for this purpose. I quiet my brain so I can be productive. As long as I follow through on Sundays, my brain will trust me that it’s written down and it will get addressed. If not, it throws a tantrum and says “Since you lied, and didn’t do it when you said you would, I’m going to bug you more often so you don’t forget.” Don’t let that toddler control the narrative in your brain as you try to work through and complete tasks - just write it down. 

Write It Down 

I was talking to someone about mindfulness. To be clear I asked him how he defined mindfulness. It’s basically being present with a person or activity. I thought, well I’m like 100% mindful. I know it sounds unrealistic but the theory goes that a person has a task thought and then makes a decision about it. But I have a thought, write it down, and carry on with what I was doing. When I get free time throughout the day, I decide if it can wait till Sunday. If it can wait it goes in the Basket for review on Sunday. And if not I place it in front of the Sunday Basket to address when I have time that day. This is where time and capacity come from! I offload my thoughts into my environment. Study after study confirms this is the most effective strategy to remember what you want to remember to do in the future - prospective memory. 

If your goal is to change up the spaces in your home, you need a Sunday Basket® to hold all of the ideas you have for that project. How you intend to use the drawers, cabinets, or spaces. It’s 10x’s harder to try to complete that task on memory alone because your brain is trying to remember all the normal stuff and all the ideas you have for that space. I don’t know about you but my brain is the worst note taker! The Sunday Basket® is a great keeper of the notes about the things I want to do, have, and be!

The Sunday Basket® is Spanx for Your Kitchen Counter Clutter

Let’s talk about all the boxes or catch all containers you have in your house. At some point you got a call that company was coming to your house. In one swoop, you gathered everything from your kitchen counter, but did you go through it after your company left? This is why the Sunday Basket® is the solution for normal people trying to do #allthethings.  If your goal this year is to get organized, get out of debt, or lose weight, the system, the essential “office supply” you need is the Sunday Basket®. You shove all your kitchen counter clutter in it, you feel more organized already(get your environment to match your intention), and it looks good on your kitchen counter just like Spanx for our bodies. The Sunday Basket® is an organized way and holding all of your ideas on how you want to accomplish getting organized, getting out of debt, losing weight, or any other resolution you set for yourself this year.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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.

You made it! All the holiday stuff is done. It’s the day after Christmas and you are finally coming up for air. You finally have a minute to think about what you need on this bonus day as your family is entertained with their new stuff.  Well I have a couple of treats for you. 

I know on Black Friday, you were shopping for others. But now, now that you can think about what you’d like…You’d like to upgrade your DIY Sunday Basket®. You are in luck because when you get the Sunday Basket®, now till the end of the year, you will also get a portable Sunday Basket®! That’s a $75 value just for getting a system that will keep your actionable papers safe. We are in this never ending rat race and now that we made it through the holidays, it’s almost the new year and another thing after that.  You need a system to keep everything straight and in a place you can find them. 

And if you already have the Sunday Basket® and value the system, you may be ready to commit to implementing a system in your house to optimize the people in it and the phase of life you are in. And right now, you’ll get Planning Day added on for free.  You won’t get the workbook in time but good news…the replay is available for 6 weeks. You may be on the fence about joining because of the price or the time commitment. But think about if your spouse wanted to get in shape. Would you find room in your budget to pay for a gym membership or improve their work out clothes? If they wanted to further their education would you find funds to pay for it and allow them time for their studies? You would do it fo them, now it’s time to do it for you! I know sometimes we feel like we should inherently know how to organize a home but we just don’t.   The course will support you in learning this system and you will be even more supported by the community inside the app.  I know, you just want your home to run effortlessly. You just want to know where the stuff is when you need it. Join the Productive Home Solution and set your intention for 2026.

And then I want to invite you to join me on Monday December 29th for a webinar where I will be sharing the science behind why the Sunday Basket® and The Productive Home Solution works. What is going on in our brains as we get organized? Tune in as I explain the science!

Option 1:

Free Portable Sunday Basket® when you purchase the Complete Sunday Basket®

Option 2:

Free Planning Day when you join The Productive Home Solution

Option 3: 

Treat yourself to both foundational systems!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• CustomerService@organize365.com

• New Year New You Enrollment Guide

• Join the Webinar: 3 science packed habits for effortless

self-control and goal attainment in 2026

• 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.

Happy Boxing Day! Let’s talk about transitions and what you need to declutter or add to resemble where you are going. We are all transitioning into the new year. I’m sharing the smallest shift you can make to be more intentional with what you want to get out of 2026. How are you planning with that anticipatory energy of things to come when the ball drops at midnight on New Years Eve?

Transition

So yes, we are all transitioning into a new year. We have this anticipatory energy as to what could happen for us in 2026.  For me personally I’m thinking about a “new me” too. I know this is common for this time of year but if you have been listening to the podcast you know this has been on my radar in 2025. I have adjusted and transitioned into a person who works out. I shared some habits I’ve made with my workout schedule, water consumption, increasing my movement, and changes in my eating habits this past year.  Increasing my workout frequency, it dawned on me that I may need to buy more clothes for pilates. I’ve transitioned into a person that works out. But my workout clothes did not reflect that. I started in gardening shorts and Organize 365® v-necks. Time to make my clothes reflect my intentions.  You see, I find it beneficial to set my environment to match the intention of the transformation I’m working towards. It’s a small shift that has had a big impact. So I will be getting a few new items for working out. Because I am now a person who works out. 

When you consider transitions you have made this year it may require changes in wardrobe, equipment, and maybe your office, to do, be, and have what you want in 2026. You kids too will transition. Maybe they need new age appropriate toys, better fitting clothes, or even a uniform for a new club they joined.

Transformation

How can you signify to yourself that you have changed? The smallest yet effective thing I have done in my transformation processes is to make my environment match how I identify with myself. I needed new clothes that a person who works out wears. I needed a new water bottle once I realized the office has reverse osmosis and the waste I was creating with my bottled water; because I’m a person who drinks water.  I want you to carefully consider what did you learn in 2025 and what new habits will be going into 2026 with you as a result of who you transformed into.  

Transition – > Transformation

Put it all together? Planning Day is the perfect time to really reflect on all these ideas. How do you use your time now? What habits did you change? Are you choosing a word of the year? It’s the time to decide what habits are going with you into the new year,  set some intentions, and make your environment match those intentions. We’ll take six combined hours between Prep Planning Day(2 hours on 12/29) and Planning Day (6 hours on 12/31) to look at your time to see where you can pop in new things to try out that will support your intentions. And if a large project like sprucing up a room or getting a PhD is part of the transformation you can get to planning what that will look like with your real life, your real family, and your real goals. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Planning Day

• 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

We are in it! There’s no time left to plan anything so how can you still be proactive and ahead of things? I’m sharing my sanity saving tips to meet you and your family’s needs and still show up as your best self in these last couple of weeks in December. We are in those flexible strange last weeks of the year so what can you do to save your sanity? 

Event Go Bags

If you only have time to implement one thing - this is it! Event go bags are like the go back you should have packed to grab at a moment’s notice so you have the things you need while you are away from home for an unknown amount of time. In this instance, you will look at the calendar and place a bag, in an out of the way area, for each event. Then you’re going to put some kind of clip on it to attach any notes you make to yourself about the event like grab the appetizer from the refrigerator or return the book to Aunt Betty that you want to remember as you go out the door for the event. As the date approaches, you can add items to the bag too that you want to remember to bring…maybe Aunt Betty’s book. 

And I strongly recommend a donation area. I know I talked about it recently that you may be getting the bug to declutter. We have January energy creeping up on us and we want things to be clean before company comes. A great free activity is decluttering with your kids. Because they are home and they are bored! But you definitely don’t have time to pack everything up and head to a donation center.  No problem. Create a designated area for items you may want to donate. And while decluttering you may find Aunt Betty’s book which then you can place in that bag which is likely near the donation area. See how that just works out? This is the beauty of the Sunday Basket® that we all appreciate. It’s one designated place for safe keeping actionable items until the time we intend to address them. I know these two spaces may create a little clutter but let’s be honest most of our homes look like it’s the day before laundry day right now anyway!  Let’s stay sane.

Two Week Big Haul

I realize this next suggestion you may have to play with your paycheck schedule now but utilize it this year and plan for it next year in your operations binder.  I want you to make a grocery haul for the next two weeks. We talked about a version of this before Thanksgiving. You need snacks, meals, and more snacks. The kids are off school and people are snacking like it’s their job. Think about all the appetizers or items you need to bring to any parties. Consider paper plates this year in between the meals or even for the meals too depending on your phase of life. Just decide what is right for your family.  Then do it. Consider your finances and then decide what all you can do and get it done to save your sanity! You don’t have time for multiple trips to the store in addition to everything else.

Final Suggestions

Gas up the car so you can get to where you need to go without having to make yourself late stopping to get gas. Make sure you have enough stamps for thank you letters or Christmas cards.  And if you are stuck in the stone age with me using cash, get some cash. You never know when you’ll need to pay someone back for your half of the meal or something they picked up for you.  Or you could just send it on Zelle or Venmo like the cool kids. Take advantage of these tips because these last few weeks are going to be amazing!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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.

Are you ready to hear all about Sarah Hart Unger’s new book, “Best Laid Plans”? I learned new things from reading it and in this podcast I hope you too learn new ways to make yourself more efficient. Then grab your copy of her book.  There are few people who love to plan as much as me and Sarah is one of them. Sarah shared all about planning with school aged children, how she’s overcoming distractions and how to still dream.

Closed Systems Input

She had me by page 14! She was talking about all the input from closed systems that we are all overwhelmed with between an organization’s app, Whatsapp, school apps, etc. It’d be nice if they all talked to each other…or would it be? I was so excited Grayson’s school was able to populate my google calendar till I realized it was all events for the school. I guess I liked it better with manual entry but then we discussed there has to be a cadence to checking all the closed systems and knowing where to put it in your trusted system so you will see it when you need to. We also talked about the cognitive load and admin time it takes to collect all of the information that needs to be on the calendar. And for the love, people, plan your planning time; don’t just try to work it into the nooks and cranny of your day.

Long Range Planning

Sarah offered such a powerful way to think of long range planning. Start with thinking of how old your children will be, you will be, and how you want life to look by that time. It’s effective to zoom out to a bird's eye view to get a different perspective of time passing. I really loved that way of planning for the future and planning the next 5 years. She suggested thinking of milestones or big birthdays and how do you want to celebrate them? She envisioned a celebration which included travel for her 20th anniversary and now they are headed to HI next year to do just that. What you think about you bring about. Sarah did hers for travel but you could do it for your career, a PhD, your family, living location, type of house, or anything else. 

Time Blocking

We learned something interesting here, I retroactively fill in how I spent my time if there’s a blank space as a reminder to myself and my family that I did act as the wife, mother, and grandmother while I pursue my career and passions. And Sarah retroactively fills in her media use to hold herself accountable even podcasts she may have listened to. She got a gold star for having documented listening to the Organize 365® Podcast.

Time Sucks

Sarah shared that she doesn’t have social media because she cannot trust herself on it. Some people can’t have a little bit of chocolate and she cannot have a little bit of social media. Although we both laughed how we somehow got sucked into Reddit!  I shared how I will be filling my old PhD time slot with the gym. Sarah said yes, to replace a time suck with something that you want to start to do or something more productive like audio books. We all have to fill our cups and you could be filling your cup instead of wasting time.

Planner Privilege

So imagine (these are general observations) the wife says “Let’s plan next weekend.” Husband replies he doesn’t want to and “It always works out!” Sarah and I laughed because for the most part everything fun you have ever done was planned. It always “works out” for the other spouse because it was planned by the opposite spouse.  We talked pros and cons of the white board and digital solutions. Then we talked about how you get your family involved with the system you’ve chosen and how to communicate the schedule. It was all so good! Listen then grab her book, “Best Laid Plans”

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Best Laid Plans by Sarah Hart Unger

• 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 feel it and I know you do too. That decluttering and planning energy is starting to bubble up but who has time to deal with that? No one. We’re all stuck in this purgatory of sorts where Thanksgiving is done but there’s a lul until the December holiday that you celebrate. So I’m sharing best practices to harness that energy, use it for good, but all delay doing anything about it, for just a little bit.

Decluttering

You are waiting for all your purchases to arrive. You know what people are getting or even yourself and you want to purge the old. But wait! If you purge toys now, what will they play with until Christmas (this will be my example because that’s the holiday I celebrate)? I recommend starting a slash pocket for decluttering alone. This way in the future you will remember what you brain told you to declutter. You have too much going on right now and there will be time for decluttering in the last week of the year. However around the 22nd or 23rd you may wanna get a little head start. It would be fun to reward your kids for their efforts too. If you are in the Productive Home Solution, you can find certificates for the kids and it’s just a fun spin on the tasks. They want to make room for the things they asked for too. 

Planning

You already are experiencing that dreaming energy of what could be for 2026. Your brain is begging for a new planner and expressing dreams for 2026.  In episode 681, I shared the 4 ways I will plan from now to the end of the year, and that first step is dreaming.  So go ahead, make a slash pocket just for goals, then write down what comes to mind on index cards, place in your Sunday Basket for safe keeping till you have the time and energy. The time will be Planning Day because they match up to when planning energy is high for most people.

Power of the Sunday Basket@

The Sunday Basket in general is for capturing ideas when your brain has them so when you have time and energy you can do what your brain wanted you to do. In the Holiday Blitz Planning Day we divided the Sunday Basket into three Sunday Baskets®. We we delaying some ideas into the New Year Basket®, we had holiday ideas, and then one remained our weekly use Sunday Basket®. You always get a workbook that has some planner components and gets you in the planning mindset.

Finally, you get to do the planning that was brewing in early December. On December 29th at noon (CST), you will once again reorganize your Sunday Baskets® for new purposes. Planning Day Prep is first and you will clean out your weekly Sunday Basket® for a fresh start for the new year. This is when you take notes and “guides” about your family holidays and file that slash pocket back into the Household Operations Binder.  This day is for filling in the workbook with the “ground work” information that will support you completing the workbook during Planning Day, go through that planning slash pocket you created, relabeling your slash pockets, and labeling your tear pads.

Now you are prepped and ready for Planning Day on December 31st at 10 am (CST). You will spend 4 hours planning the next 4 months. It’s time, you have the time and the energy has been bubbling this whole time, go nuts, plan away. Remember that planning slash pocket? Now you get to decide what you take action on that your brain wanted you to remember. You will plug in your goals, play with routines you want to establish to support your goals, as well as plan around your family and work responsibilities. My childhood ritual was to get a new planner in December, May and August. I just loved leaving old objectives in the past, dreaming of what I could be, I could do, and what did I want? And now I get to teach you how to do the same for you and your house.  

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Planning Day

• The Productive Home Solution

• 681 - 4 Ways I Will Plan From Now to the End of the Year. Holiday Blitz, Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day, Seasonal Sanity Savers and New Year Planning Days.

• 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!

Let’s revisit some characteristics of December energy because last week you were deep in Thanksgiving energy and you may have missed a few things I suggested planning. Do we all agree the energy has shifted? Even though the calendar still says November, we’re all in December!

After the Big Meal

The dishes have been cleaned and the company has gone home. Now what? You have a couple of days before you return to your normal weekly routines. Now is the time to plan so you can be a proactive holiday person instead of reactive. This is the time to prevent stress and over spending. It’s never about all the things we need to do. It’s the order in which we do them, when we do them, and the energy we have when we do them. I want to start to focus on what needs to be done to set up this audience for success on Saturday and Sunday or these situations when we have unique pockets of time. Here’s the plan to set you up for success as we go into December!

Before You Unpack the Holiday Decor

Let’s plan decorating your home for December.  What does it look like, smell like, and taste like in your home during December? Remember how we asked our family what they’d like for Thanksgiving? Do the same for December.  My family told me it was all about lights for them. So a few years ago I just put up what I wanted and lots of lights.  I thought for sure they’d remember a certain item so I kept everything. But no. And the next year the same. But the dread I felt knowing I had tubs of decor I didn’t want to use put a damper on wanting to decorate. After Christmas that second year of not putting out as much I convinced myself to donate all the extras…even childhood items. I felt an epic amount of guilt.  But that next year when I went to get out the decorations all I felt was relief!!  I went from trying to fulfill non-existent family expectations to minimally decorating to donating extras and decorating in record time. But now is the time or you’ll blink and it’ll be the Monday before Christmas! 

And now is the time to shop! I shop now because the lists are ever changing. This prevents me from spending in September and December thus going over budget.  Lots of time the prices go down or you get better deals like bundles.  It’s less time that I have to hide what I bought although this year Organize 365® is the delivery address of choice so I (and all employees) don’t have to hide anything.  And this is the shopping energy season. Everyone else is shopping and I love to shop so naturally I want to be shopping too! This is also the time to stock up on cards and gift cards for global gifts for people like your babysitter, teachers, amazon delivery people, your house keeper, trash collectors, and etc.

Winter Break

This is the time of year I normally plan one big outing and a couple of smaller outings. You’ll all be home and the kids will be looking for something to do and you probably don’t want to spend a bazillion dollars. You can still sleep in, I am just encouraging you to plan something each day. Usually the most fun times come from someone planning it. You can plan an activity or goal each day. I shared how I planned my extra time in episode 683. I want you to revisit it and think about how you could best provide some self care? When the break is over you will feel like you made memories, accomplished a few goals, and ready for January. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Black Friday Sales Catalog

• Episode 683 - PTO Time Just for ME! Modern Self Care

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

Are you ready for the 6 busiest weeks of the year? Let’s zoom out and look at our family, our houses, and events to orchestrate a place of planning, purpose, and memory making. I wanted to share the energy I feel this time of year and how I manage my expectations of myself and others during this busy season. 

Fed People are Happy People

When I think ahead and plan the food component of Thanksgiving I have much lower stress. Once you get the day before the holiday off of work/school, the day of Thanksgiving, and the next day, plus the weekend; you now need to plan food for 5-7 days. Think about your own weekend habits. You eat differently, you spend differently, and you have a different energy. In my experience when people are fed they are much happier people and then I get to enjoy the holiday too. Think ahead and plan a fun breakfast, have on hand some snacky/appetizer type treats, and what meals you’ll have. 

Ok now, on the big day…this is a food holiday!  This is NOT the holiday to try a new recipe or a spin on a favorite dish!  Talk to your family and find out what foods are important to them. Do you need a whole dessert table maybe?  Make sure that “certain” dish is there for the ones you love. Now that could get pricey so here’s a tip to cut the budget: Ask that guests to bring their special dish. I’ve noticed as my eating habits have changed so too must my plate at Thanksgiving. Now I just take a few bites of everything I like and leave it at that. No need to overstuff myself and feel miserable the rest of the day.

Family 

Once all the food is in place you get to catch up with all of your family. Please people manage your expectations. Lean into gratitude for the family you do have. I have lost loved ones, so I choose to be grateful for the family in the room on Thanksgiving. You may need to change a conversation or hop in a game that people are playing to avoid certain conversations. 

And permission to not kill yourself cleaning. Your family is not doing a white glove inspection and they aren’t going past the common spaces and a bathroom. Speaking of the bathroom, make sure you have plenty of toilet paper!  You’ll need lots of that and dish cloths to ensure others can help with all the dishes and cleaning up!

Fun to include everyone

I love a game being played to infuse fun into the room and include others or people who are joining your family for the first time. You may hear of someone who will be alone on Thanksgiving because loved ones have passed, or travel isn’t possible, or other reasons - invite them to join you and your family!  It’s that much easier to make memories when fun is in the air! Break out some fun board games and put the Thanksgiving Day Parade on followed by some football. 

And then it’s like you have a 3 day weekend after the big day so here’s what I do. I shop the Black Friday deals on my phone. Side note: I do want to thank everyone who will be working the Holidays like our first responders and retail personnel. Heads up Organize 365® will be starting our Black Friday sale on Wednesday so no one has to break from the festivities.  I’m also planning to do some holiday baking and normally this is when I decorate for my holiday of choice - Christmas. I hope this helps to reduce your stress this holiday season and let’s you be more present in making holiday memories.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

All these advanced technologies are supposed to be saving us time right? I ask you “Is it saving you time?” Our devices, robots, and social media seem to be sucking up a lot of time and cognitive load.  In my observation, it seems to me, I am spending more time on apps, updates, and managing robots and getting frustrated than saving time. I just wanted to have a conversation about what I am seeing and hear from you…you too?

Smart Homes

You all know the struggle I have had with our robot vacuum. I finally had waited out the lease on the last one that never seemed to connect to wifi or be charged. This new one I can get charged. I can get it to connect to the wifi. I was pumped on one of my days during the staycation when all the stars had aligned and I was ready to run her. I opened the app to start her up and got a notification that I needed to update the app…no problem. I had the day off. But now there was a wifi issue. At this point, I could have burned a few calories and had my floors vacuumed but no I was still messing around with the wifi connection. The kicker? I knew once I finally got her working, she can’t even complete the first floor without recharging so I couldn’t even get all the floors vacuumed. I’d have to pick 3 of the 4 zones to get cleaned. Like come on people, this is not saving me any time. 

Recently we replaced our HVAC with a top of the line system. It’s so good, it took 4 service calls to actually get it working correctly. The zones were set wrong so it wasn’t performing correctly. This wasn’t saving me any time. What good is the app at saving me time, if the system isn’t set up right?  And don’t get me started about the washer/dryer combo unit I invested in. I’m getting notified of everything it’s doing whether I care or not.  It’s taking my cognitive load and increasing it. Can I just get some base model machines with start and stop buttons and that’s it? I don’t need all this technology, frustration, and distraction. 

Phones

Then I slowly started to notice my increased phone time. And my kids noticed it of themselves too. Joey in fact asked for a dumb phone. I dont’ know what is it lately but I go to check email and all the sudden I’m scrolling on Instagram and forgot what I got on my phone to do in the first place. We are more entertained than ever but we are also more lonely than ever. When Greg and I went to those small towns, we didn’t see people. Where were all the people? In their homes, on their phones. So I started to think, what did I used to do when I got bored? Now I scroll Instagram or play a game on my phone. BUT I used to like to scrapbook, do puzzles, listen to audio books, and organize. I want to challenge you to make a small list of things you can do off your phone when you have free time. What do you like to do? Ask yourself, Are you in control of your phone or is it in control of you? And is that how you want it to be? Turn off notifications, place your phone face down when not in use, and put your ringer on silent. Create the home environment you want. 

Short Conversations

And it’s great that we have so many sources for information but it’s limiting our conversations. Since it would appear we all the know the same news, I am challenging myself to have deeper conversations with the people in my family and you may want to too. Here are a few questions to have more meaningful conversations. 

How do you feel about that?

What do you think will happen next? 

How did you find out about that?

Yeah, I did hear about that but tell me what did you hear about that?  

I want to have rich relationships with the people in my house not monitoring my robots so I have more time to scroll. I want to be growing and learning in my free time. What do you want?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

This may have been a first, once we decided to not go to Italy, I decided to take my full planned vacation and Greg decided to go back to work. We had our 4 day staycation but the rest of the planned time off was all mine. How did I spend it? 

Golden Window

I am definitely in a unique-to-me Golden Window. The PhD is winding down, we are making massive shifts at work, and I will soon be the grandma of two heartbeats. As I realized I was going to have a lot of time to do whatever I wanted I asked myself what that should be. I plugged Greg into my calendar with the things we wanted to do. Then I looked at Abby’s calendar to see went the optimal time was to spend time with her and getting her ready for the baby. I did end up spending a 4 hour block of time in the office on Sat. morning but it gave me the opportunity to bring home some Workboxes I’ve been wanting to clean out and organize. I also took a little time to fill in my home and work 2 and ½ year planners. 

Scrapbooking

On Sunday Afternoon I got the best treat, Grayson fell asleep on me for about 90 minutes. But you know me, I’m productive. So while I was trapped in grandma heaven I ordered pictures. Because one of my initiatives once the PhD is done, is to get back to scrapbooking. So I ordered pictures and loved on Grayson. During this time off I was able to get a lot of sorting of pictures done and now I feel ready to start #allthescrapbooks

Shopping Like it was the 80’s

And then I had a friend who was going to kind of be on standby for Abby and Grayson while we were gone who said “Ya know, I still have that time free, do you want to do something?” I did! I wanted to go shopping. We took two whole days shopping. We thoroughly went through the women’s department in each store and just took our time. This made going through my closet fun too. I did a little rearranging of what’s in my closet with the newest modification of Hunter (our dog) sleeping in my closet now.  I am ready for this next phase of life. 

And we checked out Costco and Sam’s Club. I wanted to compare products that they offered. And I knew Sam’s Club had the diapers and wipes I wanted to stock up on for the baby. This grandma is ready for grandbaby number 2! 

As the week came to and end, I had the choice to go back into the office on Thursday or take one more day to myself. I talked myself into staying home. I got to get to some binders, workboxes, and slash pockets I’d been wanting to. I got to grab high tea with my cousin and after we went for a nice long walk. With the baby coming and the hurry up and wait game with the dissertation, I knew to maximize on this time. Self care is more than a massage. I wanted to share how I spent my time, to give you ideas of different ways of self care. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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 know, I’m full of shocking news lately. Yes, we cancelled Italy again! I started to feel like we were really pushing this trip through and it was causing a lot of anxiety. Plan B became a staycation. I can’t wait to tell you what we did!

Cancellation Reasons

Everyone encouraged me to not cancel the trip. Four days before we were supposed to leave I turned to Greg and said “We can’t go to Italy.” And he completely agreed. I didn’t buy the insurance this time but we are able to recoup most of that money as long as we book within a year so third times a charm hopefully! 

When Abby told us this spring that she was pregnant we were excited for this new little heartbeat but also realized that meant she’d be 25 weeks when we were away. Now the time had come and we just didn’t feel right leaving her. I had set up all these people to come help her and then there was the dog to worry about and it was leading to a lot of anxiety. Once we decided to cancel, that all went away and the environment in our house was immediately better. It’s funny once you cancel something and then the issues that were prohibiting you all of the sudden are gone. But nonetheless, we decided on a staycation and I got to planning!!  

4 Days with Greg

Day 1: We decided to visit a few small towns nearby to do a little boutique shopping. You could still feel the effects of Covid because the store hours were limited and some were only open on the weekends.  Then we went to a cooking class and learned how to make pasta. We had fun but might not be “our thing.” And then toured Home-O-Rama.  It was different than what we were used to. 

Day 2: We had a great day in Lebanon, OH.  We went to lunch at the Golden Lamb and tried to shop again. I quickly realized all the shops were for women. We found an art gallery though and really enjoyed our time there. We found out we both really like the same artwork and found a few artists that we will keep our eye on. Funny enough some of the artwork was that we had seen in the homes of Home-O-Rama. And then we drove to another little town and we checked into our hotel. There was nothing to do so we waited till the restaurant opened at 4pm. We had a two and a half hour dinner and I was really intentional with the conversations I started. This is “our thing” and I’d like to have more leisurely dinners with Greg. 

Day 3: Family needed us so I am glad we didn’t stray too far.

Day 4: Last day we were off together and we headed to the Keenland horse track in Lexington, KY. We had a great time. The people watching was fantastic. I discovered I might need to pick up a sundress because this too was something we really enjoyed that I would like to do more of and I like to look the part. When in Rome… It was fun to discover new things we like to do together and it was great to connect with Greg!

Baby Ready

And I got to spend some time with Abby. We spent some special time together really getting her ready for the baby. It was nice to have some undivided time to support Abby. 

I can’t wait to tell you what I did with the remaining days of my time off. And I want to share with you something I realized about technology and how conversations are more difficult these days because we have all the information coming at us all at the same time. It’s not like we are sharing new information with each other. That was why I got so intentional with my conversation with Greg the night of our long dinner.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

Sometimes I get wary of sharing how much I plan. But because I plan I get to be more purposeful and present in my life which gives me peace. I‘m sharing the 3 phases I go through to plan. I dream. I contemplate allllllllll the possibilities. Then I choose what I want to do from all dreams I came up with. And then I plan it and confidently run that plan knowing I thought of everything. 

Holiday Blitz so you can leave the Witches in Oct. 

Halloween has passed, you are in the thick of the holidays but you still feel like a witch. Why? Because you are trying to meet everyone’s expectations but no one is aware of all you are doing nor do they care. We are putting all this pressure and these expectations on ourselves!!  I’m here to share how to shed those witchy feelings with the Holiday Blitz. In the holiday blitz there are 5 videos and printables. After the videos, you will “interview your family” about what makes the holidays special for them BEFORE the holidays. You will dream about what you want the holidays to look like this year. And after talking to your family it’ll be easy to choose what you want to execute.

Holiday Mini Planning Day

The Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day is a taste of what home planning day is like.  This is when we take the one Sunday Basket® and divide it into three Sunday Baskets®. You will have a Holiday Sunday Basket® for the meaty experience you want to plan, recipes, gift ideas, and all the holiday cheer you want to provide this year. There will be a “next year” Sunday Basket® where you can safely place paper that doesn’t need your attention until next year. You place this Sunday Basket® in another room.  And of course, your regular weekly Sunday Basket® for your “new part time job” of being the memory maker; with the additional shopping, decorating, traveling, and so forth. We’ll take a look at the week of Thanksgiving and the last two weeks of December and plan in time blocks. And I share tips on how to strategically shop Black Friday to save money all year. 

I know not everyone has the capacity or time to plan luxuriously like this. So…I am offering a 30 mini workshop where you can take just a few minutes to plan. I know everyone is really busy but I really want you to enjoy the holidays this year! Stay tuned for more details so you stay sane and present for the holidays.

Home Prep & Planning Day

And we end the year with more planning. Yes I really do all of this planning. But you will see as the year comes to an end you will be already dreaming of what this 2026 year can bring. It’s still full of so much potential.  Prep day is Monday. You will reset your Sunday Baskets® and update slash pocket labels and contents. Some paper may need to go in your operations binder. And you will have a Taxes Sunday Basket® for a landing place when all the documents start coming in the mail. You’ll have one extra Sunday Basket® which will be for your first project in the new year. And then you choose what projects and ideas you will be actually planning for on Wed.

And On Wednesday we’ll start getting a plan on paper in the workbook. What will the first 120 days/ 4 months of 2026 look like? In each of these planning phases I dream. How could it look? And then I choose. I make an actionable plan to execute the choices I made. And lastly, run that plan with confidence. Because you take the time to plan, you can peacefully be present.

Once you have experienced the peace of planning, you will find the time to plan. I promise! And the more you plan, you’ll want to plan even more!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Holiday Blitz 2025 (Oct. 27th)

• Holiday Blitz Bundle 

• Holiday Mini Planning Day (Nov. 14th)

• 30 Min. Holiday Sanity Saver Workshop (Dec. 19th)

• Home Prep and Planning Day (Dec. 29 - Dec. 31)

• 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 really love Lillian Gilbreth’s focus on efficiency for the American home. I’d like to think I’m picking up where she left off. After the war, “men took back their jobs.” But did it ever occur to you that women worked at these factories and there were dual income homes before the war? It had not occurred to me.  I wanted to be home but some women wanted to be at work, working in their uniqueness making a paycheck. Now that the soldiers had returned to work, more women were home, the big packaged food companies marketed to her about how to make her life easier.  

Past Mistakes

In the past science has just determined the definition of housework and completed their studies based on it. And human nature is to do the household tasks of your gender, as you saw displayed growing up.  But there’s a new sheriff in town and I asked the public how they defined housework and I am so excited to publish my findings. In conducting studies in the past they also used a convenience sample group for their studies; like all college students.  This gave skewed results. 

In one study, they used married couples with children. This also resulted in what I call “He said, She said” about who is doing what housework. And who is doing more. That convenience sample was ok in the 80’s because that was roughly 60% of the population; married with children. But now? Married with children only represents roughly 25% of the population. My sample groups will be large and mimic the US Census to accurately reflect the general public.  I want to be able to focus on teaching efficiency for all genders, all ethnicities, and all family compositions. Because I want a single mom, a multigenerational home, or a nuclear family to learn how to get organized, leading to productivity, that reduces household work.

1 Problem 1 Product

It’s easy to want to solve one product for one problem but there’s an underlying problem. This is how people try to start to organize often. I used a child getting ear infections as an example. The first infection, one product for one problem. But then too many infections and now we need to look at the underlying problem. When you look for one product for problem, you get in this cycle of decluttering to organization and back to decluttering but you never get to move on to productivity because the skill of organization has not yet been learned.  

But just like getting a celiac diagnosis, you must modify your environment to achieve your desired goal. The Productive Home Solution teaches you to declutter, organize, and modify your home. The Paper Solution® teaches best information management practices. The Sunday Baskset® provides a system to optimize all your household manager responsibilities.  The first time around decluttering and organizing can take some time but then it’s just maintenance. New milestone, then you modify your environment again but you don’t have to learn the skill all over. You just apply it to the new phase of life you are in like a new baby, home, job, or milestone birthday.

The Mission

By now you may have heard Organize 365® is decluttering all work related products and services as of December 31, 2025.  This will allow more time to focus on universal application of the systems Organize 365® offers. I want to answer what is essential housework? How can housework be most efficiently optimized and operationalized? How can we all do less housework? And I plan to focus on testing and disseminating results from studies about systems and methods in the marketplace and in academia. Here’s to the next chapter of Organize 365®.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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!

Last Friday I announced the Friday Workbox® and all related work products will only be available for purchase till December 31st or while supplies last. But I don’t think I explained it very well so I wanted to record this episode to address concerns and reiterate what is going on at Organize 365®. 

No One is Going Anywhere…

Please do not worry, no one is getting laid off. No one who works at Organize 365® is going anywhere. Steph who runs the Friday Workbox will still be here. Stephanie, my Chief of Staff and Anna are also still here. They are doing more behind the scenes things. But no one is going anywhere, we’re just all going in a new direction. 

Got Distracted

For about a year and a half I have been trying to support both home and work organization.  You see, as an organizer, I get people going in the right direction and then I want to follow them into that thing that they discovered they are good at. But in doing that I now see that I am leaving people behind. They’re ready to get off the declutter cycle only to find me miles ahead helping people in work areas. I started Organize 365® because I feel like I am called to help women organize their homes and then they are forced to struggle with what they are uniquely created to do. I want that evolution back. Someone gets decluttered. I help them to get organized and productive. Then they are ready to fly the nest to a coach, start a business, get into a hobby, whatever their next chapter is. I’m just refocusing more narrowly on the home. And this way too there is one clear message for you to share to others who need to get organized.

Silver Lining

The silver lining in all of this is great pricing now till December 31st or while supplies last. 50% off all work related products excluding the Income and Expense Planner. You will still get the full course, the community, and workbooks.  In 2026, the courses will simply move to legacy status. You will still have the community to support you, but there will no longer be someone from Organize 365® leading the community or holding co-working time. 

And if you are in need of a certified organizer or still want to get certification, it’s not too late. The certified organizers for business and the Teacher workbox will be available till December. If you want to get certification or add certification, you can still purchase those. I really tried to explain, in this episode, what the pre-requisites are for adding certifications and how long each one takes. If you want to get inventory, it’s deeply discounted for our certified organizers. 

It’s been tough to make the decision to discontinue products that are lucrative to the business and that the community loves so much. But it is time for me to go back to center and focus on that initial transformation I used to get so much feedback about. Thank you so much for all your encouraging words in this transition. After reading so many reactions/responses I feel confident in this decision. 

I encourage you to listen to episode 680 (re-airing right after this one) again for an extended explanation of all of this and what the future looks like for the current work related products, services, and communities in 2026. There are also links to all the products in episode 680. And if you are still left with questions feel free to email customer service at Customerservice@organize365.com.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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 really love Lillian Gilbreth’s focus on efficiency for the American home. I’d like to think I’m picking up where she left off. After the war, “men took back their jobs.” But did it ever occur to you that women worked at these factories and there were dual income homes before the war? It had not occurred to me.  I wanted to be home but some women wanted to be at work, working in their uniqueness making a paycheck. Now that the soldiers had returned to work, more women were home, the big packaged food companies marketed to her about how to make her life easier.  

Past Mistakes

In the past science has just determined the definition of housework and completed their studies based on it. And human nature is to do the household tasks of your gender, as you saw displayed growing up.  But there’s a new sheriff in town and I asked the public how they defined housework and I am so excited to publish my findings. In conducting studies in the past they also used a convenience sample group for their studies; like all college students.  This gave skewed results. 

In one study, they used married couples with children. This also resulted in what I call “He said, She said” about who is doing what housework. And who is doing more. That convenience sample was ok in the 80’s because that was roughly 60% of the population; married with children. But now? Married with children only represents roughly 25% of the population. My sample groups will be large and mimic the US Census to accurately reflect the general public.  I want to be able to focus on teaching efficiency for all genders, all ethnicities, and all family compositions. Because I want a single mom, a multigenerational home, or a nuclear family to learn how to get organized, leading to productivity, that reduces household work.

1 Problem 1 Product

It’s easy to want to solve one product for one problem but there’s an underlying problem. This is how people try to start to organize often. I used a child getting ear infections as an example. The first infection, one product for one problem. But then too many infections and now we need to look at the underlying problem. When you look for one product for problem, you get in this cycle of decluttering to organization and back to decluttering but you never get to move on to productivity because the skill of organization has not yet been learned.  

But just like getting a celiac diagnosis, you must modify your environment to achieve your desired goal. The Productive Home Solution teaches you to declutter, organize, and modify your home. The Paper Solution® teaches best information management practices. The Sunday Baskset® provides a system to optimize all your household manager responsibilities.  The first time around decluttering and organizing can take some time but then it’s just maintenance. New milestone, then you modify your environment again but you don’t have to learn the skill all over. You just apply it to the new phase of life you are in like a new baby, home, job, or milestone birthday.

The Mission

By now you may have heard Organize 365® is decluttering all work related products and services as of December 31, 2025.  This will allow more time to focus on universal application of the systems Organize 365® offers. I want to answer what is essential housework? How can housework be most efficiently optimized and operationalized? How can we all do less housework? And I plan to focus on testing and disseminating results from studies about systems and methods in the marketplace and in academia. Here’s to the next chapter of Organize 365®.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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!

In the last episode we talked about Maria Montessori, her becoming the first female doctor in Italy and her impact on alternative learning methods. Today I’m talking about Lillian Gilbreth who was the first female to get her psychological doctorate in industrial organizational psychology. Lillian is the original “Cheaper By the Dozen” mom who exemplified what it meant to be a successful working mother. 

Lillian Gilbreth

Lillian married Frank, in Rhode Island, in 1904. While growing their family, Lillian and Frank started a company together called Gilbreth Incorporated. She studied how to make the workplace support their workers. She was able to publish many papers about her findings but they were all under Frank’s name due to “the times” and women’s rights. And I’m sure we don’t have some of her work. She was the first person to link scientific management with psychology after earning her PhD in Applied Psychology.  There is a large gap of information and I hope to change that with the research I want to do. Unfortunately Frank passes away when she’s 46. 

Lillian’s Ideas 

After studying how we use our homes, Lillian came up with a kitchen design. Remember this was back when food wasn’t so “grab and go” and a lot of people made things from scratch. There was an assigned space for your ingredients like flour and sugar. Lillian came up with the triangle between your refrigerator, stove, and kitchen sink. Lillian discovered the proper counter height, the pedal trash can, and shelves & egg/butter storage in the door of the refrigerator. There is a whole kitchen that Lillian designed and most of it didn’t get implemented into homes. Why? It baffles me! Maybe that’s my next move? I think it’s so critical for me to get my PhD so that I can publish information that will live well beyond my life span, for future generations. 

Greg often wants to bring up our resale value on our home when I come to him with one of my ideas of how we could modify our home to meet our current phase of life. In all reality I don’t see us ever moving but also I want to enjoy my house not just preserve it for resale.  I think kids rooms should be larger, there should be command central for household managers like I saw in Greenfield Village, and much bigger laundry rooms. We buy these homes before we have accumulated all the things including kids and all of their things. We need to make homes more functional for less modification and more productivity!

If money were no object right now, what would you change about your house? 

40’s? Just Getting Started

Lillian was just 46 when her husband passed away. And she was just getting started. Time and time again, I learn about people being 45 plus when they made their contribution to society. And throughout history I have also seen these people live longer lives. Women’s spouses pass, they continue to raise children and run the household AND live in their passion. There is no science to back it up…yet. But I believe because these people were doing what they were uniquely created to do, they lived longer. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• See Lillian Gilbreth's Step Saving Kitchen, 1949

• 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!

Maria Montessori has made a huge impression on me and influenced who I am and how I run Organize 365®.  Maria was born in 1870, in Italy. She was a very curious person and wanted to pursue a medical degree despite her parents guiding her towards a teaching degree. She is a great example of someone who worked hard and followed her passions - I love those characteristics. After becoming the first female physician, she worked in a psychiatric clinic and observed the children. Not too long after that she did pursue a degree in education, not because she needed it but because she wanted to have the academic conversations so her work would live on. 

How Do Children Learn?

Maria was curious, “How do children learn?” She was in a population that was deemed uneducatable. She watched as their food fell to the dirt floors, they’d play with it, and then they’d eat it. She saw the children gravitate towards the manipulatives instead of toys or even candy. They thrived in the structured environment where children were learning independently and the role of the teacher is to observe,support, and guide.  Each student is treated as an individual. I saw this displayed, for the first time, in China. There was a quiet hum of productivity. 

How it applies to schools

Montessori schools operate in a 3 year cycle. For example grades 1-3 are together for three years; a multigenerational classroom. They will all have, let’s say, a dinosaur lesson appropriate for their grade. Because of this structure the younger kids are looking up to the older kids. The older kids are learning leadership. And some children will find their niche and become the “dinosaur”expert, thriving in their purpose or their uniqueness. See any similarities to Organize 365®? 

As children we experience these Sensory Periods; think Golden Windows. It’s a period of time when children are drawn to learn a certain skill. I gave the example of the Monkey Bars. For about two weeks that child will practice and practice. Once they get it, they move on to the next thing they want to learn. We all love to learn until about 3rd grade, what would happen if learning didn’t become work? If we didn’t have to fit within “the perimeters?”  I will say to thrive in Montessori school you need to be an independent learner, self paced, and hold yourself accountable without much guidance. There are still standards you need to meet, you just get to go about it the way that works the best for you. I know I would have really loved being in Montessori school. 

How it applies to Organize 365®

And so in Organize 365® I love to provide great school supplies and manipulatives.  You can learn at your own pace. I try to support your sensory periods, AKA Golden Windows the best I can. There is a community to connect with others, find those you want to emulate, and provide help to others just starting out. It takes about 18 months to get your home organized but by the time you are refining, you continue to hang around because you have found “your people” that encourage you to thrive in your uniqueness. And by then you understand how I operate as a teacher. And through it all, you gain time, confidence, and get to realize what you are uniquely created to do - you find your purpose.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Trish K. who lives with her adult daughter and grandson. On long car drive home, Trish was listening to her older sister tell her about this thing called the Sunday Basket®. When Trish got home, she hopped on the website and got a Sunday Basket®. It just made sense to her, one place for all the paper and a system to process it? Sold!

Trish enjoys the Sunday Basket®, the Productive Home Solution™, and the binders. But the biggest benefit she has gotten from Organize 365® was when she spoke outloud, her dream to walk the Camino Trail. Many years prior in night school another student shared she was taking 2 weeks to go walk the Camino Trail. Trish was in throws of active parenting and knew realistically she did not have 5 or even 2 weeks to go walk any portion of the trail. When Trish went through embrace and then attended the workshop with Rhonda afterwards, she remembered how to dream. And a long time dream resurfaced, walking the Camino Trail. 

She’s not one to share dreams unless she’s prepared to take steps towards it. But in the safe space with no friends or family, she confessed she dreamed to walk the Camino trail without intent to do something about it yet. She got so much positive feedback from everyone in the group that she decided to go for it!  She trained for a couple of weeks before she told her family and friends what she was going to do. She walked the Camino Trail and documented it all through a blog. It was a spiritual journey that she suspected may break her emotionally but it didn’t. She had a spiritual journey and learned a lot long the way, those 34 days and 500 miles. She got to walk through the country not buzz by in a car but really take in the beauty of Spain. She shared a few accounts with us in this interview. The blog started out just as a way to let “her community” know that she was ok and share updates. 

A common thread in Organize 365® is “What’s next?” It’s funny you complete one room in your house and it’s so rewarding that you think “What’s next?” And Trish has realized to do the same with dreaming. So what’s next on the dream list for Trish? To write a book. She got such great feedback from her blog that she wasn’t intending to do anything with.  Now she’s gonna write a book! She’s dreaming now! It’s no longer a mental barrier, she knows how to pursue a dream. She feels permission to think about what she wants, to use her resources on herself. She’s bumped herself to the top of the list. 

Community, we agreed, is the other theme that runs deep in Organize 365®. The community where everyone is so supportive and inspiring. Trish first got to try out her idea in this non judgmental community that offered nothing but support to her. Her now friends. They cheered her on along her journey, read the blog, and commented. That community kept her going. Dreams flourish in community!  When you are in community, people like Trish are an example of what is possible. And in community, you can lean on others’ strengths. What you don’t understand or see how to accomplish, someone in the group has been there, done that, and eager to help!  This community is so eager to help we talked a little bit about the Disaster Relief Resources where we can help people in need and ask for things we need. No one needs to go through things alone!  We are a community!

Trish’s advice is, “If you have internal messages questioning what you want to do come talk to someone in the Organize 365® community. Because they will give you the support and say ‘Do it!’ ‘What do you need to do it?’ What can I do to help you do it?’ And to me, that’s they same thing as ‘Gee, I have 18 boxes of paper or I have this whole house to organize.’ It’s all about starting…just starting.  Get the Sunday Basket® and just start. And if that’s too much, start listening to the podcast.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Trish’s Blog: Listen and Bloom

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Embrace - Self Guided Retreat

• Blitzes and Bootcamp

• Disaster Relief Resources

• 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!

Bonus Stop: Edzel Ford’s home, son of Henry Ford! After touring Greenfield Village I decided I wanted to go to a bonus stop instead of another day at Greenfield Village. I was stunned by the outward aesthetic  similarities of the Stan Hywet mansion. My wheels were spinning and memories flooded my mind from all the visits I had going to Stan Hywet from going with my mom to even working there. 

Railroads

The Stan Hywet mansion is located in Akron, OH, my hometown, the “Rubber Capitol of the WORLD”! I shared a lot about the history of Firestone and Goodyear, who used a lot of rubber making tires, in this episode. But on this day of my fieldtrip, I thought about what made Ford so successful? It was making the gasoline engine car affordable for more people, specifically farmers. I gave a little background on Rockefeller and Vanderbilt too to prove my point of “access equals success”. And remember in the other homes the extensive libraries? Access to education and knowledge, right? And you know what made those two successful? The railroads because it provided transportation and access to more products and places. They were able to get their products to more people.  And what do you think gave the North the upper hand in the Civil War? The railroads because they could transport supplies. And the other thing that made Ford so successful was his ability to pay his employees a higher pay than other companies. He was making more profit therefore able to pay his employees a higher rate. 

I couldn’t help but to think about Eleanor Ford’s role (Edzel’s wife) in their home. She lived for 35 years still after Edzel passed. She had a sitting room off of her bedroom upstairs, that she turned into her study. She ran her household manager responsibilities from that study. And although she wasn’t fond of the entertainment wing, she knew it was expected of her to entertain. She was very philanthropic and sat on many boards. But she was the queen of productivity. You see she would have multiple board meetings going at one time and then she could just pop in and out as they were being conducted. Genius!

Internet

Just like railroads were the gateway to transporting goods and people, now Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft transport information. And just like the Goodyears and Rockefellers could get their products to more people, it is the same way I can impact more lives. They have been able to be really successful in a shorter amount of time than before the internet and able to provide better benefits for their employees due to their success.  

Organize 365® could not be what it is today without the internet. It gets more products to more people. It provides a more level playing field because it is accessible to all. And it has allowed me to learn about business and manufacturing. And because of the internet … we have podcasts! Yet another avenue to learn and/or get your message out. I always like to think of how women made their mark on change in society through their uniqueness.

Artificial Intellagance

I don’t even know what to do with AI! (sigh) As technology advances so too does our ability for everyone to be successful due to a more level playing field for small businesses. Technology, transportation, and information provides access to more education. I wanted to take this series to think about where we have been as women, how it is now as women, and where we are going for women. What change could you have on society by doing what you are uniquely created to do? 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Lynette M. who has 7 adults living in their house. She’s married, has a son and his wife, 2 other sons, and a daughter all under one roof.  Lynette had so much paper she didn’t know how to deal with it after she’d “decluttered” it. She found Organize 365® as a paper organizing expert when searching for solutions. 

Lynette had success with Marie Kondo in decluttering from 27 sweaters, 11 pairs of gloves (did I mention she lives in central FL?), multiple pairs of jeans, and 3,000 books. But when she got to the 5 filing cabinets of paper she knew she needed help! Once she found Organize 365® and heard me talking about my son having and IEP and the Warrior Mama binder, Lynette thought to herself “she gets me!”  She also loves the way realistic expectations are talked about. If your child has an IEP in school, those “limitations” don’t go away after they graduate. Some kids may not go on to college. There’s a message of acceptance of alternative paths after secondary education from Organize 365® that resonates with Lynette. 

Lynette had children move back home after medical setbacks. She decided to do a financial reset for them and financial education for her other children. She got them all Launch Binders and holds a Tuesday night budget meeting to teach them the basics so when they go out on their own again (prospective deadlines have been set) that they will be successful. I could not believe what I was hearing as Lynette explained her situation. This theme is becoming familiar; children back home for financial reset for various reasons. In 2000’s only 10-20% of students needed an IEP. In 2012, it had risen to 30-50% of students needing an IEP, I mean do you think a magic wand is waved when they graduate high school and all of the sudden they are ready for higher education and the careers that follow? When you have a learning disability, you find work arounds to learn. Organization is a learnable skill and it is the executive function work around for things like ADHD that Lynette was diagnosed with in her adulthood.  

We know a lot of families are dealing with these obstacles but no one is talking about it. Lynette and I had a great conversation about what a “nutjob” I was back in the day causing commotion over vaccines and red dye. But funny now, studies are coming out and proving legitimacy over the concerns I had way back when. Lynette experienced some similar situations as myself. As the household managers we know our families the best and are best equipped to advocate for our families. We know what is going on better than the doctors offices, schools, and the government. This is not isolated to just the two of us, it’s happening in 1,000’s of homes. 

Lynette has used the binders to teach her kids about finances, to have awkward conversations about she and her husband’s modest estate, and about assigning power of health care now that they are older than 18. In an “instant world” it was helpful to have conversations about not getting paid out daily from work and when to actually take advantage of Door Dash.  The binders offer a way to teach without insulting their knowledge. It has also been a way to share differing viewpoints in a respectful way. 

Lynette runs three businesses and could not do so without Planning day and the Sunday Baskets®, let’s not worry about how many she has. She stated if she’s not intentionally planning, she’s the one that gets ran over. She’s still learning and trying to perfect her Sunday Basket® routine as she helps others learn how to live healthy, to play piano, and organize their paper as the Clutter Coach. And preemptive planning that she does gives her the decision bandwidth that in a crisis she would lack. Lynette shared recently hearing “Everyday you are preparing or repairing.” And amidst it all, in her menopausal journey, it’s the organizing that has helped her to get the angst out of her body!  

Lynette’s Advise: “Don’t wait till it’s perfect to start your business.”

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Home Planning Day

• 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!

Ok, I know you all have been dying to hear about my field trip to Greenfield Village. I tried to start the podcast three times before this final take because I want to tell you guys everything! But how in 45 minutes? Let me just say, I will be going back!

Greenfield Village

Most of us have seen a living historical farm of some sort. It’s usually a field trip where you get to see what it was like to live in the past. You get to see the equipment and lack of current day machines that help with everyday household tasks and business. That’s Greenfield Village but magnified. Henry Ford’s goal was “I only want to have ordinary people who had extraordinary vision.” He brought homes from Thomas Edison(while he was still living), the guy who created the Dewey Decimal system, the bus Rosa Parks rode, the guy who wrote the McGruff readers, the Wright Brothers bike shop, and other buildings of significance. The first 6 years it was a school. There was a lottery system for admittance. Students would start their day in church. A church that my grandma used to attend. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were basically teaching the next generation of entrepreneurs in Thomas Edison’s innovation laboratory. Thomas accumulated all kinds of supplies, textiles, and tools to create. All new things start with education and innovation. 

You are standing where the greats have stood

I couldn’t help but to think to myself often “You are standing where the greats have stood.” Especially when I was in Thomas Edison’s lab. I was able to connect some aspect of my life to each house.  Thomas Edison was the first person to assemble a team and let them dive into their uniqueness. He hired people to come work in his lab and then innovate.

And because he was paying his technicians, they had money to pay to stay at the Women’s Boarding house. I loved being at the boarding house where I played the role of observer. These women were baking, cleaning, chatting, and even sat by the fireplace to knit or catch up on the day’s events. I can’t stress the importance of relationships. Today’s society is becoming too isolated. We should be filling up our time with others, not our devices.  The tour guide would have you believe the women had to do these daunting tasks because the men were out doing whatever. But I challenge that thought. These women were volunteers playing a role, reeling us into the past, and enjoying themselves. I kept picturing myself in those lifestyles. You didn’t have a car to go shopping, a phone to scroll on, or the conveniences of today’s lifestyle. If I were them, in that day, I’d love to grind the wheat and make the soup. So I’m not sure I’m buying that they didn’t like their responsibilities. 

So all because one man decided to gather a team to explore their zone of genius, the town boomed. That led to other businesses from people exploring their zones of genius and doing what they were uniquely gifted and created to do, thus all of the village’s talents were represented. 

Curiosity • Resourcefulness • Practice over time

It’s not the size of your house, your intellect, or resources that make you great. It’s curiosity like me needing to figure out how to settle an estate. And resourcefulness like me figuring out how to create and manufacture the Financial Binder. I have a teaching degree, not a masters in business. I also had to be very resourceful because my budget was small. I was an ordinary person with a vision. I didn’t come from money. I’m not well connected. And over time I keep learning and honing the thing that I am gifted and uniquely created to do. I keep refining The Productive Home Solution. I thoroughly enjoyed my field trip to Greenfield Village and was able to make so many connections to my life today. America - an entrepreneurial country!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Ambreen B. who lives in Jerusalem with her husband and 2 daughters, and her cat. Ambreen loves productivity and finds it interesting when people are more organized than her. She heard an interview on another podcast and loved hearing how kids get organized and the structure. 

As her life became more complex by getting a home to manage, getting married, and having children, she knew “Ok, I don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”  The boxes acted as a landing place for all of the things she was trying to remember. Then she decided to get her PhD. Our Sunday Baskets® is where we can cognitively offload to afford the capacity to deal with the unexpectedness of life. They take the worry piece and put an intervention in place therefore reducing worry from the event. That’s what the Sunday Basket® does, it reduces stress in the form of a system. 

As an organizational sociologist and institutional complexity analyst, Ambreen understands that concept more than most. And she appreciates that it’s a tried and true system, not just one she pieced together. Ambreen was great to share how her Sunday Baskets® have helped her through the PhD process. Some people have a team to delegate to, Ambreen had her Sunday Baskets® to delegate to. She shared how she used the colored slash pockets and kept her focused. It allowed for a deeper level of focus. She knew that after planning day and she had a plan in place all she had to do was run that plan. She had peace of mind that she could focus on that day’s plan and completely ignore all other responsibilities. I added the importance of being able to have focused work time and mind wandering time. She tried to DIY at first but in the end it was way more economical to go all in and buy the actual Sunday Basket® and all.

Three days after getting the Sunday Basket® in hand, her mother in law passed away.  It was time to put into action what she’d seen in The Productive Home Solution™ videos.  Ambreen’s husband has 4 brothers but you know who combed through that home and settled the estate? The two daughter-in-laws.  It was a crash course in grief and organization. While everyone else was in shock and overwhelmed, the system gave her tasks to be productive. But having a system gave her some sense of control in a situation she had very little control over. We talked about the 7 days of mourning and people wanting to drop off food. This was during “covid times” so she explained how she safely divided up the food for later consumption. We talked about the decluttering process.  Ambreen loves the decluttering questions.  And she really leaned into Do, Defer, Delegate, and Delete.  That experience made her think about her parents and all of their stuff. She called her mom to talk about all their stuff and planning for the future. 

She feels like the title Household Manager elevates the role and gives it the perceived importance it actually holds. She values this system so much. Ambreen has more mental peace. And she just wishes she’d known about Organize 365® earlier. 

Ambreen’s advice is, “Buy the Sunday Basket®, don’t DIY- it’s not worth it.” She appreciates all the advice, grace that is provided, and no pressure to buy anything. She encourages people to just buy when they are ready. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Friday Workbox®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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!

You may not be a history buff like myself but I think you will find my aha moments interesting that I got when visiting these Presidential homes. We think so much has changed, but has it? Are we using our homes differently?  I just think tv gave us this impression of how our homes should be used and look. We know differently at Organize 365®.

Why Adult Fieldtrips

I support my family in all of their passions and this act of self care is a way for me to support my passions and fill my cup. I love to go see presidential homes because of the history of the homes and functionality more than learning about the actual Presidents. These homes are the best representation of what life was like at that time. I like to think about the history of course, but also how the homes were used and the female roles in the homes and as a spouse. I’m always impressed by the vast libraries and proof of how much they valued education. And the finances, who had that much money to afford and run those plantations and who was managing the money? I visited 4 of the first 5 President’s homes in VA. 

Women of the Plantation

Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, had her own study right off of the entrance. Martha assumed the responsibilities of the home when her mother passed away.  When she moved home, they had to make modifications for her and her husband and their 13 children. Jefferson was constantly modifying Monticello to accommodate their current phase of life. Funny I know someone who constantly gives permission to people to modify your home to your current phase of life. Actually there were so many renovations that in the end it left a heavy financial burden on Martha and the plantation was sold to the DuPont family because they couldn’t afford all of the debt Jefferson had accrued. If only they’d had the financial binder. It’s so important to plan and document your final wishes of your (maybe debt) and assets.

Dolly was Madison’s wife. She was well connected, had money, was social, and came into their marriage with an 18 month old son after yellow fever took her first husband and two other children. She moved from the South to the North to live in VA. There were a lot of life changes for her including the addition of slaves in her life and managing the plantation.  She was a pioneer of sorts having dinner parties and courting votes.  She too had a study in which I’m sure she was coordinating everything.

These women’s husbands were in office, they were in charge of the finances, domestic staff, paid staff, their families, their spouse, social life, education, and community involvement. If only they’d had the Household Reference and Operations binder. How did they do it all? 

The Estates

These estates were fairly close to each other and it reminds me of how arduous travel was in that day. They didn’t have cars.  These homes were to house the plantation staff, guests who had traveled, and meetings regarding being in office.  But the two families, the Jefferson’s and Madison’s, used their homes differently.  And Jefferson had his own quarters if you will like a little condo of his own like the personal spaces I talk about in regards to children’s rooms. These  homes fueled all their passions like a love of reading, small businesses, and public service. Isn’t that what we are doing today too? Our homes are the only thing we have control over and they must fit our phase of life because we spend so much time in them, much like they did in the times of these Presidential homes. I can’t wait to tell you about my field trip to Greenfield Village next time!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Lea N. who is married and has her mother living with them. Lea is a lifelong learner and had been watching some organization shows. Lea came across a few guest spots of mine on those shows. Lea really resonated with what I said and got the Sunday Basket® right away. When she had been listening to those interviews, she found herself thinking “Oh I get it and I get Lisa!” She was always organized but this gave Lea a system.

Lea’s parents are divorced. Her mom moved in and soon after got really sick with Endocarditis, which ended up being a four and a half month stay at the hospital. Lea has a successful restaurant in the L.A. area. As an entrepreneur, you wear a lot of hats.  Lea would work and then head to the hospital. She runs her business off the Friday Workbox®, the two and half year planner, and rainbow tear pad. She just makes her “lesson plan” for the week and runs it without really referencing it again. 

Right after her mom returned home to finish her recovery, her dad’s girlfriend passed away from the same thing her mom was recovering from. But now, she was helping her dad to sell his girlfriend’s house and get settled into a long term care facility where they could care for him and his dementia.  Unfortunately he fell about a year later, broke his hip, and ultimately passed away. That is a lot for one person to manage. That is a lot of emotion for one person to process. She’s thankful she had the podcast in her ear to receive permission to feel how she felt. She was thankful for Michelle, from the Sunday Basket® club, (her other Organize 365® bestie ) for the continued guidance on the systems to maintain her organization. The color coding was a game changer for Lea.

She was proud of herself when she brought one of the binders to a Lawyer and he complimented how helpful and thorough it was. Lea credits getting those binders done to the professional paper organizers from Organize 365® because she’s an “obliger” and doesn’t want to let others down. She sees the “trickle down,” that this will happen to her boys as well and she wants to be organized for them, when the time comes. We talk about child care. We talk about self care. But we don’t talk about menopause or the period of life when you get the responsibility of your parents - eldercare. It takes a lot of time, money, and responsibility. She states it’s not easy to get organized but once you do at least you aren’t looking for “that paper.” 

She feels great about all of the organizing she has done and with all of the unexpected life events that have come her way, she doesn’t know how she could have made it through without them. She’s anticipating a time when she can focus on their home with The Productive Home Solution™ program. Lea was in the middle of a home renovation and opening a second restaurant when her husband lost his job. And speaking of more unexpected life events she joked about the toll of menopause. 

We talked about her desires to be even more profitable and productive with the coming of her second restaurant. And we discussed that for “busy bees”, we don’t want a vacation on the beach, we wanna be producing! I explained Dan Sullivan’s idea of “free days” where you are still productive. She’s empowered to do more because she knows she’ll never be “done”. She has peace of mind that all responsibilities are taken care of. And she’s constantly evolving.

Lea’s advice is, “Just get the Sunday Basket®. It just gets you on the right path.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Friday Workbox®

• The Productive Home Solution™

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Mercedes who is married with two young children and a one eyed siamese cat. When she was expecting her first baby, she knew she needed to get some systems in place to get organized and stay organized once she had the baby. Her husband listened to a lot of podcasts at the time so she decided to find one about organizing. Two popped up but she ultimately chose Organize 365® because Abby had just found out she was pregnant with Grayson so she related the episodes. 

Mercedes started with the overflow boxes for the clothes for the baby. Then she did her personal spaces, because that’s what was taught to do first. Mercedes saw that it worked so she fully trusted the systems and implemented as instructed. Full trust.  But it was great that she did her personal spaces because then we talked about how moms don’t get on the to do list. We do the children’s clothes and personal spaces but when does mom’s get done. Do your personal spaces first women! Then all you have to do is maintain like Mercedes explained. 

In 2023, Mercedes got one of the Teacher workboxes to teach home school. She has two neurodivergent children and wants to support them the best she can.  Throughout the interview we discussed the life of being a stay at home mom. And what it is like to have children with disabilities. It’s very isolating because social media has a narrative of what it should be like to be a stay at home mom but they leave out the part about if have disabled children. Mercedes wishes she’d realized earlier that her life didn’t have to meet the social media narrative. 

Mercedes had tried tips and tricks from books and social media but they were one off suggestions. They were like a one time task. What we identified about what makes Organize 365® so much more beneficial is that it’s a whole system. Mercedes loves the way the podcast and system makes her think about the functionality of the organizing she’s doing. It’s about applying the learned information from the programs.  She first realized she was an organized person when her friends hadn’t planned anything for summer coming up and she already had the water table and sand box at her house ready to put together when it got warm enough. She attributes Organize 365® to her parenting journey being “easy.”

Mercedes was always a somewhat organized person. But what Organize 365® did for her was to organize her mindset to match her actions. She got the Sunday Basket® in December of 2024 and the Friday Workbox® in February of 2025.  She uses them in combination with an app Finch for self care. It reminds her of her cleaning tasks so she can focus on all the crafts. Mercedes has her days planned out so she can get 2 creativity hours in. Mercedes values her new found clarity of what is going on in her life, the capacity she’s gained to do more, and time for creativity.  She wrote a novel and that’s what spurred on the Friday Workbox® purchase so she could organize self publishing. She’s started novel number two…watch out world this organized mama is on a roll. 

Mercedes’s advice is, “Do things as you need to. It’s your journey. You’re the one in charge of it. Don’t listen to social media. Listen to Lisa, she knows what she is talking about.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Teacher Friday Workbox®

• 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 am so excited to introduce AJ Vaden the New York Times Best Selling author of the book Wealthy and Well Known (co-written with her husband Rory Vaden.)  AJ lived, slept, and breathed her work. Until she didn’t. This sudden change forced AJ to dig deep and identify her personal brand. She and Rory had a unique opportunity extended to them, with divine timing, that became their signature program - Brand Builders. I have been a big fan of AJ and Rory since I completed their program Brand Builders in 2021.

Personal Brand

AJ and Rory were working at the same business when one of her superiors came to her and notified her that her services were no longer needed; effective immediately. Those next days were tough as AJ did a lot of self reflection. Out of the blue a long time friend reached out to Rory and AJ for consultation on how to improve their brand and business. That business owner was so impressed they said “This is it! THIS is what you are meant to do!” They could have said no. They could have come up with every excuse in the book to pass on the idea. Instead Rory put in his notice to quit his job and AJ and Rory joined forces to build Brand Builders Group.

Brand Builders

Brand Builders is a program that guides and teaches members to identify their personal brands. They help people to identify their why which is really their who. I completed this program in 2021. I wanted to complete this program to see if there were any gaps in my business knowledge. Remember I have a teaching degree not a Masters in Business Administration! I will always be a life long learner. AJ pointed out that we are no longer paying for information, we are paying for application of that information. And through the 4 stages that they teach that’s what the business owner learns. They value the community feedback, much like Organize 365®, and continue to iterate and provide results. 

I am planning on attending one of their upcoming masterminds. The reason I am so ecstatic? I have found it difficult to find other women business owners who have shared their path to success. Women are running their homes (business #1), then their businesses (business #2), and lastly possibly business #3 if they are in active parenting. I can find all kinds of advice on growing a business from men. But what I see with Brand Builders Group is a more equal divide of men and women who participate. The mastermind will be led of course by AJ and Rory. It’s such a great example for my women running businesses and myself. A woman who understands the unique struggles of being a mom, wife, and household manager. 

Wealthy and Well Known

This book was written to help the people AJ and Rory used to be. AJ reiterated many times that for $27 you too can learn everything I learned in 2021! Nothing is held back. Their desire is to change reader’s lives with the transformation of their business and mindset and hopes that readers will share the book with others. The other driver behind the book is to find business owners that need additional help and guidance. They want to come alongside business owners and help to succeed.  I believe in this book so much that I purchased 150 copies to give to my team, mastermind attendees, certified organizers, and all female business owners that I have relationships. I hope you will consider purchasing the book or download the free audio book so you too can identify your personal brand and apply the information that you learn.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Free Audio Download of Wealthy and Well Known

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Leslie P. who lives with her two dogs and has always been a renter.  Leslie was searching for podcasts about organization. It caught Leslie’s attention when she heard one of the Monday Connections podcasts when we were talking about subjects related to those things she loves like demographics, sociology, and anthropology. 

Leslie was always an organized person but once her mom had passed and she was in the role of executor, she just couldn’t get out from under all the paper!  She needed help and was looking for organizational solutions. The year after her mom passed Leslie referred to as the “Year of quiet living.” She stayed in her mom’s 55+ community and took time to figure out her next steps as she faced hurdles in NYC. She’d decided to go out on her own and no longer be a W2 employee.  When Leslie decided to move down to Florida and stay with her mom to take care of her, who had cancer, she grabbed most of her stuff and just left. Well all that stuff was up there still waiting for Leslie to deal with. When Leslie finally located some important paperwork under the couch pillows that she’d been looking for, she decided she had to get a system in place. 

In the midst of the mess, she created a priority list like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. What was the most important first step. She then started to feel permission to put things in logical places like her socks by the front door. She started to task stack while her dogs were eating so she could do other things in her kitchen. And she now gives herself permission to honor the phase of life she is in which may mean the fact that she’ll buy new tools, get rid of things, make mistakes, and allow new permissions. Like keeping two sets of china and hosting the holidays her way. She’s also given herself permission to have a personal life outside of working and taking care of her dogs because she also had more free time now. And with systems in place she no longer has a need for a to do list AND she’s not forgetting to do things. 

Leslie opened the conversation saying she was not the Organize 365® typical demographic. I wanted to dig into that a little. Leslie uncovered how renting an apartment is kinda like PCS’ing. You move more frequently and need to start all over again. What does a day look like again? How is the drive to work? Can you keep the same medical providers? How does errand running look? Coffee shops? And we talked about things about renting like owning a car and having outdoor space. We also talked about cost opportunities and what that means for the quiet middle of society from each person’s point of view. We both pointed out things the other had not considered. 

Leslie also attended a Planning Day. Leslie had attended plenty of corporate organization/productivity events and they all paled in comparison. She was so impressed with how comprehensive and effective Planning Day was. It’s frustrating for Leslie because she wishes she’d known sooner that a lof of people struggle with organization and for a long time she thought it was just her. Now she has less anxiety, perceived anxiety, as well as sleeping better, and has a healthier outlook. 

Leslie’s advice is, “Listen to Lisa because she is smart.” But all joking aside she added “Give yourself permission. You are the subject matter expert of your family, your life, home, of your goals, and your priorities. You get to decide. Trust yourself.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Planning Day

• 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!

It’s another Q&A episode and we’re diving into Sunday Baskets® and Friday Workboxes® and how to make it all flow together because it was asked in many different ways. The Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox® can support a lot of operations, this episode was so great for exploring multiple ways to run your home or business. 

As a Household Manager

As a household manager it is easy to get multiple Sunday Baskets® going. Multiple people asked how to manage them all and make them work together.  Honestly once Planning Day focuses on both home and work at the same time this will be more seamless. You need to take roughly 90 min to three hours to fully process your Sunday Basket®, ideally on Sunday afternoon. This opens the opportunity to go through other Sunday Baskets®.  I have some that I process monthly and there maybe some actionable papers that move to my weekly Sunday Basket®. I have active papers in Sunday Baskets® for trips I’m planning, Abby’s wedding, and whatever else. The final thing that pulls all the Sunday Baskets® and Friday Workboxes® is the weekly tear sheet where it all comes together, it’s one plan for the week, including home, work, and sometimes homeschooling priorities. 

There was also a nurse who wrote in about how to best utilize the Friday Workbox for a service line she’s in charge of. She’s a blue slashpocket person; a worker. She doesn’t own the business but there’s still a lot of responsibility.  I offered ideas on how to involve the rest of her team, establish checklists to keep them on track and understand the time it takes for that checklist. I offered color coding ideas to best communicate with her team and have information at her team’s fingertips. I offered similar ideas to a mama who homeschools. 

As a “CEO” role

There was a minister and a direct sales audience member that asked about how to best use the Friday Workboxes® because they don’t see themselves as running a business or a CEO.  If you are in direct sales or in charge of an organization, it’s like you are the CEO. As a CEO you need lead generation that produces purple work with deadlines and such. Once you complete those deadlines, you get paid which is your admin/green work. And in that mix is the people who make it happen wish is your blue slash pocket work. There are all kinds of practical applications for whatever line of work you do! This episode was chalked full!!

For the minister we talked about two Friday Workboxes®. Once for her and one for the church. For the church workbox, pink can be upcoming projects in the works like a new addition to the building that hasn’t been finalized or ideas for outreach during Christmas or Easter. The purple work is the projects that are set in motion and repeat events like how Organize 365® does the planning days routinely. And then of course staff is blue and a church is a business so green is admin, payroll, and any other financial responsibilities.  Her personal workbox could have pink work that is all about her sermons or pink work could be future plans she’s exploring, and purple work can be things she’s personally responsible for, blue the people or organizations she’ll need to accomplish the project or idea, and of course green for money.  You get the idea. 

The Entrepreneurship Journey 

Got junk? We had a great conversation about the mindset of the guys who opened 1-800-GOT-JUNK. And I was able to offer some advice to someone looking to open a special needs daycare. We talked about a few books and what I learned from them as far as my skill sets, who I should hire, and how a visionary and implementor work together to run a company. Organize 365® is what it is today because of what I’ve learned along the way…I want to always be learning. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Friday Workbox®

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Verna R. and her husband are empty nesters.  You may remember Verna and her daughters coming on the podcast in 2020. It was the first timeI got to talk to a whole family who was using the Organize 36® systems. And the second time just Verna and I talked about her organization journey.

Verna was referred to Organize 365® by her daughters to get organized since it didn’t come naturally to her. Her mother and mother in law were natural organizers so Verna appreciated systems and organization but none of the systems she tried stuck until she tried Organize 365®.  In 2002-2004, Verna had cancer. Once she finished treatment she decided it was time to hire an organizer because she needed help due to low energy from recovery. Yes, I pointed out that the organizer can help with all the visible work.

And the second thing I pointed out was that over the span of you get a home, then probably add a spouse, maybe some kids. As we get older, the complexities of daily life build on each other and there is no break time to reset for middle school years, Sports years, or heaven forbid a time with an illness. Everything still had to get done. But Verna had been sick. A professional organizer help in the short term but Verna desired a system for a lifetime.

The last point I made was that the organizer cannot deal with the invisible work. Verna agreed with me and we talked about offloading to the external brain, the Sunday Basket®.  I added that as our executive functions decline, starting as early as your 30’s or 40’s, the calendar with the external brain and planning helped to prolong the speed of decline. How can we do that? Have a system like the Productive Home Solution™ that provides training!! And we all want to be independent as long as we can! 

Verna shared her three purple slash pockets are for making gifts, her house, and volunteer work. She uses planning day to process those activities. She also credited her husband, Bruce, to being a good partner and sharing the daily tasks. We had a little side discussion about retirement and how much work the wife gains once her husband retires. I’m making Greg think about what he’s gonna do with all his time once he retires. Bruce kept himself busy for a couple more years after he retired. Now they are teaching together in Nepal from time to time and even have started to bring their grandchildren. 

Verna has more calmness and purpose. She took the time to really observe herself. She paid attention to what she was saying yes to and directly then what that meant she was saying no to. She extends herself a lof grace knowing she can’t change the past and really loves who she is today. She’s looking forward to setting a S.M.A.R.T.I.E. goal for her storage and getting her grown kids stuff out of her storage. That will free up some of her cognitive load to think about what their future living situation may look like. 

Verna’s advice is, “Notice what you do. Pay attention. It will show you what you value and what you prioritize.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Home Planning Day

• 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 am more interested, as a fellow sister and teacher, in the student learning the skill, more than I am in having a recurring membership program.” I knew 10 years ago that I wanted to offer lifetime access to this system so women everywhere could get bored,  bored enough that she has to wrestle with what she is uniquely created to do. This was a webinar we did as a one off to talk about the Completed Home Organization Bundle. The feedback from viewers was that this webinar, with myself, Virginia, and Tanya, helped them the most to understand what is in the bundles, how much time it will take, and the results to expect during the process. 

Big News

Well we kicked off the webinar letting our international followers know that they can now purchase the Productive Home Solution because the workbook is going digital!  The Productive Home Solution™ is your 52 week road map on how to get organized. The introductory pricing for lifetime access to The Complete Home Organization Bundle will not last forever so take advantage of the deal we are offering. As one person commented it was a little out of her price range but it was worth it for her sanity! And thanks to PayPal, when you check out there is a way to break it down into a payment plan.

How is this different from all the other organizational offerings?

The biggest difference most people notice is that this is an all encompassing system from organizing to planning to the invisible work we are all doing. It’s a plan. You can have a gym membership but if no one shows you how to use the equipment than what good is the access to the gym?  A couple things that I am really proud of is that I teach these systems from a woman’s point of view. I have been there. Done that.  And I have been in a plethora of homes to see all different family dynamics. And of course there’s the fact that I was a teacher. I understand that everyone learns differently and I try to cater to all learning styles in each system. And the best part of the system? It follows the energies of the year. And we reset every 120 days with Planning Day. This is a system that will teach you how to organize your space your way!

What is the worst that could happen?

You could get stuck. You likely will but Tanya runs a live club every Thursday that you can always attend. It’s a welcoming space to ask questions or share where you are getting stuck. And each system comes with community access through the app. It’s great to connect with other people in the same phase as you. People share tips all the time and talk about how they solved an issue they were having. And if you do get stuck, we encourage everyone to push through. When you make this kind of investment, you will get the work done because you have really thought about this purchase! I paid for a spendy weight loss program and you better believe I started making better food choices. And even though my family may not be on board with trying to get healthier, they are watching. And the woman usually sets the tone for the house. So like me with better food choices (which then my family is also benefitting) you too with getting your home organized. And at the end of the day it’s for you!

As women, our houses are holding us back. The clutter gives us anxiety. I truly believe the Sunday Basket® is the solution to women’s mental health to lighten the cognitive load of all of our invisible work. Organization solves the root problem for women’s mental health, their homes. Virginia shared she now has to hide how productive she really is from her friends and Tanya shared that she no longer feels behind on everything. Organization has always been a part of my life and it has opened doors for me and my family from consistent babysitting gigs, to making friends, to growing Organize 365®.

Each time I have gained time and capacity, I have leveled up and I want the same for you. I want you to get more time back so you can wrestle with what you are uniquely created to do. This is the time to figure out who you are and who you are becoming!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution

• The Complete Home Organization Bundle

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Devin R. who is married with three children; two are bonus kids that came with marrying her husband. They have 2 dogs and two cats. In 2018, Devin was looking for help to get organized. She was mowing her lawn when I caught her ear mentioning that I lived in the Cincinnati area. Then Devin’s life hit rock bottom with her work insinuating that she was not a good teacher and then she and her husband decided to separate. She could resonate with my story from 2012.

Devin looked at her life and decided she needed to get control of her life. Once she grabbed a bag and gathered all the papers she felt better. It was like since her physical chaos was getting under control her mental chaos could be addressed. We had a great discussion that all marriages go through rough patches and Devin was vulnerable to share a little bit about her marriage and how they are reconciling after about three years of separation. She shared how her mindset has shifted about organization. She looks around and asks what do I have? Why is it here? And do we even need it? She remembers making her daughter’s lunch recently and didn’t have to trip over the cat to get the things for the lunch. It was all in the lunch making station. 

Devin had tried other systems but they never felt like life long solutions to her. The podcast and videos work as reminders to keep up with the systems.  They are like a life partner to the systems. And they help with the cognitive load. We talked about the Sunday Basket® and how when you have Prospective Memory and you write something down it’s cognitive off loading to free up your working memory.  This is something Devins struggles with because of MS but lets her neurologist know at each visit how much the Sunday Basket® helps and how it could help others with her diagnosis. And then we got into the weeds a little bit about qualitative studies that I want to do based off the information from my (unbeknownst to myself when I started) unofficial quantitative or phenomenological study AKA the Wednesday Transformation episodes. 

Devin has been on her organizational journey for about three years now. She’s coped with her MS diagnosis, separated from her husband, and is entering the coaching years of parenting. Because of all her systems, she has more time to really invest in her daughter and being present. She really wishes she knew someone taught organization sooner and found Organize 365® sooner.  It takes time to get organized. Devin pointed out that she values the Power of Positivity episode. “Life is not happening to you, it’s happening for you.”  With the right attitude you can apply positivity to all journeys, not just organization journeys, no matter how insurmountable they seem.

Devin started working upholstering for her sister after she left teaching. She shared how she got the Friday Workbox®, worked on it with Monique at a paper retreat and how it helps her to stay organized on customers' jobs.  I got to offer a little advice on how she could slowly incorporate a part time worker for her to get back some CEO time. A good balance of responsibilities is to spend 80% on production and 20% on admin and lead generation.  With the addition of a part time worker, she could add another client and make money to cover the hours of that part time worker.

Devin’s advice is, “Jump in one step at a time. Listen to all the podcast episodes and then the videos from The Productive Home Solution™” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution™

• Home Planning Day

• The 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!

The world is getting ready for back to school and then we find ourselves in the 10 most productive weeks of the year. Since you will naturally be in high productivity energy, it makes sense to walk you through what to expect in The Productive Home Solution™. Are you ready to have your home organized in 52 weeks? Most people believe organization is a learnable skill and yet aren’t organized. Why? They need a plan and here it is from my last webinar.

Fall 

We kick off fall with Planning Day at the end of August. That sets us up for tackling your personal spaces for 5 weeks. Once you get your closet, bathroom, and bedroom organized you will feel the decision fatigue lessen and that will be by the beginning of Oct. Then you’ll move onto your spaces you use for your household administration. And you’ll tackle some of the more invisible spaces like your phone, email, computer, passwords, and etc.  I’ll invite you to do the Holiday Blitz and new to The Productive Home Solution™ is a couple weeks devoted to all things holiday like wrapping paper, gifts, and cards. You’ll end the year in your storage areas. 

Winter

Now that almost 120 days have passed, it’s time to have Planning Day again at the end of December. This 120 days focus around communal spaces because you will have the highest amount of organization energy during this time of the year. You roll into the kitchen for three weeks. Now each section has a way to fast track. If you find it’s a section you don’t want to do or don’t need as much time allotted, there are fast track tasks so you can possibly get organized in 9 months instead of a year. I’ve added a week to do family memories. And you all get to do taxes with me in February during the Superbowl. Come on, just try it with me!! Next you’ll think about and organize your spaces that guests would be, like, your spare bedroom or bathroom or your family/living room. We finish this section with information about having a garage sale, spring break (breaking down a meaty project) and your on the go spaces like your car or travel strategies.

Summer

It starts with another Planning Day on Mother’s Day weekend. Then we focus on outside spaces. There’s a Memorial Day Blitz and then we spend 2 weeks on each of the areas of the four binders from The Paper Solution®. Now even if you don’t have the resource binders, there are still activities to complete. You can expect the Back to School Blitz and that is not just for school aged children. Then there’s a deep dive into the Sunday Basket®-the foundation for you as the household manager. 

You end it all with Embrace On Demand. I recently heard in two podcasts that these women had “free time” and you know what they did? They took care of their homes, they nested.   In the 50’s the marketing firms started to put these lies in our heads of what our homes should look like. And if they looked like that, it meant that the homemaker was organized. LIES! Like I have said for years, our homes are holding us back. The two women in the podcasts one got their homes organized and then decided what to do next in life and the other lady did it so she could get focused on being productive. This is your time to get your home in order so you can focus on what you are uniquely created to do. Don’t know what that is? With all your extra time you can take yourself through Embrace and figure that out! It’s time for self care, caring for yourself. “First things first, I’m first.” You must align your home environment for the phase of life you are in for the goals you have for yourself and family. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• The Complete Home Organization Bundle

• Rewatch Webinar

• Webinar Worksheet

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Janet B. She’s married with one son, a rescue dog, and 5 chickens. Janet found Organize 365® when she was looking for podcasts about organization. Janet has always been fairly organized but is always looking to learn any new nugget about organization and had her sights set on productivity now!

Janet listened to the podcast for five years before she made her first purchase. Janet tried to DIY a few products like other listeners have shared. And that’s ok. It’s like you are almost trying before making the investment and I totally understand that. She finally made the purchase and then really understood how to better utilize her Sunday Basket®. The purchase wasn’t just the Sunday Basket®. She dove into The Complete Home Organization Bundle!!  She just loves that everything has a place now!

There have been a few moments when Janet realized the impact of The Complete Home Organizing Bundle. Her husband was looking for a title and needed it quickly! Easy! Janet decided to figure out how to use her self-cleaning oven feature. Easy! And when her clothes washer had an issue she got out the manual and discovered there was an app that could diagnose what was wrong with it, and she got it working! Easy! All the information was at her fingertips because she took the time to fill out the binders from The Paper Solution. 

Janet is a CPA and loves numbers!!  Janet is currently a full time blogger explaining taxes in a way everyday people can understand. I love this because we start doing something we like, we get good at it, and then the complexities of business taxes enter and that is just not easily understood! We had a good conversation about AI and what is it’s place in the world. AI may be able to suggest a system but there is no person involved to support you on your journey or be able to suggest tweaks for your individual situation. Janet started another business where she is acting as a Daily Money Manager. And that led to her becoming a certified organizer to help her clients even more with superior products at their fingertips and organization of all their important paperwork by her!

And then we had a really great discussion about natural disasters and being ready. Janet admitted she used to have filing cabinets and paper was her weak area. Now her paper is organized and she loves getting people prepared within their binders to be able to grab them quickly when needed. When natural disasters happen, and you are not a part of them, that should be your heads up to check your information organization. I want you to ask yourself “If that was me, am I ready?” At Organize 365®, when a natural disaster happens, and a person purchases The Paper Solution®, we will be making a donation to the Red Cross.  Because we want people to be prepared or use that event as a reminder to keep working towards completing your binders. 

Janet now has the Friday Workbox® too and said she is more productive because she’s learned how to manage her mail and email better so she’s not constantly breaking her focus. We had a great email/productivity chat. And now she has more time and space to grow her Daily Money Manager business and network. Productivity doesn’t mean everything is done 100% at all times.

Janet’s advice is, “Go all in because if you start thinking you just want a little piece here and there, you’re gonna want it all! You will realize all of the pieces work together.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Complete Home Organization Bundle

• Home Planning Day

• 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!

Is there anything I love more than planning? No! This was a fun set of questions to ask about planning, breaking down and attacking goals, and how to practice discipline that leads to organization getting completed so you can move on to productivity! 

Integrating Home and Work Planning

When I started Organize 365® I was focused on the energy of the home and trimesters made the most sense. When I started organization for work it made the most sense to plan quarterly since all businesses run quarterly to accommodate the tax schedule.  But in true Lisa fashion, I have listened to the masses and I agree, let’s do all the planning at once. In December, Home and Work Planning Days will occur at the same time over a three day span. I suggested that you consider populating your slash pockets of focus, from both categories and include a few from home school if it applies. What do I mean? It will make more sense if you listen to the full episode. We are all trying to get #allthethings done and feeling like we are failing. I walked through a couple of solutions that could alleviate that feeling. At the end of the day make sure you are only focusing on those things that need to get done this week. 

Be Portable

As we are all trying to get it all done, consider these few things. What is the task and can it be portable? Is it in a bin? Throw it in the car. When you have idol time in your car, you can be productive. One favorite hack I shared was the Chromebook. There is a keyboard which I love and no need for wifi. It’s always ready for you to check numbers, work on your side hustle, make updates on accounts, or pay some bills. One person who wrote in is just in a “weird phase” as she put it and I reminded her of the go bag. Make sure you are ready to be caught off guard. And in that bag you could have snacks and water for the unexpected event or the hunger you work up from working out of your car. 

Good news, you can learn discipline too? 

It’s time for me to offer some tough love, “How bad do you want it?” Multiple people wrote in about “what if you aren’t in the right energy”, “what if you plan but then you don’t follow through”, and “unexpected events that throw you off.” Active parenting young kids is a whole other chapter to which I offered 6 valuable tips to you parents.  You have to do the work to get the results. You can’t lose weight if you don’t change anything and so you too can’t get organized if you don’t make a plan and then run that plan. 

The Sunday Basket® will provide a plan for the week and Planning Day will provide a plan for the next 120 days. And The Productive Home Solution ™ makes your personal spaces work for you! Most of Planning Day is not about goal setting. Planning day is about looking at your time, how you are currently using it, and what do you want to accomplish? When you look at all aspects of your life you can see where you have time to get organized or complete a project. Remember to treat your spouse as a “nice to have.” I like being in charge and I like being “the flow.” I plan as though I have no one to help me. But when the opportunity presents itself for me to have help, I take it and delegate. I plan everything like it depends on me, but I pray like everything depends on God.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution (where you will find the Spring Break Blitz Week)

• Ep. 595 - Pick Your Meaty Summer Project (How to break down big projects)

• Home Planning Day

• Work Planning Day 

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Lisa P. who lives in Australia with one of her three daughters, her husband, 24 mini goats, 20 ducks, 20 chickens, 2 dogs, and 2 guinea fowl.  Lisa P. lives on a farm (could you tell) and has a cottage that she rents out like an Air BNB.  Lisa P. heard an interview with me and was attracted to my passion for systems and organization. When I started talking about jigsaw puzzles and then the Sunday Basket® Lisa P. thought, “You got me!” 

Lisa started binging the podcast last year like 2 hours a day! Lisa had always been an organized person and had systems in place but she felt like they weren’t working with each other. As a trailblazer among her peers starting a family first, she felt like she was always advising them. Now for the first time Lisa P had someone to look up to that had been down the road ahead of her and she could learn from the podcast, systems, and products. 

We agreed that even though kids grow up and move out…the complexities of life don’t go away.  It’s like there’s this significance of our active parenting years. So when her first flew out of the nest and the next followed very soon, she didn’t know how to feel. But then, she claimed this next phase of life for herself! She got excited about making the spare room for her and her hobbies, she accepted cleaning isn’t the most important thing, and she set a regular guilt free tea time to relax before the evening routine begins. 

Lisa P. uses her daily routines like a flow chart. She has a list of priorities. When one gets by passed because maybe the cottage doesn’t have guests checking in or it’s a rainy day, she just continues down the list of daily responsibilities to be completed.  She explained her life as romantically chasing the energy of her year, her almanac.  Lisa P. has always had a passion for the seasons. After completing the Productive Home Solution™ she found the energies to match that of the Northern Hemisphere even though their seasons and school year is different. She loves how one energy pushes you into the next. It was so interesting to hear how the Australian year unfolds. 

Lisa P. loves the Sunday Basket® because all the actionable papers don’t go away each week. Sometimes you need to hold on to actionable paper for a month or two while it goes through whatever process. But it’s nice to have the paper piles gone and a safe place that she knows where the papers are now. She also loves home Planning Day to figure out what projects will be top priority for her house in her flow chart. She has a Sunday Basket® for her “All Seasons Project” and a Friday Workbox® for the farm. She’s learned the difference between clearing and organizing and that has quieted the negative self talk about her home management skills. 

Lisa P.’s advice is, “The game changer is identifying what stage of life you are in, then start feeling ok about it.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Friday Workbox®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Home Planning Day

• 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!

You Guys! I was so excited to answer these questions. I love my hobbies so much!!  Right now, travel is a hobby I want to focus on. Greg asked me why I am taking these adult fieldtrips alone? It feeds me. I encourage my family to follow their interests and develop their skills within their hobbies. I am starting to pour into myself like I always have for my family members and I think everyone should do the same, especially the household manager. 

Scrapbooking & Photos

Disclaimer: I am a hands on scrapbooker. If you are looking for digital suggestions, I am not your guru. Creative Memories was one of the first direct sales companies I worked for. Anna and I discovered that her mom, Donna, was THE creator of the power layouts for scrapbooking specific to Creative Memories. I taught this system to all my customers and little Anna was the one counting all the chipboards that were going into the boxes that I had ordered!! There were questions about sorting, storage, getting started, and product recommendations.  I learned a lot about storage of photos, how the containers matter, and the books you place those precious pictures in matter too. I stand by Creative Memories to this day because of their quality and I am actually still a consultant with them! 

The first thing you need to identify is why you want to scrapbook and then you can make an action plan from there. One lady said there were pictures everywhere and how was she going to get them organized quickly because she needed her guest room to be functional soon. I recommend a bulk sort at this stage. Start sorting by decade and go from there because it will take awhile to get all those pictures in albums anyway!  There is a whole section on photo organization in the Saving Your Story Photo Organization Program. Make sure you are journaling to capture why those pictures are important. And then I suggested a few ways you could document pictures quicker and have completed albums. 

Books, Audio, and Journaling

I don’t journal too much but what I may consider journaling is summer time when I think about future ideas. And this is where Embrace came from. I think about the future and who I currently am and where I am going in my personal life and professionally.  I’ve shared that there was that time when I decided “If it was to be it was up to me.” And that was the catalyst for being mindful of my attitude and what I consume. I make sure to always be consuming content about influential people, presidents, inventors, and the like; this helps me to stay future oriented. Anna also pointed out how one of Organize 365®’s core values is the Power of Positivity. It’s a focus for me and my business. 

I am a life long learner and I love my books. I am such a compulsive book buyer that even when I couldn’t really afford books I would buy them anyway I just can’t help myself. I let Marie Kondo talk me into tossing out a bunch of books and boy do I regret getting rid of those books. I’ve realized I am not a minimalist and I love revisiting my books.  The best way for me to suggest some great reads is through the podcast. I spent a whole year recommending books. And I guess those are my top 52 recommendations. Take the time to live in your hobbies and fill your hobby cup as you fill everyone else’s. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• Saving Your Story Photo Organization Program

• The Productive Home Solution™

• January 2020 Book Reviews (You Tube) (check out the following 11 months for additional book reviews)

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Lindsey G. who has a blended family with three children with her current husband and 5 cats.  Lindsey found Organize 365® when she was searching for organizational podcasts. The Organize 365® message resonated with Lindsey so she started to binge the podcast. 

After being a single mom for over a decade, it was a lot to all of the sudden have extra people in the house as their families came together. In Dec. of ‘23 Lindsey had decided to leave her job as a band teacher at a charter school and open her own music school. She also thought to herself “I don’t have to be this busy. I want a new normal.” And that’s when she went searching for podcasts to support her getting organized. Lindsey shared how much empowerment she feels from doing the Sunday Basket®. I was curious how she thought single parent life would have been if she had known about the Sunday Basket® then. 

That led to a more in depth conversation about single women who are the parent, provider, and house manager.  I let out a little secret about a project we are working on in this vein, gotta listen to get the scoop! She wishes she’d learned then that she was worth the money and time investment. She also initially squirmed at the idea of routine structure. Now that she’s made the investment, she has since realized routinely doing her Sunday Basket® frees up time and helps her to plan for creative time. She wishes she’d found the Sunday Basket® because as a single mom so she could have been much more efficient with her time.  Lindsey was vulnerable enough to share that she has bipolar. It is managed but she still has the high and low energy swings. The Sunday Basket® helps her to take care of necessary tasks during low energy and do extra tasks when she has extra energy. 

Lindsey got the Launch Program to send her son off to college, and the Holiday Blitz to better plan November and December which she now sees as “one month.”  She plans for the things that happen each season, they aren’t new things and they aren’t surprising Lindsey anymore. It wasn’t so much that she had an ah hah moment that something was organized as much as she notices her ability to maximize time. She has maxed out efficiency when running errands, planning her week, and even looking at her time in the pie wheels during Planning Day. Now instead of thinking “maybe I can make it all work” on a weekly basis, she plans her time, Mon- Fri and then Sat separately from Sunday, in Planning Day. With her understanding of the invisible load she can be much more intentional. She’s thankful that she has ditched the “you gotta be busy to be important” belief. Lindsey has more peace, confidence, and surety that tasks will get done. 

Lindsey’s advice is, “Binge the podcast. Find the ones that resonate with you. Then get the Sunday Basket® and when you feel ready add on other products and systems.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Launch Program

• Home Planning Day

• 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!

Happy Monday!  I am constantly asking myself “Knowing what I know now, if I had to start all over again from scratch, would I still design these programs, products, and services the same way? Or would I do them differently? This summer I answered this question by saying yes I would do something different and the Organize 365® team confirmed my ideas. 

Changes with the Sunday Basket® 

The Sunday Basket® is a combination of your gifts, strengths, and orientation coupled with your life experiences and the people with which you do that. I have decided to add the weekly tear pad that you see me use to organize my week in the videos. The monthly tear pad will also be included. How inconvenient it is to get the Sunday Basket® but realize you need to go back into the shop to grab a few add on items. Now you don’t. You will also get the pink, purple, green, blue tabs and the Sunday Basket® Bookmark. 

Those are the product changes but I also decided to shift your mindset on the amount of time you will need to set aside each week for the Sunday Basket® which is 3 hours each week for roughly the first six weeks. You are learning a new skill set and watching the videos. You are no longer alone in this organizational fight and you have the Organize 365® community to help you iterate and improve the systems you are establishing. 

Changes with the Complete Home Organization Bundle

This 52 week course now includes The Productive Home Solution™, The Paper Solution, 4 Binders, 3 Planning Days, 2 year planner, Holiday Blitz Bundle, Embrace, Paper Solution Book, and Organization is a Learnable Skill book. It is a complete turbo charged bundle to again include everything you need to get your home 80% organized in a year without having to revisit the shop. (I explained why only 80% in this episode.) It is designed to help you eliminate the mental and physical clutter and get systems in place. 

And again I decided to shift the mindset about how much time this is actually going to take you. I have been on a health journey and shared about how I have added practices into my week, devoting more time, but now getting the results I desire. And it’s the same with this system. Ask yourself, “Are you willing to put the time in now, to live a completely different life a year from now? And for one year, you will now look at sections of your home and watch the videos that apply to your and your current phase of life. Might be the same house but you may need to start using it differently. Week one starts after Planning Day in August. 

The holidays are a big deal that require a lot of time and planning. For two months, I want you to utilize the Sunday Baskets® from the Holiday Blitz Bundle. One is for the holidays and one is for taxes. You will delay everything else in your regular Sunday Basket® till January. These additional baskets will give you a place to cognitively offload so you can be present in and enjoy the holidays. 

And I felt it necessary to include Embrace. Embrace is designed to help you reflect on how you formed the idea of what a household manager came to be, decide what you want to keep of that description, and then uncover what are you uniquely created to do with all of the extra time now that your life is organized.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Sunday Basket®

• The Complete Home Organization Bundle

• 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’ve answered questions about the invisible work we are all doing and today I am answering questions about the visible work we do. A good example of visible work is everything you would do inside of The Productive Home Solution™. I explained the evolution of the program from it’s inception as 40 weeks One Home to the “exhausting” 100 day program where I realized not everyone has kids, to today The Productive Home Solution™. I have been refining this program for 10 years to help anyone be able to organize any home. It’s a 52 week cycle of organizing spaces that matches the energy of the year. Yes, the energy changes throughout the year.

Remodeling

Elizabeth is getting ready to remodel her kitchen and wanted to know the best way to leverage The Productive Home Solution™. I answered saying as items are boxed up, label where those items will go once the remodel is done. One box per cabinet. I also found it useful to set up card tables with laundry baskets as cabinets during the remodel.  Pro tip: ask for extra shelves for your cabinets! Another person asked for an alternative to the shoe organizers during the remodeling because her husband doesn’t like the look. “The organizers stay!” The alternative is more expensive and cumbersome. Plus, if it was all tucked away her family would constantly be asking where things were because it’s all out of place to begin with. You can see through the organizers and it’s for a short amount of time. “The organizers stay!”

Email!

You guys, we are all in trouble with AI. It is making email more and more difficult to maintain. In The Productive Home Solution™ there are TEN lessons on email alone! If you are “email upside down”, archive all you have now and slowly go through them. It once took me 8 weeks to go through a client’s email inbox!  A few additional quick tips that I was able to offer was use your email like a Sunday Basket®, delay replying, delete spam, print actionable emails or emails you have replied to, and hire an executive assistant if you can. At some point, you may even think about a Chief of Staff to help. We are doing all of this invisible/ visible work for our families on top of our paid work. Email is the easiest to step out of. But only you can comfort your child in the middle of the night. What can you outsource?

What Can You Outsource

As women we are wearing the hats of wife, mom, home school teacher (in this case from the question), and household manager. She wanted to know if she should focus on The Productive Home Solution™ or the Teacher Friday Workbox™ because she homeschools. There is a great compromise to be made here. Do both. Do the teacher planning and incorporate an hour of home school to The Productive Home Solution™ and while you are at that they could be working on some of the Kids Program. Also, to lighten the load get a housekeeper. Again, where are you needed and what can you outsource?

A housekeeper was suggested for another person asking about how to best prepare for going back to school for her CPA exam. I replied to delegate and elevate your family members. She had a college aged child that could help with housekeeping or hire it out. Also stock up on everything you can before classes start. Take care of things like dr. appointments and upcoming maintenance on cars or anything else. Those are things you can do early because school has hard deadlines that aren’t flexible! Lower your standards of clean and communicate with your family about what to expect and things you will need help with because you no longer will have the bandwidth to do them. 

You guys submitted such great questions. Catch the full episode to hear the more questions and solutions I provided. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Lauren H. who is married and has a blended family with three kids and two dogs. Her mother actually lives on her property too in a separate dwelling. Lauren has been listening to the podcast for past 9 or 10 years. Only in the last 5 has she officially started her organization journey when she had her son, her mom came to live “with them”, remodeling their home, a booming business, her daughter starting Kindergarten, and oh yeah covid for the perfect storm to make someone need to get organized. Paper had always been a problem for her and the other systems didn’t address paper. She was no longer in control of the paper and she needed a system to get things in order. 

We had a great conversation about multigenerational housing, which was one element adding paper to her life.  Lauren’s mom has lived on their property for awhile now. It’s cheaper and she’s very able to live in her own place with Lauren close by instead of an assisted living facility she doesn’t want to be at anyway. That being said we talked about the peace of mind the medical binder provided for Lauren during Covid. No one could go to the doctor with their loved ones, this was a way to make sure the medical team knew about her severe corn allergy. 

Once Lauren got all of the medical binders filled out for her family, she moved on to the financial binder. Lauren and her husband run a modular home business. The financial binders help them to keep track of all the business accounts. It felt so great when her husband needed a title for a trailer he sold and he knew exactly where to look for it. Lauren is thankful for her helpful and supportive husband. She thanked me for the message that yes women are doing more because actually they want to be running the show! They want to do all the household things but also be supported. Even in business it’s easier when there is one person in charge. 

And because lifestyles are so varied, at Organize 365® we try really hard to have the conversation be dynamic to support all the ways we are running our households. When life grows, so does your paper and that’s why Lauren finally gave into putting systems in place because life kept growing and her paper was overwhelming. She loves that the Sunday Basket® is like her external brain. She has so much more space in her brain now.  She had very nice things to say about me, her “Organizing Big Sister”, as far as my teaching style. 

And then she got very excited about planning. Planning provides her the opportunity to look at her life and her business. Lauren agrees that it’s critical to take time to plan. Take yourself out of the daily activities of home and the tasks at work and plan. She feels like when she’s planned out the next quarter, she can be more present during the days of that planned quarter. And she loves that with planning nothing sneaks up on her like November that is clustered with birthdays then followed by the gift purchasing holidays. She can plan for it. She can budget for it.  She only wishes she knew how to be organized and plan sooner!

Lauren’s advice is, “Start with the Sunday Basket®. Get everything out of your brain. For 6-8 weeks get your mind and body in a rhythm of sitting down every Sunday and processing your Sunday Basket®. Then start one of the binders.” 

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!

We are moving on to the questions about paper management. You become responsible for more paper as you get older. It starts with car titles, insurance, and institution degrees. Then you graduate to information about your health, your home, and your growing family. Before you know it you may be caring for a parent or settling an estate. How do you control all the paper?

Financial Binder 

The Paper Solution has two steps to it. There is the great sort. You may need Sunday Baskets® to initially sort paper into according to which binder you will be placing it in. You will feel more confident knowing what paperwork you have, even though it’s not in binders yet. And then there’s placing all those papers in the appropriate binder. The first question was a little bit of a heavy one asking about filing personal papers for the event of your passing. It was easy to answer though, make sure you have a financial binder filled out. I created the Financial Binder after settling my dad’s estate. There were so many things I didn’t know I needed and I wanted others to know when it is time for them to settle an estate. 

I was stumped when asked about a loved one’s social media. Anna mentioned she discovered that you can designate someone as your custodian upon death. And she’s seen accounts that indicate the person has passed. Check your social media settings.

Completing the binders can be a huge gift to your future self but can feel overwhelming today. Just set aside 15 to 20 minutes a day or extend your Sunday Basket® processing time. You probably need roughly 120 hours to get through all of the paper and set up your binders. A good cheat is to attend a paper retreat here at Organize 365® or at any of our certified paper organizers retreats. You can get roughly 40 hours of work completed by attending. You may find your to-do list growing as you fill in the binders. So set yourself up to complete tasks from anywhere. That’s why I set it up in a basket, so it was portable. Switch your mindset to think of what you can do in the places you go so you can be the most productive in completing this gift to your future self. 

This could be your plan B too for days you need to pivot. If you normally care for your child or parent and a doctor visit gets changed or your loved one is not feeling well, you could paper sort in place of those activities or at those activities. You never know how the day is going to go when caring for others. You could also be enjoying these summer days and paper sorting could be saved for rainy days. It’s a small shift in mindset of when and how you can get this paper under control. 

Medical Binder

“How much detail should go into the medical binder?” I have found it useful to have past blood work, tests, and any letter from a doctor regarding special permissions for a prescription or procedure. I gave three situations where without my medical binder, the course of treatment would have included medicine but due to paperwork I had, the course of treatment changed.

The Value of a Checklist

One person wrote in saying she spends a few weeks in Mexico every summer and how could she better plan for it. Good ole checklists. You create a checklist and each summer just update the list according to any changes in growth or what you need when away from home. You can store it in the Household Operations binder until you need it, update it, and place it back in the binder till next time.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• 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!

Happy Monday!  This Connections Episodes is all about Routines. Energy is a word that keeps surfacing in these questions and conversations within the community. We are busy ladies! So how do we establish and stick to these routines? It’s important to regularly evaluate your routines and determine if they are still serving you and your house for the phase of life you are in.

Energy for routines and sticking to them regarding family 

Right out of the gate Mary asked about sticking to routines now that her children are out of school for the summer. We all do better with schedules/routines. You don’t have to rush out the door anymore but you can still have a schedule. This way you and your family can have expectations for the day. The best part about being an adult, is that you can make the schedule anything you want.  It’s ok to have a few non productive days and enjoy the time with your kids. Most importantly enjoy your summer. 

“I’m so busy doing everything for my family I feel like I never get to do what I want to do.” OR “I feel guilty being lazy when it’s so beautiful outside.” I say choose a day that you will what you want to do. For example, in the summer Greg golfs on Wednesdays so, I “project” on Wednesday. If it rains or golf is cancelled for some reason, I still “project.” OR you can say these are the projects I will do on rainy days. So go out and enjoy the sunshine but when you can’t,  pull out those projects you have been wanting to tackle. You could also designate times or nights when you, say, watch tv with your spouse. It’s important to nurture important relationships and it’s important to fill your cup too. 

Sticking to your routines for you

Another question was about having a plan for the week but not having the right energy for planned tasks. I had to throw out a little tough love. I want you to ask yourself “How bad do you want it?” I want my PhD badly so I have sacrificed time with my family and I have done the work even when I didn’t want to. If you want your home organized, do 15 minutes a day even when you don’t want to.  If you find yourself waning in energy in general, look at your diet and physical activity. I have always been an energetic person but I noticed by cleaning up my diet and increasing my daily movement, I have more energy. I explained how making environmental changes can help you in making dietary changes. And I talked about the 24 hour rule. I delay projects and I delay decision making until Sundays. Basically I don’t buy anything unless I know I can start it within 24 hours. Anna and I laughed about me learning about the Orgnaize 365® staff and their addiction with the “Save for Later” feature on Amazon. I said a lot more about it so please go listen to the full episode. 

Rapid Fire Q & A

“Lisa, What do you do with all of the completed puzzles?” “I donate them.”

“What is a typical work day for you Lisa?” “What is a typical home day for you Lisa?” Listen to episodes 471- 474 I take you through each day! I explain my rationalization for what I do. 

“Do you have a routine with Amazon ordering?” Back in the day I had to watch all our pennies. And I explained how I would delegate our money in combination with processing my Sunday Basket®. You may get a better idea for how to set up an Amazon routine for yourself by listening to those episodes. 

Regular Review

It is so important to establish routines so you have capacity for other aspects of life. Planning Day gives you a great opportunity to evaluate what you are currently doing, are your routines still serving you, are there things that have fallen off that you want to add back in or try in a different way? Every planning day you decide what you want you day to look like for the next 120 days. Planning day provides the opportunity to stop, review, change, and move forward. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Ep. 196 The 24 Hour Rule

• Ep. 469-479 A Day in the Life of (Weekends, Home, and Work)

• Ep. 521-525 How Lisa went from No Sunday Basket® to Sunday Basket® retailer 

• 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’m sticking with answering your questions about the invisible work we do. And today is all about the Sunday Basket®. I didn’t yet have a name for it. But I’ll never forget the sense of accomplishment from the first time I tried my idea out that became the Sunday Basket®. In 2012, Joey went down for his normal 20 min nap, and I, Lisa Woodruff, actually got a few calls made and checked a few things off my list. The more I did it the more I realized this was something all household managers needed. And now I had a plan to get control of my to do’s and paper.  Organization is a learnable skill.

Delayed gratification = Productivity

The Sunday Basket® is a box on your kitchen counter to “collect all”. On Sunday, you make decisions. One person asked “How do you know what to do first?” Reality check: you are not going to get all your to-do’s done. We are all overcommitted. When I go through my Sunday Basket®, it’s really a process of elimination; what is the least I can get away with doing.  When you only take care of the things necessary, you free up time for you. And this is why we use note cards! You don’t need to do the busy work of rewriting your to-do list, you just decide if each thing on each note card needs to be done by next Sunday or not and you put it right back in it’s slash pocket if not. 

One person noted they spend all their time going through slash pockets and recreating their to-do list. I remember being worried, “What was I going to do when I completed my Sunday Basket®?” It’s important to know what you are freeing up time to do. How would you feel actually completing one of those tasks each week? Then two each week? Then what’s that big reward? Will you get more time with your family? Continue your education? Plan what you will do with all that extra time. 

Sunday Basket® for now and later

A Sunday Basket® can be utilized in many ways. I answered one question about using it for finances. You can have a whole Sunday Basket for finances where you track and plan your 401K, Investments, and projects or large ticket items that you are planning to purchase. I use my household manager one for monthly tasks including bills. I have a separate one for larger financial planning.

Another person inquired about all the tips she’s saved and if putting them in her Sunday Basket® was a good idea. If it’s tips or instructions for something difficult to find each time you need to do it, print it off and place them in your Household Operations Binder. And/Or, you could have a whole Sunday Basket® devoted to projects, book tours, getting your PhD, recipes, and life hacks for “someday.” I recommend pink because that’s the color for you, the future, and dreaming. The Sunday Basket® is a great place to store ideas and you will know where to find them later.  Then when you have the time from only doing necessary tasks, you have time for something that doesn’t need to be done but that you have been wanting to do.

We have the Sunday Basket® for your household manager role. And there is the Friday Workbox for work. They both help in similar manners but the slash pockets have slightly different functions. We offer bundles to help you make the most out of you purchase to maximize your organization and productivity results.  If you really don’t know where to start, you won’t break customer service’s heart to call and they’ll shop with you. They love to hear what you are working on and suggest the perfect products for you and the phase of life you are in. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Friday Workbox®

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Carly L. is married with two children. Carly was looking for paper organization solutions and came across the book “The Paper Solution.”  Paper has always been Carly’s nemesis but  it was to a point where she couldn’t locate important papers. Her daughter would be starting Kindergarten soon and she knew she had to do something with all of her disorganization. Carly joked she was so disorganized that she missed the Black Friday sale to purchase the Sunday Basket®.

Carly grew up in an organized home, but hers wasn’t. She described it as feeling a low level of constant anxiety humming. There was constant chaos of not knowing where things were. She thought other books and checklists were going to help her. But, in fact, Carly has gained so much empowerment from the books and the Organize 365® systems. She passionately explained how we are building lives here. She values how Organize 365® teaches people how to think about organizing. The skills you learn can evolve with the phase of life you are in . It’s not the picture perfect containers that will help get you organized. “Lisa did it and I can too.” If your kitchen cabinet isn’t working where it is and you want it in the laundry room, you just get out your tools and make it happen. That’s what Carly did because she remembered the story I shared of me doing the same thing. You have to make your house work for the phase of life your family is in. 

Carly said things don’t get organized, you do and systems do.  Carly claims you can’t have the Sunday Basket® and not be productive. Carly uses her Sunday Basket® and she ordered the Holiday bundle that came with a Sunday Basket® for Christmas and one for taxes. Carly also takes care of her mother-in-law, and has a Sunday Basket® for her as well as a Medical Binder. When her father-in-law passed, her MIL didn’t know anything a household manager would know. She has poor English and it was difficult to navigate. Now, with the help of the Sunday Basket®, Carly can stay organized with all things concerning her MIL.

Then Carly said, I’d like to request a Sunday Basket® for the military. I was excited to spill the beans early to her (in December when this was recorded) about the PCS box we recently unveiled.  We talked a lot about the relocation process and all of the paperwork. We talked about the marital roles the military expects.  Carly talked about how the Sunday Basket® helps a person to compartmentalize tasks. It’s like a personal assistant reminding you of the things you need to do and will be very helpful for PCS’ing. And she claims a Sunday Basket® will help your marriage. She found she was purchasing duplicate items and couldn’t locate important things. Their home environment is much more calm and she can be the partner she wants to be because she knows where things are. She doesn’t feel like she’s constantly playing whack a mole anymore.

It’s functional organization, that you get from the Organize 365® systems, that serves us. She pointed out that even if you are tired, you can do a 15 minute organization task. Carly appreciates that you can jump back into the system anytime. She feels the planning days are magical.  Her family is thriving because of routines she has in place. She warned planning is one part but then you just gotta do it! She has gained so much self esteem from everything she has implemented. 

Carly’s advice is, “Don’t give up on yourself. And if you fail,it’s just like a child, you’re gonna crawl, then you’re gonna walk, and the your gonna be running!” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Home Planning Day

• 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!

Ok, this is so much fun answering all of the questions that have come in. I decided to organize the questions in the same order in which you would experience in The Productive Home Solution®.  In the next 10 episodes, we are going to look at all of the visible work we all do. When it comes to getting organized we want to eliminate the overwhelm and disorganization and get to being productive and organized so you can do what you are uniquely created to do. 

Decluttering comes first and it is getting rid of what you no longer need. Decluttering is like vacuuming, it’s got to be done over and over. Do not confuse it for getting organized. I’ve seen people over-declutter, then have regrets, and then not like being “organized”.  Someone asked “How do you know when you are done?” I say when you have made enough space to start moving things around in the space you are organizing, that’s good enough. You will find in that process that you find more things you want to declutter. 

Getting organized is totally different; it’s getting your home to a functional state for the phase of life your family is in. Organizing your life is opening up more time to do what you want to do and being more productive. I’d like you to have realistic expectations and just know this will take you roughly three years to get fully organized. The more you do it the more you build those muscles.  After we all do our closets and kitchens, which seem to have some universal set up, we don’t know what to do. There are so many variables like our age, the phase our family is in, and where we live that can demand we use our houses in different ways, maybe untraditional ways.

A question came in regarding items she’d decluttered. She wanted to get rid of some items but was struggling because they have financial value.  You have to decide to donate, have a garage sale/selling online, or toss the items.  I explained how I needed money so I held a garage sale and sold things online. There is a whole video about having a garage sale in The Productive Home Solution®. I advised her to start collecting these items somewhere near the garage. This makes it easier if you are going to hold a garage sale or if you will need to put these items in your car for donation drop off. I also talked about claiming your donations on your taxes. 

And I discussed the mental hurdles of getting rid of items. I know for me it was difficult to admit I was not going back to the classroom, I was not going to be pregnant, and I didn’t want some handed down items. We have to admit that that chapter of our life is finished. I found holding onto those items made me reflective of the past and I really want to be future oriented. By getting rid of those items the negative emotions left and opened up space literally and figuratively for the future. Organization is future oriented. 

And another person wrote in with questions about combining households and how much she was overwhelmed with all of the boxes in all the rooms, not to mention their storage unit and her  mother-in-law’s things, who has passed away. I suggested a few boxes a day. See if there are duplicates and decide which one to keep and which one will be donated or whatever. And never make someone get rid of things of a loved one until the person is ready. It usually takes 5 years for the attachment of the item to the passed person to become less or be gone. And then I addressed cleaning and organizing. It’s really hard to clean a cluttered home. You can lower your standards of what clean means. You need to declutter. And then you can consider a cleaning person if you want so you have more time to organize.

Or you can take advantage of the free Household Manager 21 day bootcamp!  It was created so you could get a taste of getting organized. You start by printing out the calendar, pick your three weeks, and big black trash bag energy. This is to teach you how to declutter and organize a space. Give it a try and tell me about your transformation!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• ^ Garage Sale Episode - Inside The Productive Home Solution® ^

• Household Manager 21 Day Bootcamp

• 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!

Happy Monday! Anna had this great idea for this summer on the podcast; the idea was to address questions from the Organize 365® community. I asked Anna if she thought we’d get any responses? We did. We got 70 questions in the first 24 hours. So, today we’re getting personal answering questions about my family and how I navigate incorporating my business.  

Family Involvment

The question was asked about what I do when my family members don’t want to participate in organization. I reiterated many times in this episode that I think my view point now is because of my lived experience up to age 53, that I am now. As women, our roles change a lot depending on the phase of life our family is at. I am out of active parenting years, made it through menopause, and just feel less emotional more matter of fact. 

In the brain, schemas are organized patterns of knowledge, or mental frameworks, used to interpret and understand the world. It’s like a repeated skill that you have mastered. So if you always make the kids lunches, organize the schedule for the family, and get the groceries, you likely have schemas for those tasks. But then you ask your husband (or kids) to step in and he doesn’t do it as well as you. He doesn’t have the years of schemas built up that you do. You’re asking the rookie to do, without training, what the World Series player normally does.

What you focus on is what grows. Focus on what your family does right. I mentioned on a side note that being an entrepreneur has afforded me luxuries that Greg doesn’t have and that makes him a little jealous. You never know the root of the negativity you get from your family. But I know my boundaries and goals and what it will take to accomplish them. And stop doing so much. Allow your family to assume some tasks like those teenage kids. Let them form schemas. OR I just focus on my areas and what I can do. I have accepted that I am only in control of myself. 

What I contribute to my organizational success 

There are 4 things that I can see I incorporated into my systems. Mind you first they were just systems for myself and my clients. From the Franklin Covey Planners I gained the idea of beginning with the end in mind. I liked how the Slob Sisters, who wrote Side Tracked Home Executive, had you write everything down on note cards and then there was a rotation system to keep you on track. Fly Lady had the control journal that I loved. But at the end of the day it was too many tasks eating up my day. I then decided what was the minimum I could get away with doing each day based on what could wait. And lastly, Getting Things Done by David Allen. It was good for executives but I needed something for parenting and a household manager. 

And for my PhDers out there, I explained all about my organization of papers for my school work and now the dissertation.

With all of the things I do, naturally someone asked about me taking down time and getting sick. I have always been a naturally energetic person. I love to be busy with my hands. Down time for me is doing a puzzle while watching tv with Greg. I can’t even relax at the beach! And as far as getting sick. Most times, you won’t know I‘m sick till I’m back in the saddle. I deny the possibility as long as I can. But I always have peace of mind if I do get sick because I try to be a week or two ahead, in work, to prevent the cascade of everyone else completing their work. Like I’ve said before “I’m where work comes from.” Always in that ready state of preparedness. And you get to choose how you respond to situations. Your attitude is a choice.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Sunday Basket®

• 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.

In this episode, I introduce you to Amanda A. who is married with three kids. Amanda found herself with compounding Golden Windows which created a little chaos in her life. She had just started back to work, went to transfer files to her dropbox and stumbled upon an old bundle she’d downloaded years prior - the Ultimate Bundle. It was exactly what she needed and her “relationship” with Organize 365® took off from there.

Amanda had tried a lot of other organizational systems but none of them seemed to be the solution. When Amanda came across the module about organizing your schedule is when she felt relief.  Golden windows Amanda was experiencing were her turning 40, moving to IL., she had a baby, took care of her mom her mom, covid hit. That was the two years leading up to 2021. In 2021, August she went back to work after 4 years, in Nov. her son needed medical help, and in Dec. of 2021 she was able to get a handle of it all that fateful day when she came across the module to organize her schedule. Amanda has ADHD and while she understands getting your life under control starting with the Sunday Basket® consistently for 6 weeks, that wasn’t her. 

We had such a great productive conversation about using the space in your home for the phase of life you are in. Amanda is using her dining room as her office. It’s where everything gets processed anyway so why not? I shared how “Grayson’s Room” upstairs has changed purpose over the years and as recently as a few weeks ago. When I found out Abby was pregnant I re-assessed how we need to be using that space. That’s exactly what Amanda did with her dining room and talking through it, may be Christmas Central too this December. 

Amanda shared about their steak drawer. They made a drawer in their kitchen functional for when her husband or son want to make steak, which is often! Once you decide how you want to use a space, think of any obstacles you may have and problem solve. A cabinet can be used the same as a drawer or vice versa. They purchased their home from a couple who had recently became empty nesters. There were some features they would never use. One was when the beverage cooler went out. She reimagined the space with a mini fridge that now houses school lunch items. Amanda has a lot of Organize 365r products, including The Productive Home solution. She was paralyzed where to start because the members were on a different day that day 1. Amanda was skeptical that a storage space or or laundry room would stay organized. These are the spaces you start with because they stay organized the longest. So she started in their laundry room. Sure enough…she cleaned out the winter stuff, gave items homes, and to her disbelief, it stayed organized! 

Amanda has more perspective by pausing and thinking about how she needs to do stuff. She likes to flit around in the programs and that suits her ADHD but compounds to be organized. And she wishes she’d known that no one is being as critical as she is about her home. She has such bad negative self talk about the state of her home at one time. But now, 

Amanda’s advice is, “You can have as many redos or day 1’s as you need. When starting the Productive Home Solution, you can start where you want. And if you need to restart, do that! Planning day is like that for me every few months. Time to start over.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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.

Summer planning round 3, ding ding ding. I share a lot of my life because I am part of the Organize 365® brand. I’ve been podcasting for over 12 years and over that time I have shared a lot about me, my life, and my family. Recently I shared how I wanted to spend the next 120 days upleveling the upstairs of my house. Those plans changed when Abby decided to have back surgery. And once again those plans have changed. And when evaluating my boundaries, I asked to share some news on this podcast I’d been withholding to explain why all the changes.

My personal life

A year or two ago I started practicing boundaries. My family has never been upset with anything that I shared but I started thinking they are adults and it’s their news to share when there’s news. I don’t need to share everything. And a year ago I decided to stop sharing vacation/trips with social media and on the app. But then I wanted to share something while I was on a trip and I questioned my boundaries. I’ve decided I have boundaries in place but when I want to share something I will even if it goes against those boundaries. My boundaries are flexible.

Unexpected golden window

When Abby’s back surgery got cancelled, I removed the “When Abby has back surgery” google calendar and my calendar was bare! I’d dedicated about 80% of my upcoming time to take care of Grayson and Abby. Now what did I want to do in this unexpected golden window? People often ask “I have so much to do, but when I have a pocket of time, I don’t know what to do first.” I say all you need to do is just pick. I had lots of options when that time opened up on my calendar. I decided I want to make the PhD a priority. You see, Abby had to do some pre-operation bloodwork that revealed she’s expecting. Yes!! Hence the surgery is off. This discovery led to a cascade of changes for the next 120 days. The second thing I decided I wanted to do was revisiting creating an office upstairs in our house. And I created a little bedroom upstairs for Grayson like I’d mentioned before so our house is ready for this next phase of life.  Wanna know how I’m gonna spend the rest of this time? 

Italy, a Wedding, and a Baby

Knowing the baby is coming in December, I want to plan our Italy trip for this fall. It’s been cancelled a few times, and I want to go before Abby needs us with baby #2. More news I’ve been keeping private is that Abby is engaged and they’re getting married in the Spring of 2026, so we definitely need to squeeze this trip in. Pray for me as I plan this wedding. LOL So travel, travel is the other thing I want to do for this 120 days. By the time you listen to this episode I will have just come back from Michigan. Greg and Joey are headed to the Keys. When we head to FL I’m taking Grayson to Disney (secretly hoping it becomes our little tradition.) I’m taking an adult field trip to VA. And I’ll be planning this Italian trip for the fall that we’ve talked about taking forever! So I have a few things keeping me busy. 

I will not be creating any courses or Sunday Baskets® for weddings, vacationing, or any other courses based on the events currently in my life. I’m not a public figure that is going to try to be an expert in everything I do. When I created Organize 365® I chose a subject I was an expert in and a subject that I wanted to talk and teach about until I was at least 80. Teaching others about organization is my unique gift and I’m going to stay in that lane. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

Life can really get challenging when you lose someone and they owned a business.  Emily and I had to face that, with our dad, and I’ve shared about it and now Anna Hall is sharing about her dad. Anna has two younger brothers and she was kind enough to share their experience with settling his estate, taking care of his business and employees, and the family house her father built with his two hands. It couldn’t have come at a more complicated time for Anna. She and her husband had just built a house one year prior to be a half mile between her mom and her dad who were divorced.  And Anna was in school for her doctorate, had an almost 2 year old son, and at almost 31 years had no experience how to settle an estate and grieve the loss of a parent.

It’s never planned

None of us plan when we’ll pass although we may know it’s coming soon. Our passing comes with great emotional distress to those we love. How can we make it easier on them? Do like Anna’s dad did. Thankfully he was a meticulous person and all of his paperwork was orderly and passwords were readily available. It saved a lot of time and money in lawyer fees because the lawyer didn’t have to go on a wild goose chase to obtain information. Anna advises to show up with as much paperwork as you can in that first visit. Her father assigned her uncle as the executor but let Anna and her brothers be in charge. He had a will and a separate document for the business. Her father also had titles transferred upon death saving money on taxes and keeping belongings out of probate.

What to do with the business?

Anna called a meeting with her brothers and a long time employee of her dad’s, JR. Her dad’s dying wish was to keep him working as long as JR wanted to. One of her brothers lived out of state so he wasn’t going to be able to help and Anna worked as a teacher full time so they needed to assign roles. It wasn’t too long after that Anna, who was the leader, realized her brothers weren’t paying attention to the reports, she was fine with that but wasn’t going to devote time to that anymore. 

Anna led her dad’s company for 4 ½ years but was ready to sell the company. As fate would have it her father in law had a friend with a similar business. They needed a skilled wood crafter too like JR. Anna was able to sell her fathers company, keep JR working, and keep their current customer list serviced. It was such a blessing for Anna who now had two children and ambition to pursue a career as a result of getting her PhD. However, they did not purchase the warehouse. Anna took time to sell off items. It was sweet for Anna to have some of her father’s friends stop by, share stories, and maybe claim an item or two to remember their friend.

There’s something about the 5 year mark

There was something special for Anna to run the company for almost 5 years. She cherished being the one to carry on the legacy of her dad. If you find you just can’t part with some items yet, that’s ok. I always say get a storage unit, give yourself time with those items, and avoid regretting that you got rid of them. And we talked about that significant 5 year mark. I shared in a previous episode how around the 5 year mark I was able to see some of my dad’s items with less significance. You start to realize that person is a part of you and your memories. They aren’t that thing. The material things no longer represent them. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Sunday Basket®

• Financial Binder

• 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.

If you find yourself in this role as Executor of an estate, I want to make sure to support you best during this time by providing a little food for thought. How do you want this time to look? It’s not easy losing a loved one and hopefully this episode provides emotional support in the form of considering your mindset during this time. And we found it is best practice to have ONE executor! Emily and I were both executors but needed to be present for every singing of all the papers and Emily bowed out. She said you do it, I trust you!  It’s so much easier with ONE executor!! Here are the things we did to save time, money, and spare our relationships. 

Protect Your Relationships

We had about a 9 month heads up that my dad was terminally ill. I lived 3 ½ hours South of my dad but I made a conscious decision that while my dad was alive I would prioritize taking care of him. My sister would call and I would get in the car and head North. On those long drives I would think about the memories I wanted to create with my dad, the moments I wanted to share still, and burning questions I wanted to ask. This would be the time to finish up that Financial Binder if it wasn’t completed. This way you know you are honoring their final wishes. But really? Complete it before this highly emotional time so you and/or your loved ones can focus on cherishing the final days. My Aunts and Uncles were so good to counsel us during this time in respect to what to expect in settling an estate and planning a funeral. 

I also considered people I would be interacting with communicating things about dad’s health, his passing, and the funeral details. Out of respect, even though they were divorced, we communicated his passing with our mom first and loved ones from there. It is also ok during this time to set boundaries. I went through some scenarios to think through. How will you interact with your less than favorite relative respectfully? Keep harmony in mind. 

Processing Loss

Based on my experience, it seems to be a female doing the bulk of the executor role. Her husband may be the actual Executor but in her supportive role she does most of the tasks. And so how do you, as a female, household manager, and maybe a parent, take time to process the passing of your loved one?You may need to cry it out in the shower. Maybe it becomes “long shower season.” I grieved my loss leading up to and weeks after his passing at my dad’s house. I found when I was home my family needed me. But when I got up to Akron that was a place I had time to grieve.  But I encourage you to be selfish and take the time you need to process this loss. 

How to Process the “Stuff”

I have this indulgent thing I do. I lay in bed half awake, half “asleep” and I think. Normally I rearrange my calendar and think through any projects. During this time I thought about my dad, my relationships, and all the stuff in his home. It was all going to be Emily and I’s. I didn’t want all of it but room by room I envisioned what I might want. 

Then, I developed this elimination process for Emily and I. She didn’t have the bandwidth to sort through each room. I wanted to support her in this time and get the house content processed so we could move forward with selling his home. Each day, I’d tackle one room and set out all the items. We’d go through and claim the things we wanted. The rest would be offered to family and then to donations. This can be an emotionally charged tough season. Give yourself grace, keep harmony in mind, and for the love…finish your financial binders people! 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Financial Binder

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Eve M who lives in Western Ireland with her rescue cat. Eve was first introduced to Organize 365® through listening to another podcast that was interviewing me about ADHD and Organize 365® solutions. Eve became obsessed about this idea of the slash pockets and organizing. She listened to the Sunday Basket® episodes repeatedly. She has a podcast too called Feel Better Everyday that she hosts, author of the book 365 Ways to Feel Better, owns her therapy practice, and is a freelance journalist. 

We rabbit trailed about having a podcast. Eve has noticed with organization she’s gained mental capacity to batch record her podcast content. And we joked how funny it is that once you notice you’ve gained capacity you continue to push it to see how much more you can accomplish with such things as batch recording. We also talked about growing business. Once you see you have room for growth, that is a great time to get a VA. Eve has gotten a VA and is surprised by how much more she can do because she’s not focusing on the admin tasks or harvesting content from work she’s already completed. There is less on her plate due to delaying some things according to the Sunday Basket® practice, but it’s all getting done within time constraints. It’s like her safety net to not have things fall through the cracks. And knowing all of the work that needs to be done helps her ensure that she has work for her VA too. 

Then we had a really fun conversation about deep dive work. I love my Thursdays when I get immersed in school studies. It allows me time to do productive deep thinking. When we get rid of some of the noise like admin tasks, meetings, delaying things till Sunday, and other distractions, we can really focus and get creative. Eve explained that this is also time to capture all of her pink thoughts. And described deep dive immersive time as being luxurious. It allows us to nourish our unique purpose and grow in it. 

She wishes she’d known to build in time for rest. I explained what fun means to me, travel!!  But Eve shared her she’s been resting, taking back up scuba diving, and scheduling fun. She said she spent so much time trying to catch up, she has so many ideas though, she has realized she never will “catch up” so she’s resting and having fun instead. 

Eve’s advice is, “Keep checking in with yourself. Know that you know yourself best, you know your business best, you know your home best. Trust yourself and just keep asking yourself ‘What would be a kind thing for me to do for myself right now?’” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

As we are having these necessary conversations on how to be prepared for unexpected medical events or natural disasters, I saw a friend of mine Sarah Hart Unger had one of her own. I asked her to come on the podcast so we could talk about what happened, how she handled it, what she learned from it, and how she may improve her preparedness.

I’m Healthy

Sarah shared how she was so excited to get back into running marathons. There she was in Miami in about mile 11 of her half marathon when all the sudden she heard her body say something wasn’t right. She bunked (marathon runner speak for running out of steam) and she was surprised and disappointed, why was this happening? Her friend took her to the medical tent and they told her all was well. She was so confused because she was a runner and she considered herself a very healthy person. Five steps into leaving the tent something told her no, and to go back. Moments later she was on her way to the hospital. She was pleading with them to just let her get to the hospital to be put under so they could shock her heart there, not that moment in the ambulance! Sarah has been diagnosed with a rare condition called Arrhythmic Cardio Myopathy.

What Systems were in place? 

Thankfully Sarah was near where her in-laws live so they could support Sarah during her hospital stay and gave comfort to her daughters that someone was there comforting their mom. Sarah appreciated the medical team that took care of her, she felt heard, that they were honest with her, and was thankful for the way they cared for her. She wrote questions down because sometimes there wasn’t anyone to ask if it was like 2am. And she had realistic expectations of how long it may take to get a diagnosis. 

She got images in hand for additional specialists she wanted to see for second opinions. She advises to always ask for the images and reports. I feel like digital records help us to be productive and physical records help us to look, analyze, and see patterns. We’re all under this false pretense that our records are digital. And they may be, but, do you want your doctor visit to consist of tracking results down or do you want it to be focused on the course of action for treatment? Remember the mini medical binder is available for free right now. If you even show up with that you are ahead of other people. You can just start putting the medical papers in a pile and bring them. Sarah is a Pediatric Endocrinologist and says that she’d rather have people show up with results and reports messy than not at all. 

How to better prepare? 

Sarah wishes she had her old labs and EKG’s for comparison sake. I remember being able to show my doctor my cholesterol history and I avoided being put on medicine. I showed that for years my normal is in the “yellow” zone. Sarah also wishes she would have headed the advice to get another EKG years ago but life got busy and she forgot. Sarah stressed that we have to take care of ourselves just like we do our children. She accredits their amazing nanny for being able to step in and fill in the gaps. However, because they always plan their week out and share it with the nanny, they nanny knew how to fill out the schedule for the family. Sarah suggested a family member maybe come observe a couple days at your house to see the day to day unfold and be aware of what they may need to do in your absence. It’s ok if the ship sinks a little like if someone has to miss soccer, that’s ok. Sarah warned “Don’t ever assume ‘I’m healthy, nothing can happen to me.”

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Mini Medical Binder

• Sunday Basket®

• 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.

In this episode, I introduce you to Amy L. who is married with a son, daughter, a dog and some chickens. At the time she found Organize 365® she and her husband were working full time and raising cattle. Amy was lured to Organize 365® by the cozy pictures people were posting with a drink and their Sunday Baskets® on Instagram. I had forgotten all about that!!  She had to check out what all the fuss was about. Organize 365® became the first podcast she intentionally listened to to learn about organization. Amy was in the middle of a remodel and had hit her tipping point. Paper had always been the bain of her existence but now she couldn’t locate important papers and she felt out of control and irresponsible. 

So Amy is in the middle of remodeling her house and her husband planning to start a business, when she gets a call from her brother saying “Something's up with dad.” Turns out something had been up with dad for a while but her brother had been trying to handle it. I don’t talk about it much but it was very relatable to me when Amy shared that her dad had late-onset of bipolar and he was acting manic. Amy was smart enough to get her name on her dad’s bank accounts and she became power of attorney but needed someone to diagnose him incapacitated. Amy was burned out. She explained her life as unmanageable at that time.  

Amy decided to quit her job in June of 2024. Her family needed her, especially her daughter with ADHD, dysgraphia, and dyslexia, and her son with autism and ADHD. She talked to her husband and they agreed to sell off their cattle. Amy’s dad ended up passing away in August of 2024 followed by her having a heart attack in November. She called for an ambulance after making arrangements for her kids and informing her husband. She kept saying she was under so much stress she felt like she was going to “stroke out.” She had a spontaneous coronary aortic dissection. We had quite a long conversation about that day and the day I drove an employee to the hospital who was having a heart attack. She accredits the Sunday Basket® for saving her butt because her short term memory had been affected by the heart attack. 

And that brought us into a very real conversation about your attitude in your 40’s and 50’s. We aren’t trying to be crass and we love our families. But in your 40’s you stop caring about what others think and in your 50’s you save what energy you have for important things or yourself, blame it on the hormones or lack thereof. I gave the example of when Grayson has an allergic reaction, I don’t need to be at the hospital. I can simply get updates from his mom. I know I am supporting her and if she needs me I’ll be there but if not, I’ll stay and get homework done in the office. 

Amy expressed gratitude for the grace I suggest women should give themselves with getting functionally organized not Pinterest organized. She loves that a person can get organized but it doesn’t have to look perfect in the end. Amy loved that it wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t cluttered anymore either during her renovation. She’d had the Sunday Basket® and listened to the podcast for 18 months before she put it all into action. She’d been gaining knowledge and learning how to give herself grace to get started and not need it to be perfect. She feels like the episodes are so relatable. And I added yes, you all are my friends and I want it to feel like we are just girlfriends talking. It’s nice to know that’s exactly how Amy hears it. 

Amy’s advice is, “Start small, start somewhere, and listen to the podcast” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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.

While the world seems calm, in terms of natural disasters, I wanted to offer three levels of ways to be prepared. Natural disasters are unexpected events and I want you to be prepared for anything that may come your way. I used two filters to concoct these courses of action to be prepared; “What would be harder to do once the disaster has happened?” And “How can I invest in being more self-sufficient and less dependent?” Preparedness is not a necessity but a way for you to be part of the solution.

Level One  - Go Bag!

You get news that you need to go see someone in the hospital or you need to evacuate, what do you take with you? I encourage everyone to have a Go Bag and fill it with items that would make you more comfortable. Think, if you were going to travel on an airplane, what would you want? I provided so many options of how to be prepared that this will become a reliable episode to share with anyone facing an unexpected event but hopefully everyone hears it before they are desperate for the information!

Level Two - Packed Suit Case

I understand this may seem a little next level for planning but when we get caught off guard and called away from home, our brains are scattered and it would be easy to forget things. I advise you to slowly build this packed suitcase. Maybe during Black Friday you pick up an extra curling iron so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to pack the one you use daily. Half of my suitcase is always ready with my toothbrush, brush, sound machine, curling iron, and so forth. In the event I needed to drop everything and go or simply to travel, I’d throw in some jammies and a few outfits, and out the door I’d fly.  If you have fires creeping close to your house I want you to be prepared to be able to do the same!

Level Three - Information Management

When I used to organize people’s homes and paper, I would use their filing cabinets until one time I was forced to tell a client to leave them behind. That paperwork is so valuable and I never wanted to tell someone that again. That’s why Organize 365® switched to binders, paper needs to be portable. When fires are near your home and you need to get away quickly, there’s no need to worry, grab them and go! When I was settling my father’s estate, I never found myself near the filing cabinets that had all the information, when I was being asked for it. You need easy access and it’s not always due to a natural disaster or an emergency. 

Prepare, Support, Cycle Preparedness

I asked the question: “Can a natural disaster be a Golden Window?” Sounded crazy as I said it but I thought of a few ways it could be viewed that way. I shared ways of how to be prepared with food, water, and power, in the event of a natural disaster. In the Organize 365® community there is a way to find support and give support. I never want people to be forgotten after these tragedies so we have the “Forget Me Not” Basket in Carolina Blue in effort to honor past events and future events. It’s also where you can go to download the mini medical binder to have in these go bags and suit cases. These natural disasters happen and we watch on tv helplessly. We now have a way to help anyone from 1 person to thousands going through the same thing in the community after the camera have gone home and the news coverage has stopped. And lastly, stay prepared by including updating these items each home planning day. I don’t want people to be caught off guard and unprepared so I wanted to share how you to can be in a constant state of preparedness too.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• Organize 365 Relief Group

• Ep. 610 - Productive People's Mindset - Living a Prepared Life

• 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!

Happy Monday! Today, we’re talking about how to combat teacher overwhelm. In this episode, Lisa is joined by Jayme (from the school pilot) and Anna (a member of the Organize 365 team) to talk all about why teachers are feeling so stressed and what can be done to help support educators. 

Support for Teachers

Some of the resources we found address ways to support teachers who feel overwhelmed by all of the demands of the education field. Some of the ways to support teachers include reducing or streamlining the number of administrative tasks teachers are burdened with, as well as helping teachers get organized. These are all things that we offer inside the The Teacher Workbox system and that will be addressed in Teacher Planning Day this summer. 

At Organize 365, we built the Teacher Workbox as a means to support teachers in the administrative side of their job. Teachers receive training in their preparation program on lesson planning, classroom management, and lesson design. We step in to help provide teachers with an organizational system to manage their time and streamline as many tasks as possible. 

A Sense of Community

Peer support helps ease feelings of teacher overwhelm, and we love that we can offer the supportive community of educators inside the Organize 365 Community App. This is where teachers have the opportunity to share ideas, ask questions, and learn from one another.  Teacher Camp is a live opportunity for teachers and other educators to get to know one another and work in collaboration as we set up our Teacher Workboxes for the coming school year. 

How Much Time Are You Wasting?

At the end of the episode, both Jayme and Anna confess to having made their own Sunday Basket before purchasing the actual Sunday Basket from Organize 365. They share how much time and money was wasted trying to create a perfect system, when the supplies they really needed were already available through Organize 365. They also reveal how no system they could create on their own was able to support them in the ways they needed because the do-it-yourself system did not come with a course, online community, or Sunday Basket Club that are needed to truly understand how the system works. If you are thinking of going this route, how much time and money are you willing to waste? 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Gallup’s State of the Schools Report: Insights to Inform Higher Education adn K-12 Leaders

• 2023 Teacher Shortages: What to Know About Vacancies In Your Region

• Prioritizing Teachers’ Mental Health

• The Best Benefits You Can Give Educators: Easing Their Mental Load

• A Dwindling Number of New U.S. College Graduates Have a Degree in Education

• 2024 Teacher Shortage Statistics Show We Still Have a Long Way to Go

• Nguyen, T. D., & Kremer, K. P. (2022). Burned out and dissatisfied? The relationships between teacher dissatisfaction and burnout and their attrition behavior. Elementary School Journal, 123(2). DOI: 10.1086/721772

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.

Well the time is here! Abby is finally getting a back surgery we knew would need to be done despite all the cortisone shots and physical therapy. I don’t share this so you can plan when your next family member needs you for a surgery. I’m sharing all my planning thoughts and iterations because where else do we hear this stuff? How do you learn how others plan? This is for any event you have coming up that requires a lot of shifting and planning. I’m going into a time where there will be a plan and I can not just “not feel like it.” I have to do what is on the plan in order to have success. 

Operation “Take Care of Grayson”

What does this mean for me? Full time primary care giver to Grayson. Honestly, I’m using the lens that this is a unique opportunity to spend these months with Grayson and support Abby.

The first thing I knew I needed was to think about how I was going to entertain this active big 4 year old. I have a routine I am going to try out based on tiny details of care that Grayson needs and what he’s used to. And I’ve thought about a lil lunch box I can pack for on the go, what all needs to be in my purse at all times for Grayson, and a backpack in the back of the car with things we may need when we are out. The routine is in small chunks of time that I can start to give back to Abby as she recovers. 

Next Layer: The Family

When going into a time of new demands on your time and capacity, you need to look at it in reverse order to figure out how to still meet as many personal and family obligations as possible. So next my brain went to the rest of my family. How will I care for Greg, Joey, and help Abby through recovery. Greg has this trip to the Keys planned to take with Joey and his dad. It’s important and I encouraged them to still take it. It’s during the first week after Abby’s surgery. I’m asking Greg to take on a few tasks to make sure we all get fed and Grayson gets to and from Daycare. 

I’ve been reading up on this surgery and the recovery process. I have tried to consider the physical things Abby may need to aid her in her recovery. But I have also been considering the emotional toll this may have on her. Might be tough watching me play mom to her child for a while. I will do my best to include Abby to keep her spirits up. And the physical therapy! Likely I will have those scheduled before the surgery takes place. 

I’m sneaking in an adult field trip before surgery to fill my cup and one after Abby’s surgery to give me something to look forward to. I also looked at work and rearranged the things I need to be in person at, to the mornings, when I will be in the office. I’ve decided to work from home for the first week. And Saturday showed itself as a day I can take advantage of being in the office because Greg can be home with Abby and Grayson on Saturdays. I will be working on my dissertation starting now because I have time and then Saturdays. Please cross your fingers all the research I’m going to do in advance about Prospective Memory will be worth it because I have not got the green like on this yet. But it’s a risk, for times sake, that I have to take. 

How Will My Planning Day Workbook Look This Time?

So after taking 32 minutes to tell you all about my planning, I opened the Planning Day workbook. I walked through the workbook and shared, off the cuff, my thoughts about how I will plan according to each page. Ha! I was actually caught off guard on a couple of upcoming things like birthdays and our anniversary. Yeah, Abby needs an oil change and I checked but my car is good for a while. These are the things you should be thinking about going into something this big, what can I get done now to make this upcoming busy time more smooth?

I am trying to think of everything. I will continue to mull over my calendar and rearrange things as necessary. This is a ridiculous amount of planning that my future self will thank me for doing. This is the kind of detailed planning we do in Planning Day! 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Planning Day

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Heather S. She is a mental health counselor who is married and mom to 5 children. They have their own little “farm” they call home. Heather was in a hard season of life when she heard Sara Dean interviewing me on the Shameless Mom Academy Podcast and I was talking about the Sunday Basket®. Heather was a grad student, her dad was ill and Heather was his primary caregiver, not to mention she had a 21/2 year old at the time. Her brain felt very busy and she thought the Sunday Basket® could help. Heather believes that planning and organization is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves. 

Sometimes, as women, it seems as though we are expected to know how to keep a house.  It’s ok if you don’t know how and you need to hire someone or purchase a course to teach you. We both agreed that organization is self care! There’s one component of being a household manager that negatively impacts a person and it’s the emotional. It’s based on how well we think we are at the managerial and cognitive pieces of running the home. And there’s a lot of negative internal chatter about it! The Sunday Basket® quiets those comments. 

Heather had been successfully using a DIY Sunday Basket® with her large family, so Heather and her husband agreed to invest in the Organize 365® Sunday Basket to get additional support. She shared about how she does Christmas. She shared her hacks on how not have to wrap presents the night before, how she makes her kids lists, and how to not overspending! And wait till she explains her sick box, genius solutions!  And since that was such a success, it made sense to invest in the old All Access program to get their house in order to sell. It made $20,000 in sense! Once they decluttered and met with their realtor again, they added $20,000 to the selling value of their home by just painting and decluttering! Then they moved, Heather got her Masters, added some dogs, and a child!! 

The last half of our conversation was about Embrace, currently the self-guided retreat until I am done with the PhD. She pointed out how important it is to do the journaling and coming to terms with your past. Through journaling we can all notice what we say to ourselves, the lies we tell ourselves, and look at what we wrote to decide if it’s true. We can journal to explore what we want. And specifically with Embrace, it made so much sense to Heather because she’s done that hard work of journaling and reflecting. And there is are many scientific benefits of pen to paper. The reality is you can’t get to “What is my unique purpose and how can I share it?” until you have accepted that you are worthy and have great value to give. 

She lost her father shortly after having her 5th child. How does one grieve and celebrate a new life at the same time? Heather had to use her planning and journaling skills to work through that grief while still taking care of her family the way she wanted to.  She scheduled her grieving time and you may need to do the same. Take the time to process your past to get to the place where you can feel worthy of organization. You can then realize you have so much to offer this world. And finally with embrace, explore how you can impact the world with your unique gifts and talents. Heather has this great 6 step art therapy journal prompting process that she takes her clients through.  She really shared a lot about the process and I believe so many people would benefit from doing the internal work before diving into Embrace. We are all worthy and valuable. 

Heather’s advice is, “We need to start with the internal work. Sitting and taking time to do the internal work first will let you stay motivated and on track to do what you need to do.” 

Heather shared her desire to do so in collaboration with Organize 365® someday.  If you liked Heather and her ideas, you DON’T want to miss the next Coffee Chat!! 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Embrace

• 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!

We’re spending all this time invisibly planning. I desire for it to be more visible. For home, I have always planned in these trimesters, 120 day chunks. You can hear all about it in ep. 132. I call these chunks summer, fall, and winter. When the PhD is finished (hopefully in Dec.) I will have planned 9 chunks. Each chunk of time starts with this natural break in the hustle of life and gives us these organic bursts of energy to declutter, organize, and reset. It became very clear to me the energy of each season during this PhD journey. What did I plan? How did it go? And how am I leaving this PhD phase of life? 

Summer (May-August)

Sing it with me “Schoooooool’s out for summer”...these are the more relaxed months of the year. The invisible work you would have done for this chunk was planning how to keep the kids busy, summer vacations, and this is usually a personal development time for me. The PhD is all personal development. Summer of ‘23 was “Busy” because I’d applied and been accepted into the PhD and lil Grayson turned two so he was into everything! I had each minute planned with the goal of getting my PhD that I basically missed summer! This summer was the hardest. I took less time to plan because Greg and I went to England. And I don’t regret it! Grayson was 3 and he was on to me. He KNEW when I was home and he wanted to play. But I’d made the choice to pursue this PhD and I had to choose it over Grayson for this season. So I moved almost everything to the office. Another lost summer.

Fall (September-December)

Fall seems to be an easy chunk of time for me. This season you have planned for back to school and the holidays. Things seem to go easier and thank God for football. Because Greg loves football and that means I don’t have guilt getting in a few more hours of studying or completing more assignments. I’d only taken 2 classes which lightened the PhD demand on me. In fall of 2024, I had to ask myself “How do I not do again, what I just did in summer?” I took a trip with Greg, I only took 2 classes and focused on the holidays. 

Winter (January-April/Mayish)

Winter starts with all of us coming back from Christmas/Holiday breaks. In 2023, I planned to change all my habits and routines to be a PhD student, you can hear all about that in ep. 519 and/or the Monday PhD episodes I did around that same time. I knew it was going to take me 25 hours so I blocked that time off my calendar. It's no good to set a goal but not set aside time to achieve it.  For my 2024 winter chunk, I’m calling it “treading water”. This was a really hard chunk of time because Greg had rotator cuff surgery, we’d remodeled Joey’s condo, and we were planning to remodel Abby’s space downstairs next.  

How I’m Ending My PhD Phase

I’m calling this last chunk of time “the grind”. I have finished the classes portion of completing the PhD.  As I see the finish line in sight for the PhD, I am walking away so happy and proud! I’m proud of myself for the mental capacity I’ve grown. I am so proud that I put earning a PhD as one of my priorities. I would cheer anyone on in my family to do the same for themselves. It forced me to set better boundaries with my family. I encourage you all to do Planning Day and I do it for myself too to make sure I am pouring into my marriage and family, that I am prioritizing self care, to travel, and breakdown a big project I want to accomplish. Sometimes you get that project done in one 120 chunk and sometimes it’s multiple chunks over the course of 3 years. Just make sure you prioritize your family and have good communication so they have accurate expectations. None of this happens accidentally, like a PhD, you have to plan for it!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Home Planning Day

• 120 - Productivity #6 - 10 Ways to Find More Time

• Ep. 519 - Organizing my PhD journey Part 1

• 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!

Happy Monday! Today we’re talking all about habits like what ones do we have, how they are  established, some really interesting studies about habits and routines, and how you too can reprogram yourself to have productive habits. Brown University defines a habit as a repeated action that becomes an automatic behavior with little to no thought.

Life Long Intentionality Setter 

As a child, I was in charge of my fun. I remember going to the stationary store and getting planners about three times a year. Anna pointed out the coincidence of Friday Workbox® Planning Day happening three times a year as well.  I like to maximize my time. I get my planner out and fill in the tasks that need to be accomplished and then I start thinking about what I want my routines to be. I intentionally set routines to include somethings I’d like to end up as a habit with the understanding these things will make me more productive and achieve my goals. I feel like a person can successfully add a new habit each Planning Day. On average it takes a person 66 days to establish a new habit. 

Effortless Self Control

Habits are stronger than your beliefs. You may believe fruits and vegetables are better for you. However if you habitually eat cookies…that habit will likely continue unless you make environmental changes. Remove the cookie jar and put healthy food in its place. Now when you habitually visit where the cookie jar was you will grab a piece of fruit. 

And with our habits we have lower emotional reactions. We talked about a study where students’ habits were questioned. They determined 43% of their day was habitual. Your emotional response to waking up early on daily is reduced when you have done it for a long time. And once you decide to clean your kitchen, the routine is habitual and you can sing along to music or think about something else because you have a routine to how you clean your kitchen. 

Context Clues also support effortless self control. If you have a habit of putting on your deodorant after you brush your teeth, your toothbrush is the clue. But let’s say on vacation you have all your toiletries in a bag. You brush your teeth but because your deodorant isn’t in plain sight, you go sight seeing and remember you forgot to put on deodorant. 

Prospective Memory

This is the theory I’m thinking I will do my dissertation about. It’s something you are reminded you need to do but in the future. Say you are talking to someone about the grocery store and that reminds you that you need to pick up a card for a wedding next time you are there. It’s like you are trying to remember things for the future. They are related to a location or a time. You could be reminded about the card by time as in the wedding is a 5pm and you need the card by then. 

Are You Maxed Out on Habits?

A person can only do so much everyday, even the amount of habits they have. Are you programmed correctly? Planning Day, with Organize 365®, really helps you to analyze your time and look at what you are currently doing. You may see some changes you need to make and then plan how you will do it . To do lists and diaries have been found to be inefficient because there’s no place for holding things like a card for an upcoming wedding or ideas you are simmering on. When you write one task on an index card and throw it in your Sunday Basket®, you are able to categorize, make a plan of completing those tasks, and delay decision making until necessary. I hope you can join us May 3rd for Home Planning Day or June 6th for Friday Workbox® Planning day to get productive habits in place so you have more cognitive space for other areas of your life. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• https://www.brownhealth.org/be-well/why-habits-can-be-good-thing

• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230417155750.htm 

• https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/11/career-lab-habits

• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejsp.674

• Wood, W., Quinn, J. M., & Kashy, D. A. (2002). Habits in everyday life: Thought, emotion, and action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1281–1297. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1281

• Sunday Basket®

• 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.

This important update is being recorded on April 8th at 3pm. I hope there haven’t been too many changes by the time you listen to this episode. There have been so many economic changes and the atmosphere is starting to feel a little uncertain like it did about 5 years ago when Covid reared its ugly head. There are 3 types of responses to what’s going on. Those who know too much and they are thinking way too far in the future, those who stick their head in the sand and don’t want to know about any of it, and those who know just enough to make positive, proactive, profitable choices for their homes. As a CEO I am in the last category. I’m in preservation mode to preserve Organize 365® and my employees' jobs. I tried to give you different perspectives of what is going on from the overall economy, from a CEO, and as a household manager. 

Job Security & The Stock Market

There are three things people are worried about right now. Two of them are job security and the stock market. Come to find out federal jobs aren’t secure! In 2008/2009, people didn’t think it was possible to lose your house. In 2020, people didn’t think we could be locked in our homes. 

I told you in a previous episode that I don't understand the stock market so I don’t have much advice. Greg and I decided long ago to invest in the stock market, Greg takes care of that. Our children are invested in the stock market. And historically the stock market always comes back. 

Supply Chain

There was never a toiler paper supply issue. We had plenty of toilet paper because it’s made here in the U.S. Size was the problem…it was only available in industrial sizes for like schools and stadiums. But where we are going to see supply chain issues will be from items that come from China. We are in an economic war. My recent order from China is going to be tariffed at 121%!!!  That’s right! Half of this episode is about sourcing my supplies and how & how it has changed. Due to the tariffs, expect to see fewer choices at come point and quantity available to decrease if it comes from China. I explained a lot about how the tariffs came to be, how they added up, and what they mean for the American supply chain. I offered solutions to keep your household supply chain supple. 

How is Organize 365® responding? 

As a CEO that looks into the future, I always have an 18 month to 2 year supply of physical products. Organize 365® isn’t going anywhere! We aren’t passing the tariff expenses to our customers, we don’t have to, as I explained, because of the way I have financially structured Organize 365®. And we aren’t ordering from China for now. 

I am anticipating working with an American company for our Sunday Baskets® in addition to other products and may continue to work with them once this whole thing blows over. I speculate it will be a good 18 months till our economy stabilizes again.  We’re running leaner with daily operations. And we’re thankful we didn’t raise expenses by moving like we wanted or getting the ERP system. 

And most of all, always wondering as economics are changing, how can we meet our customers where they are. So, we have decided to offer upcoming planning days for home (5/3) and Friday Workbox® (6/6) and Teacher planning day (7/9) for a 20% discount from $250. You will get the planning prep day, additional videos, the 4 hour planning day live webinar with replay access for 6 weeks, and the workbook. Stop spiraling, think about the root cause of the supply shortage you experienced during Covid, and start planning. The sky is not falling. Planning is the one thing you can do that will give you more time, help you make better decisions, make your money go further, and make you feel like you are in the driver’s seat. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Home Planning Day

• Friday Workbox Planning Day

• Teacher Planning Day

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Julie D. Julie and her husband have, in their home, a daughter, a son, and Maggie their dog. Julie heard someone talking about the Sunday Basket® and was intrigued and figured she could figure it out. Julie wasn’t looking for organization as much as she desired systems. Before the interview, Julie drew out a mind map. She wanted to make sure to share ALL of the products and ways that Organize 365® has benefitted her life. Make sure you catch the episode to hear all the areas that have been impacted in Julie’s life. 

Julie came from 20 years in the retail space where she used to be in charge of 13 week projects that consisted of resetting a store or setting up new stores. The way the Organize 365® systems break down 90 (for business) and 120 (for home) days, was familiar to Julie. That is how they would organize the resetting of the stores. They’d make a plan and then run that plan for the next chunk of time. 

Your home is like a small business right? So your family members we joked are like employees uninterested in the success of your small business. It’s harder to get them motivated to keep things organized. We talked about how men from the Boomers generation who witnessed a stay at home mom, AKA the primary parent taking care of the home and children and a dad “bringing home the bacon.”  So their expectations were similar for their families. The systems let her do just that as they’d planned. The kids program has helped her to have them do some of the organizing. She’s invested in the kid program to which the kids know a lot of “what Lisa says.” 

Julie has thoughtfully implemented all of the Organize 365® systems.  She has multiple Sunday Baskets® and even got her mom and big sister to invest in Sunday Baskets®. She loves spreading the “gospel of Organize 365®.” It was a way for them to do life together till her mother passed away. Of course, she inherited her moms. She feels the Sunday Basket® is so important in her life that when they remodeled her kitchen she had to make sure she knew where she’d be able to put it once it was finished. During the remodel, she had a Sunday Basket® dedicated to the remodel and it was convenient for her and her contractors. It kept the remodel moving along and organized. 

Julie’s son, John, has level 3 autism and that has added to the demand for systems. She values the Warrior Mama binder to have in DON (determination of needs) meetings. She made a point to put a picture of John as a baby on the front to remind administrators and physicians in the meetings that her son is a person and he has come a long way. She’s got a Friday Workbox® for her daughter in regards to Julie being leader of the parent council (Canadian speak for the PTO), being the pizza mom, girl guide leader, and as the registrar for speed skating. Once she realized she wasn’t going to continue being the leader of the parent council, she could see taking off that train car gave her more capacity for something else. She’s got a financial binder for each kid to keep track of receipts and medical visits. And John throws her plenty of challenges too, but, she has peace of mind that she’s basically created playbooks for everything so when the wheels start to look like they may fall off she knows how to prevent it and get back to smooth sailing. 

Julie often wonders how 20 year old Julie would have benefited from the Organize 365® products and systems. She was in a chaotic period of time and wonders how things would be different. What’s different now? Julie has more peace of mind and capacity to prioritize her crafts. She’s able to “do more projects that make me feel like me.” This is one line item in the budget that will not go away. 

Julie’s advice is, “Do a blitz. Then it’s not a huge commitment to some ongoing system you have to learn.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Household Manager 21 Day Bootcamp

• 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!

The PhD is almost over and I’ve been thinking about “What do I want?” When I committed to the PhD, I knew it was a lengthy commitment of time and hefty commitment of money. There are things we agree to in life and we know the long term commitment it will require! And now that the PhD finish line is in sight, I know it’s project time again!!  I love a meaty project and I’ve identified what I want to do over the next 120 days. I want to redo my living spaces, WITH a budget in mind so it doesn’t get crazy like it did last year with one project expense leading to another project expense. 

Do you struggle with this too? 

Up until I abdicated grocery store shopping and cooking, I hadn’t really been on the list. I’d always put my family’s needs before my own. If I wanted something, I’d think about the price, and I’d decide we could use the money towards something else the family needed. I’d also give them my time before using it for myself or business.  We took care of the kids’ living spaces last year. Joey’s plumbing got an upgrade which meant his bathrooms got an upgrade too. Then Abby’s space basically got completely remodeled, but honestly her life was demanding it. And now I feel like we have finished launching them.  And then I got to looking around my living space. And I am choosing to use available time and money for myself and Greg, I’m on the list again. 

My Wish List on a Budget

When Grayson came along, Greg and I started sleeping in separate rooms so I could help with the baby. And we like it, so, we are keeping it that way. Remember, use your home for your current phase of life! I want to cement Greg and I into the empty nest/grandparent phase. In my room, I look around and see all hand me down things.  I’ve dreamed of what this space could be and here’s what I came up with. I’d like to have a household manager command center, an office space dedicated to running our house!  I’d like to bring up all my Sunday Baskets® and binders upstairs and put them all in one bookshelf for easy access. And new bedding that makes me feel like a girl.  I want to rearrange the room to be able to open the curtains and make room for said bookshelf. And I want more light in this room for projects and scrapbooking. I’d like as much upstairs as possible because if I want to get anything done I have to hide from Grayson. He loves to play with me and I love to play with him but, but…I like to get projects done too! My dreaming didn’t stop there…  

Rezoning in the Woodruff Household

I’ve decided the room between Greg and I, which used to be the nursery and then a guest room,  should be reimagined into a gift wrapping room. On a previous episode, I suggested HDX shelving with a long counter top to be used as a gift wrapping station. I have not stopped thinking about that and I finally will have time to make this transition happen. I’m no longer using the kitchen as our home office so I’ll move those resources upstairs. I’d like to make communal items more easily available to Abby on the first level like band aids and things, maybe in the laundry room. I just need to go through the laundry room period now that Abby has her own and I’m doing all of this reimagining and functionality of our living spaces. 

Speaking of the laundry room, there’s more project supplies that I will move upstairs that aren’t for Grayson and I. Gifts for Grayson will go up because he knows the laundry room is my hiding place. AND, all in one washer dryer upgrade. It arrives tomorrow!!  I can’t believe I hit the purchase button. I did the cost analysis and it’s not good but boy is my lil heart excited! We got to talking about it in the small business mastermind and everyone encouraged me to get it saying how much they loved theirs. Also I’m keeping the dryer so I can get two loads done at once. So that justifies the cost a little too.  I wanted to get Abby her own washer dryer so I could get mine back. In the process of sharing my washer door would get stuck and then it started to stink! Now the washer smells despite my efforts to correct it. It annoys me! So it’s on it’s way! And Lastly, I think I’ll clean out the closet downstairs. Most of it will end up in my household manager command center and then Abby can get more storage. I hope you’ll join me for planning day to get your next projects planned for your next 120 days!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Lisa’s Favorite Things

• Home Planning Day

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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!

Happy Monday!  Today I get to introduce you to Elaine Willig, who is officially on staff as teh lead for our new PCS (Permanent Change of Station) initative. At Organize 365®, we’ve developed a course to help spouses, supporting their soldiers, to find community faster and make each move a little easier. I first met Elaine through her father in law at a home school co-op conference. He was sent to get a picture with me. Elaine found Organize 365® about 10 years ago when she was maxed out and looking for solutions. Then I got to meet Elaine and the rest is history! I share in her desire to help military spouses through the PCS process. Elaine has supported her husband for many years, is raising her three boys, and now it’s her turn to do something that fills her cup! She sees how spouses just kind of circle in the lower levels of Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs and never get to rise to the level where you explore your purpose, what you are uniquely created to do. Elaine knows all too well about PCSing (13 times) and understands the struggle with #alltheemotions, #allthepaperwork and is eager to get to spouses organized and in community sooner.

The Emotional Toll 

Elaine was very vulnerable in sharing her experience, to this point, being a military spouse. She shared aspects of her life I had never thought of! I never considered the friendships they have to build quickly and let go at a moment’s notice. The grieving process you go through as you leave your current station (although she joked that sometimes you are relieved to leave if it just wasn’t a good fit) and anxiety or excitement about what lies ahead with a new duty station. Think of how much you trust the people you put down for your children’s emergency contact…Elaine has to find that stranger quickly, as all the forms continue to request it, as she gets her family settled in each new location. There’s a different at home cadence with each location based on the soldier’s new job. My jaw was on the floor as she explained to me how she got to fly home to see family. Yes they get free SA (space available) flights, but I’m not sure that’s a flight I want to take. And their stations overseas, they’ve only had one car which made daily activities challenging with little ones in tow. 

All the Moving Pieces

Oh the checklists we’ve accumulated and compiled to assist with the repetitive nature of PCS’ing. There are checklists for utilities, vehicles, homes, packing the house, and what not to pack.  I included 10 steps to an organized move. When military families move, lots times they are living out of a suitcases for 30 days. You better believe there’s a checklist for those suitcases. Some bases are equipped with a lending closet for basic things like maybe some toys for your kids or small appliances that weren’t necessities.  And then where do you get groceries in your new location (tricky for Elaine with her family having food allergies), house keepers, after school activities, sports, babysitters, and even for you to find friends. There’s a checklist of services you’ll need to find and establish. A lot of the post-move checklists you could review on the plane ride to your new duty station. The very last checklist “Just tell me what to do” for when you are drained but know you need to keep going. 

What to Expect

Over the many moves, Elaine has found a way to mentally process PCS. She’s figured out how to stop the spinning in your brain with the mention of PCS and turn it into productive actions. The workbook helps you to process your emotions and proactively make a plan for the relocation. PCS’ing can be a lonely isolating process that only builds in complexity as your family grows and you “survive” another duty station. We realize the need to get to community quicker in these moves. The places Elaine has been pained to leave were those when she had a supportive community. 

Two Opportunities to Build Community:

*4 Hr. Virtual Planning Day for your base via zoom.

*6 Hr in person (in the 48 continuous states), on base training. Includes the PCS bundle. Two hours will be interactive with me in a questions and answer or book signing interactive capacity. 

*With this in person opportunity you get the PCS Planning Course, Workbook & The PCS  Productivity Bundle which includes a Portable Sunday Basket, 2.0 slash pockets (pink, purple, blue, green), and 2.0 Productivity tabs. Your pink slash pocket is for travel, purple slash pockets is for all things related to your home, blue slash pocket for your family and pets, and green for finances including an expense tracker so you get things paid for that should be by the military.

**If you have questions and/or interest in one of these opportunities please email military@organize365.com

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• PCS Planning Course

• PCS Productivity Bundle

• 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.

Your home is like “home base” in tag, it’s the safe spot. In 2024, we spent resources on Joey and Abby’s homes. In 2025, I want to do some renovations on the second floor of our home, where Greg and I spend a lot of time. I wanted to share how I plan to attack those renovations but first I felt it appropriate to offer this bonus economic episode to give insight to all this Tariffs talk and the swift changing of the government right now. I based my choices off of the large picture and this is how you can too as the household manager!

Hire It Out vs. DIY

There is a direct relationship between the money you have to invest and the amount of time a project will take. Either you hire a contractor to complete the task with a timeline shorter than you could’ve done. Or you do it yourself but it will take longer usually.  And then there’s a hybrid option somewhere in there. I have decided on the projects I want to complete upstairs, however if I hire it all out like I did with the kids’ projects I’ll be broke soon!  Next episode I’ll tell you all about it. 

YOUR House

When considering your household budget and anything you want to do you need to look at what is going on in your household budget. Just because the economy is bad doesn’t mean your household is. The example I share here was the Organize 365® budget (remember our homes are small businesses) in regards to shipping costs, de minimis value, and taxes. I also shared how physical nexus and economic nexus affects Organize 365® sales and taxes so you could get an understanding of the complexity of what seems like a simple purchase or subscription from our community. You GOTTA hear the episode. And I say that to encourage learning. Always be moving forward. 

Everyone may not be happy about this adjustment but when I looked at the entire shipping process and considering what the customer has to pay, in addition to their receiving end, it does not make sense to continue shipping internationally. If I don’t make this adjustment and Organize 365® does under, then there’s no money anyway. Better to adjust and make unpopular decisions. You may be looking ahead and realize that in order to celebrate your child's graduation like you may have for a previous child you need to cancel the annual summer vacation. As the household manager, in order to keep the budget afloat, this decision may make the most responsible financial sense. This is where you need to cut costs first, at the household level. 

Economic Outlook

Are we in a recession or not? I talked about my opinion of the stock market.  It may be an indicator of the emotional climate but not the economy. Right now, everyone can feel how volatile the economy feels. The President is making changes more quickly than people are used to. There is a lot going on with Tariffs and we are toeing the line with financial war. This is not in our control. My best advice, with all the economical uncertainty, is to attend planning day so you can plan out and allocate money for the next 120 days AND look over the next 3 years. 

What Do You Need?

As a household manager, looking at the current economy, I would not embark on the PhD. I know for my household budget and looking into the future over the next three years, now would not be a financially responsible time to tie up funds for that. However, I offered multiple ideas for how to continue personal development. If you can’t attend a conference this year like you normally do, try a different mode of learning. I know I want to do some renovating this year as my time is becoming available. If there is a financially hefty project you want to do, you may need to contribute some blood sweat and tears this time, in addition to or instead of hiring someone to complete the task. Can you invest more time and still get what you want?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Home Planning Day 

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

In this episode, Monique is here to tell you all about her experience at Small Business Mastermind. You know how I always say I am where work comes from? Well Monique is where in person events have come from in the past and you’ve probably heard her on the podcast. She’s been a professional organizer, certified by Organize 365®, for 12 years now! She has attended our events as a customer, as staff, as an organizer, and now, a small business owner looking to grow an online business.

From the moment everyone arrived at the hotel, everyone just jumped right in. Due to the private chat set up in the app before the mastermind they all had a chance to connect. They were able to connect prior to the mastermind.  Monique shared her surprise that more attendees weren’t organizers. But they all were women creating business.  

Day one started with an  energy in the room like a bunch of old friends reuniting, even for me because of all the Voxer conversations I’d had with all the women. And because of all of those conversations and the extensive survey everyone had filled out I knew the main struggle for everyone attending was green work.  Everyone was asking “How do you get it all done?” We had a lengthy conversion about Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff and how you know which you need. Monique shared how she got so much value out of the first session. Everyone looked at their admin tasks and they calculated a dollar value for that task. It’s like I shared about economic stage 6, it may make more sense to pay someone to do something you are capable of doing because it takes you out of your business. Monique said that was one of the most impactful things she learned. We joked, once we had that session Monique was ready to go home and conquer her business! 

I’ve shared transparently that on day 2, I didn’t really know what I was going to teach but I had no doubt that it was going to be meaningful. As we try new things, if we keep the person we are doing it for in mind, it will be impactful because we want better for them. That’s when I decided to do 12 minutes with Lisa to really drill down on one struggle or thought or project.  I didn’t know till Monique shared but as people came out they all shared what they asked and what we came up with. 

Monique brought to the table an online business that she wanted to grow. I advised that was a tough road if she wanted to go down it due to social media being such a beast like a part time job itself, all the noise online in general, and all the back office automations and such she would need would take years to build out. But Monique really did want to incorporate her coaching, paper organizing and productivity. But it’s funny both Monique and Lisa D. couldn’t remember their original idea they came to me with because what we imagined together was so much better and a perfect solution that they were so excited about. The day ended with the women attending Friday Workbox Planning Day live.  I’ve never had applause at the end of Planning Day. 

Monique is offering an amazing package to come to your house for a week and organize. But we all know how easy it is to fall off the wagon after a reset like that. So you will also get 3 months of coaching on the systems and staying organized. So once you get it organized it can pretty much stay that way! She’s only taking 10 clients per year so make sure you get your package booked today!!  We pay people to do a lot of things for us like watching our kids, cleaning, our accounting so why not for organizing our homes and coaching to support this change?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Small Business Mastermind

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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!

What have you thought of this series so far? At the beginning of this episode, I recapped economic stages 1-5. It’s important to understand them and how to advance if you’d like. But also if you find that your economic stage was once 4 and you are back to 1, you are not alone. It can happen to anyone and honestly I think all of America is in stage one, trying to reduce expenses to match their income. The economy changed which affected our small business AKA our homes. It’s important to understand and own the economic impact our home has on the global economy. Thinking about stage 6 should prompt you to look at your expenses and set expectations for what you can expect financially.  

Stage 6: A business bigger than yourself; but there’s no playbook

If you choose to go to stage 6, get ready for a life long journey of development. You may make some expensive mistakes or have some hires not work out.  In stage 6, your business becomes bigger than just you and your household budget. You are looking at your budget and realizing you can increase your expenses to (in the long run) make more money. It’s time to start interviewing people, explore their uniquenesses, and hire accordingly. And get ready for your income to decrease. In growing your business and getting structure in place, just know you will likely have little to no income for about 3-5 years. I wish there was a playbook that could have warned me. Take heart, in America, the 4 positions that can provide exponential wealth are doctor, lawyer, sales, and business owner. So if you are embarking on stage 6, there’s a lot of income potential due to all the extra help you have in your company now. 

Stage 6: Taxes

And with structuring your company, you will become a W2 employee, at least that is how I set up Organize 365®. My income was capped by my salary. I have learned more about the IRS than you ever wanted to know. There will be new tax implications on your business’s income. And your business income is not solely yours anymore. Due to the structure you put in place, you will pay yourself, your employees AND employment taxes.  You get to learn about human resources and you’ll be where benefits come from! Remember, life long journey of learning and development. 

Stage 6: It’s so fun!

Even if I had known the growing pains I could expect, no one could have stopped me. I love having a company, a team, and leading them!!  Details aren’t my strength and it makes me really happy to hire those tasks out. It’s time to get your home in order to give way to the time and attention you need to direct towards your business. Get that home train running smooth to allow capacity at work so you can really make an impact.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Friday Workbox®

• POTT START

• 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!

Today on the Connections Episodes from Organize 365®, I’m talking to Corie Weathers, author of “Military Culture Shift”. Once Corie was married she and her husband desired to invest in marriages, in a private practice. That was until he decided to pursue being a chaplain in the Military. And so began a life long adventure of serving and PCS’ing with two boys. Corie is currently gearing up to PCS soon and vulnerably shared how she feels about it.  Corie’s strength is not in adjusting to change. As a therapist, Corie advises others to adjust their expectations and look for the things you are excited about in the new location. It’s important to grieve the loss of your current lifestyle, feel it, process it, and then climb out of those feelings by looking for purpose in the new. And while it is a military family’s choice to serve, she pointed out there are a lot of sacrifices and choices you forfeit. Corie is deeply committed to serving the military community. 

Military Culture Shift

We talked about the culture shift among military families over the years. It used to be that 1 in 4 people knew someone serving and now it’s 1 in 200 that know someone serving in the Military. Americans had a better understanding of the sacrifice service men and women and their families make, on a daily basis. The overall support system used to be greater. Because military families know the struggle of moving so often, when you arrived in your new location, you could count on the community to embrace you. The spouses acted as the backbone and placed on the back burner for their families. They volunteered so their active duty servicemember could focus on the mission. Honestly, the Military relies on the volunteers. It’s volunteers who help the families settle in. Also as spouses, you need to get your family established, then you could explore work opportunities. But by that time it was almost time to move again.  In the 80’s the marketing had a fatherly figure kind of message as in you could count on the military to supply all your needs. 

That shifted to “we take care of our families so they can take care of themselves” kinda vibe. They were trying to break the dependency of families on them for every need. Families were starting to get used to 2 income households so they didn’t have to rely on the military so much and because spouses wanted to work.  Spouses face many challenges in relocating and often that second income is undependable. Where the spouse has a license or certification, in some cases they aren’t recognized in other states or countries. We got into a deep discussion about possible solutions and whose job is it to develop and implement those solutions. Social media has filled some of the gaps but due to more spouses working, volunteerism went down and community decreased. 

Military Initiative Funding

We also talked about how funding gets assigned to different buckets. And the appropriation process to make sure the money gets spent as intended. And what happens when money is supposed to be set aside but comes up short and then some programs don’t actually get fully funded. It directly affects those that protect us. We talked a lot about the process. And that goes for every bill that becomes law, not just for the Department of Defense (DOD) initiatives. And when families fall on hard times due to programs not getting funded, now they no longer have that tight knit community to lean on. 

Corie’s Challenge: “Who is going to be the people group that implements this thing that is so important to me?”

We agreed that it’s time for everyone to look at the issues with fresh eyes and come up with outside of the box ideas as solutions. As states are starting to have more control, it’s time for us and private institutions to step up and provide actionable solutions for those who protect our freedom. Could you be part of the solution for an issue personal to you?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Military Culture Shift by Corie Weathers

• 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.

In this episode, Lisa J. and I sat down to recap the Small Business Mastermind;  If you remember,  she owns a farm in Australia. Lisa J.’s farm and life has been improved by the products and systems from Organize 365®. When she heard there was an in person opportunity to work with me, she jumped on the opportunity!! Lisa J. was also excited to be in a room with like minded accomplished women but what she didn’t expect to walk away with was so much more self confidence in business.

I put out a survey asking the attendees what they were hoping to learn. Glad I asked because I was on the wrong track as far as what I had planned to teach. I love learning about other people’s businesses and consulting them how to move forward and grow and I wanted to address what they needed. I decided to hop on voxer with everyone and get a better understanding of who they were and their businesses. This also got them talking with their teams and more focused on what they wanted out of the mastermind. Once they arrived, I opened with me introducing them to the group. And then we talked about all the ways I analyze time. It was time for lunch and I needed a break because Imposture’s Syndrome was setting in. These were amazing accomplished women. What could I teach them?  

Coming back from lunch they introduced themselves to the group and talked about their strengths and weaknesses. I talked about the Kolby Index test. Once they took that and heard them explain themselves, it opened the door for authentic conversations in a safe space, advising each other how to overcome their weaknesses, strengths they saw in each other, and true camaraderie. 

That was a huge success but how would I continue to provide value to these women going into day 2? I knew what to do, 12 minutes - one to one with me. I remember from my coaching days that by 8 minutes people would be so overwhelmed with actionable to-do’s that they wanted to go start strategizing on ways to implement those ideas. I also knew we needed a couple of minutes to say hi and hug. But then what would everyone do while I was tied up in these one to one’s? I had Tanya available for remote work conversations, Steph for Chief of Staff conversations, and Anna was available for information and documentation conversations. They could shop or tour the warehouse and of course check out Joey’s car.  Lisa J. said they all agreed that the 12 min one to one’s were genius because it gave a deadline as to when the conversation was going to end so you really needed to be prepared going into the coaching session. She said everyone should have been recorded leaving the one to one’s because of the confidence they exuded. 

One of the biggest benefits was all of the networking all of the attendees got to do during the day and at night. They all stayed at the same hotel, chose to have meals together, and explore the area a little. Due to being connected before the mastermind via the app, they were able to get the backstory of everyone and know what they needed help with. They are now a group of 20 friends doing business together and making connections in business. From our one to one, Lisa J is working on a retreat for farmers where they can work on the transfer of their farm to another owner or a younger generation. Can’t wait to catch up later this year. If you too are looking for guidance and a network of like minded business owners, get signed up to attend the next Small Business Mastermind!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Friday Workbox®

• Transformation with Lisa J. 

• Small Business Mastermind

• 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!

You have found pockets of time to make a little extra money here and there. Now you are enjoying making the extra money and even are relying on it. This new stream of income is usually a little unconventional in the sense that it’s not W2 work. Your family loves how flexible it is because you are still available for them and there’s extra money. You are challenged by how flexible it is. You still have all of your previous responsibilities but now you the additional ones the new stream of income demands too. It’s time for a “reorganizing of the company.”

Just the Facts

This is just the facts people, no one is debating that women do more house work than men. Men normally go to work for 8-10 hours and the rest of their time is considered to be leisure. How much leisure time do women claim to have? Women on the other hand (generally speaking) do the house work and take care of children or pets, doesn’t leave much leisure time. And once you have a side hustle that is consistently bringing in money for your family, YOU have more responsibilities and almost no leisure time. This was mirrored in my childhood. Dad worked then golfed…a lot! And mom took care of the home, my sister and I, and she created a business in our basement. She was always working. As a business owner, which we established you are now, you are thinking about the daily operations of your business, ways to develop your business skill set, ways to grow the business, additional services or products you want to offer, and possibly being responsible for workers.

Fire Yourself

Let’s revisit stage 1. Remember you didn’t have a lot of extra money but you did have time? You were the one painting the walls or making the things you wanted. It may be time to evaluate all those tasks and hire someone to do them instead. Does it make sense for you to spend a day painting your walls OR would the time be better spent on your business because now you can afford to pay someone instead? Even if your family is counting on the money you bring in, could you do one more organizing job to pay to get that room painted? You spend more time in your business AND you get the room painted? It’s the same thing with hiring a house keeper or book keeper.  

The Tradeoff

There is always a trade off right? Either you spend time or money. I say spend your money on tasks that don’t take you out of your business hours and instead use that time to get more experience in your business. In Home Planning Day, you can evaluate just the next 120 days. What do you want accomplished? How much will it cost? And who will do it? Then all you have to do is run that plan. 

It doesn’t mean you are boujie because you hire someone in your home.  The first hires I always recommend are a house keeper, book keeper, or an executive assistant. And my first hires were contractors for only like 5 hours a week. 

A. That person is likely grateful for the work. I was so thankful that people let me clean their homes so I could send my kids to private school. You could really be helping someone out. 

B. Hiring someone to do those tasks not associated with your business or the non CEO tasks reduces your task switching and increases your focus on your business. 

In stage 5, you are focusing on finding body doubles to give you more time to commit to overseeing your business and be more cognitively available for your family.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Home Planning Day

• 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!

You’re a business owner - Congratulations!!  In stage 4, there needs to be a mindset shift. You are no longer just doing this little side hustle, you are an entrepreneur! I will never forget when a  friend said to me that I was a home organizer. That was it!! The common thread of all my side hustles was some aspect of home organizing. But I identified as a stay at home mom. However, she was right and that’s when my mindset shifted because now my unique talents had an identity. Did you know that 39.1% of all businesses are owned by women? Those women, on average, are 42 and have been in business for 11 years. The most common reasons people start new businesses are to pursue a passion, seeking financial freedom, and to increase flexibility in their life. 

Do you do this?

Now that your household is counting on this income, you need to get the math straight. The trap a lot of us fall into is still thinking like a W2 employee. Before we got a $2000 paycheck and all of that was for our house. Now, as an entrepreneur, you need to account for your business expenses AND taxes. So if your business had $500 in expenses and you need to save $500 for taxes, all your house really gets is $1000. In stage 4 you may need to evaluate your services or product offerings to make sure you are working smarter not harder. Because you are both the business owner and the admin, it can make it challenging to hit income goals.

Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, you are officially dedicating time outside of your W2 employment and all your time is no longer for household tasks and leisure.  This can include volunteer/charity work where you are dedicating your time to benefit people outside your home. And the longer you are in this work, the more you will narrow down the services or products you want to offer, keeping the ones with the best money exchanged for your time. That’s the beauty of entrepreneurship, flexibility. You also have flexibility in your time.  This can be a double edged sword because since you are likely working from home, all your household tasks are there, begging for your attention.  When you go to your W2 work they don’t expect you to clean the bathrooms. But at home…

How to Organize Administration and Track Profitability

And you may think your business isn’t taking that much time. But you probably aren’t tracking how long it takes for your administration tasks. Just like in your home, you use the Sunday Basket® to get it all done, you need a Friday Workbox® at work to get everything done. You are wearing a lot of hats in your business now. There are 4 types of work I teach you about in the Friday Workbox® and they are color coded. 

The pink slash pockets are a safe place for ideas you have for the business, future products or services, and personal development you’d like to consider. The purple slash pockets are for projects with deadlines or products that are making money. With all of your paid work is plenty of invisible unpaid work too. And all of those tasks fall into administrative work which is in green slash pockets. Administrative work is bookkeeping, invoicing, emails, leads, tracking expenses, monthly P&L, and more. And blue is for the team we will talk about in stage 5.

In stage 4, it’s time to legitimize your business by organizing all of your tasks and creating an LLC. Administration is the key in stage 4. You need systems in place to free up capacity to be more productive and profitable. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Friday Workbox®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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!

One of the inspirations for me to pursue my PhD was “The Secret of Home Economics” by Danielle Drelinger and I got to interview her for this episode. Danielle and I were able to discuss some of the topics but, honestly, you gotta read the book!!  Danielle wanted to write this book, because she covered education as a journalist. She knew she wanted it to be about education, include all races, all genres, all economic classes, and cover history. Thus was born “The Secret History of Home Economics”!

Origins of Home Economics Pre World Wars 

The first thing I wanted to discuss was the role of home economics pre-wars. From the 1800’s leading up to the wars, home economics was really for any person, AKA not gender specific. Home economics was more the actual tasks and how labor intensive they were due to lack of electricity, running water, and staff.  That staff was often immigrants and black women once slavery had ended. A black student I know, from a different PhD program, joked that they have always done laundry. Not even a question to outsource it, black women remember were slaves first but then hired help. But even in those days, it was common to outsource your laundry. It was outsourced to locations that had running water and other conveniences.

Importance of Home Economics During the Wars - Science of Food

The discussion shifted more towards home economics during WWII. It was during this time that women entered the work force in America. Home economics was teaching these women how to cook and maintain their homes with the additional demands of working. Women were creating clothing patterns to make work clothes and teaching clothes how to mend and make do due to limited supplies. They were also experimenting with food to keep their families fed and feed our soldiers. Home economists wrote cookbooks for each arm of the military. The Angels of Bataan, planted to supplement prisoners of war rations in the Philippines. At home, they had victory gardens to supplement rations too. Canning discovered through home economics was discovered and became popular to ensure food supply.  

And the industrial revolution brought home appliances to help with labor intensive tasks like laundry and ovens that had temperature regulation. Along with conveniences came higher expectations. This is where I pointed out that I am working on the definition of housework because some of the “male tasks” seem more to me like “household ownership”. And it’s peculiar how the definition of home economics became mostly a woman’s role after the war. 

The Deliberateness of Stay At Home Mom Depiction

The men had come back, they fired a majority of the women, and men were back to work. Now stay at home moms were in charge of emotionally supporting their children and the care of their upbringing and all the text books reflected that. “Kids need their moms and moms need to be available all the time.” It was then I realized that I have a degree in Family and Consumer Sciences but the only thing that schooling taught me was early childhood education! The bureau of Home Economics that once was making patterns for adjustable bib overalls for women in the workforce was now selling patterns for shopping coats for women to wear while shopping for groceries. 

How Should We Move Forward? 

Danielle feels strongly and I agree that the name should be changed back to Home Economics. A majority of people Danielle speaks to feels this is a class that should be added back to the curriculum of school - to teach basic life skills. And considering all of the subdisciplines, we should be offering a more holistic teaching of home economics; like eating healthy more affordably and consuming more responsibly. You guys…you gotta read or listen to the whole book!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Secret History of Home Economics

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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.

In stage 2, you were starting to think about small pockets of time that you could make random amounts of money because there isn’t enough income to cover the expenses that you have reduced as much as possible. There may be something that has become more steady and you are making more than $600/year. This is a Schedule C on your taxes, where you submit a 1099 or claim the money earned. In 2009, I had 11 schedule C’s that I eventually combined under one LLC.  

Do You Like Chicken Cacciatore?

I do! My mother-in-law gave me her recipe. I found I liked to bake it a little differently than her. I re-wrote her two sided index instructions, down to one side, the way I make it for my family.  I like that it’s no longer stored in my brain. I just grab my instructions and make dinner, in fact anyone in my family could do the same. This is the same idea as an SOP (standard operating procedures) for your business. You should write down the process to complete the tasks for your job/household manager role. In the event there is someone new taking over one of your tasks, audit the steps to make sure it’s accurate before you hand it off to the new person, child or spouse. 

Passion Turned Side Hustle

Now let’s say I make it for my neighbors and they love it. Let’s say they start to pay me to bake for them. I start making pretty good money each week cooking for them. I could also be baking my family the same meal at the same time. My invisible work I originally did for my family has become paid work that I now report to Uncle Sam through my taxes. It’s important to track all of my expenses in making the meals like mileage to the grocery store, the grocery bill, portion of my gas bill for using my oven, and when I start to expand to other people the mileage for delivery. This information is added into the monthly P & L, which you can track in the Organize 365® Income & Expense Binder. If you aren’t a good cook, you could babysit, clean homes, tutor, dog sit, Uber, Door Dash, bookkeeping, Fairy Godmother for a family, or direct sales **but make sure you are profitable. What do you have a passion for and you are good at? Will people pay you to do that? Be confident completing the job (that saves them time) and accept the money for a task you may do for your family for free. I suggest any side hustle you could charge at least $20/hr up to $60/hr or an amount per day like $100/day. 

The Value of a Systems

If unpaid work is not optimized, then you cannot add in paid work because paid work (side hustle like baking for your neighbors) will always supersede unpaid work (your personal house work and baking Chicken Cacciatore). The complete Home Organizational Bundle; Sunday Basket® for weekly checks and balance, The Paper Solution for information management, and The Productive Home Solution to set up your house to effectively serve your family for the phase of life you are in, and planning days to audit your systems. Good operating systems in place allow unexpected events to feel like speed bumps instead of falling off of a cliff. Now you are ready for stage 3. Your systems are in place, you are documenting your income and expenses, and you have freed capacity to focus on making your side hustle more profitable. Now you can bake Chicken Cacciatore for everyone!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Complete Home Organization Bundle

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Kim B. who just celebrated her 44th wedding anniversary!  Kim and her hubby have lived in their farmhouse for the past 35 years. Her daughter is all grown up and busy raising 4 young daughters of her own. When her daughter told her about Organize 365®, Kim was all ears. Kim has always been organized but always open to ways of more efficiency. 

In April of ‘21, Kim retired. We talked about that transition. There are no good sources or guides to tell us what to expect in these times of transition. Kim has stayed very busy with helping on the farm, watching her granddaughters 3 days a week, watching after her father’s finances and visiting him at his living facility, and of course learning all kinds of skills she never had the time to before. She took a charcuterie board and sour dough class. What’s next? Scrapbooking!

After learning more about Organize 365® products, Kim crafted her own Sunday Basket® to make sure she’d use it. But she shared that, 4 weeks later when she got the Sunday Basket®, that the actual Sunday Basket® took her organization to a whole new level and the folders stand up! She loved that in the real Sunday Basket® she can place things like ink cartridges and pill bottles in it for Sunday. She even convinced her sister to get a Sunday Basket®. Kim feels good that when it comes time for her daughter to care for her and her husband, it’ll be easier due to the organization she’s doing now and the Medical, Home Resource, and Financial binders. She has more peace of mind knowing where paper work is for easy access and that the right paperwork is in order for the future.

She took one week, working about 8 hours each day, and organized her storage. She’d set aside a few bins that she needed to have her husband go through. One night she treated it like date night and they went to the storage room together and “walked down memory lane” by going through those bins. Yes they got rid of stuff but even better he was happy they did that. Because in the beginning he wasn’t too fond of her getting rid of things. Kim loves her life and is thankful that she can focus on things that are important to her and time with her family.

Kim’s advice is, “You just do a little bit at a time, one day at a time.” As her mother used to always say about everything she did for the holidays.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution® 

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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!

You are in stage one but you have decreased your expenses as much as possible and still there’s too much month left at the end of the money. What do you do? Hello Stage2. You start to look for small pockets of time when you can make random amounts of money. You want to increase your income but you are not yet ready to commit to a part time job of sorts. 

Profit and Loss

In business, you do a monthly check of profit and loss. How much did your business make, how much did your business spend, and are you in the green still? You do not have a budget because business fluctuates month to month. After you have been a business owner for some time you may see patterns when your business brings in more and when your business is not profitable. And we need to be doing this in our homes too. Remember the most powerful small business is our homes. If you are anything like our house, we have a lot of fun in November and December and then spend Q1 paying it all off. And you may just find you need to find extra sources of income to plug that hole of expense. You may have already had the experience but it’s an expense because the money needs to get paid back. But you don’t have enough. 

Random Amounts of Money

I remember the first time I learned about random money that I could get, being a full time stay at home mom with no desire to have an official job, was when a friend recommended for me to take part in diaper studies. I don’t think I ever paid for diapers. I didn’t always make money but I also was not spending money on diapers. I also made random money doing surveys in persona and online. And retail arbitrage. I’d shop the garage sales and in a few months I’d resell the items I’d bought because my kids were ready for the next stage of toys. It was income neutral but again I wasn’t spending money. I made money selling things on Ebay and Craigslist and eventually in direct sales. 

Stage 2 is all about finding little pockets of time to make random amounts of money. It’s things that need to get done but also ok if they don’t. These tasks are 100% flexible. How can you make a little extra income to get P&L neutral? It’s a mindset shift on how to add income instead of reducing expenses. And for whatever reason stage 1 is no longer where you want to be. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

Is color coding just busy work?  We were curious if there were any studies to back up our stance that color coding helps with learning. Anna found a few and she’s here discussing them with me. Do you think in color? Anna and I do! We did a quick response activity where Anna said a color and I responded what I associate with that color. The Organize 365® products are colorful but not without intentionality. 

Color Coding Helps with Recall

Teachers often color code subjects. When you are looking for supplies for their class you know to look for the designated color of items like a folder. When I was in school I used white index cards and then wrote in different colors to remember what I needed. I had to remember because this brain I have, it’s dyslexic and doesn’t understand phoenix. I had to remember for sake of the test! 

I had a student that was really struggling to pass his spelling tests. Once we color coded the syllables, he started to pass his spelling tests. Again, color coding helps a person to recall what they have learned. This is the example I really think of when I think of the significance of color coding. I was blown aware at the effectiveness of color coding for that student. And when adults are students, your work is self paced. Color coding your work can help you stay organized and retrieve what you have learned when you need to use that information.

When Joey and Abby were little I would color code all their things. Having one boy and one girl made that pretty easy. If you had two boys one could be blue and the other boy could be orange. Reduce your cognitive load!

When things are color coded it reduces the cognitive load. Imagine a bin dedicated to toy cars. When you go to the toy organizer you look for that bin and then look for the specific car you want. The same is true with the Sunday Basket®. You are going to retrieve something related to a person in your family so instantly you know to look at the blue slash pockets, thus reducing the cognitive load to find what you need. 

The Evolution of Color Within Organize 365®

When I first started to ship out slash pockets I was getting them at Walmart, taking out the company’s information and passing them off as my own.One day it dawned on me that Walmart could change what they sold and I’d be up a creek. So I got to work. I took a bet on myself and ordered a huge pallet of 1.0 slash pockets. Would you believe the day they arrived is the day Walmart changed what they were selling?  This order was so large I couldn't fit it all in the garage with my car. So I got an office space. I had no idea what I was doing, I was learning. That’s when the Sunday Baskets® arrived and we had to move to a warehouse. 

The last thing I ordered was the 2.0 Slash Pockets. Green for money and admin tasks that move the money. I have always thought blue was for people. And Pink was for me. Pink and blue make purple, right? Purple was for the home the people and I, my family, lived in and the projects I would need to do in and on that house. It was then that I understood the house to be a separate entity from my family. When you get a system from Organize 365®, you get the whole kit. You can mix and match the systems too because the colors translate across all the systems.  All the Organize 365® colors have been intentionally selected. Color aids in organization being a learnable skill!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• APA citation: Lamberski, R. J. & Dwyer, F. M. (1983). The instructional effect of coding (color and black and white) on information acquisition and retrieval. ECTJ. 31(1): 9-21.

• 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.

In this episode, I introduce you to Tami T. who is married with two children at home. A few years before the pre-pandemic, Tami was doing a lot of driving for her work teaching private (band) lessons in schools. It took Tami about a year to listen to all of the Organize 365® episodes. Tami invested in the Whole Home program that we now know as The Productive Home Solution. 

Tami would watch the videos beforehand and listen to episodes, while driving, about the specific space that was next in the program. By the time she got home she knew exactly what she wanted to do in that space. It dawned on Tami that she kept doing the kitchen. By the third time she started the program, she focused on all the other spaces. She’s tackled all of her spaces and even gotten rid of her filing cabinets. Tami attended a paper retreat and organized all her paper but one bin. She’s since tackled that too with the help of a virtual organizer that she found in the Organize 365® directory. She found with getting organized it freed up capacity to be able to mentally process that one last bin. 

When the pandemic hit, her organization was really challenged. She had to teach her band classes AND she had two young children at home trying to attend school too. What did she do? She got a Sunday Basket® for each of them so Tami could keep everyone and all the assignments organized. Tami shared that now instead of just being a day or two ahead, she’s now months ahead. Again with more capacity and being planned a few months out, it has given her the time and energy to do some small tasks she’s always wanted to do. For example with all the planning completed she was able to make a program for the band concerts that she can repurpose in the future. And she could schedule refreshments and treats. She’s been able to make a little flyer to promote the performance to faculty. She can make the event better and be more present. 

Tami did the kids program with her kids too. They have been able to learn the life skill of going through their closets and organization. The first attempt was a garage sale that didn’t go so well. Now they donate. If they have an item(s) it gets donated on Tuesdays when Tami is driving by Goodwill. Tami, as most moms do, has always had so much on her plate. By the kids learning those skills it actually reduces tasks from her plate. And this she wished she’d known sooner. Put those kids to work learning skills they will need in the future.

They took a family trip to Egypt and then Switzerland this past summer. Tami was able to pre plan all their summer activities. They took their trip and when they came home Tami had time to follow up on documentaries about Egypt because the summer was planned. She’s even been able to complete two scrapbooks from their trip. She finds she has more capacity and down time due to her Sunday Basket® and Education Workbox®.

Tami’s advice is, “Do the Sunday Basket® first, then the binders and sheet protectors.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Teacher Friday Workbox®

• Kids Program

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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!

Last year, two of our key leaders and I attended a Dave Ramsey Summit. This is how I have gotten some of my best CEO training. I really think about the topics the speaker is bringing up and think of Organize 365® and have I implemented something similar? Have I done that thing? Or maybe is that idea an improvement we should consider? It was great for us to be hearing the same information at the same time and be able to discuss. We even changed our Monday morning meeting a little to catch our staff at a better time of day. And then I thought “Is there anything I need to add to our values?”

What is Busy Work?

When I thought about staffing and when someone leaves Organize 354®, is there a way to eliminate busy work. Do their job tasks still need to be done or were they busy work? Is there someone else on the team that can do those tasks? It got me thinking of all the busy work teachers do. It’s cute to put the little bubbles at the “end” of each stroke of the letters but is it necessary? I’d do it once, then copy the paper the rest of the year, otherwise it would become busy work. Revisiting a closet you’ve done recently thinking you’ll get the same high will let you down because the transformation is not nearly as dramatic. Busy work is that unnecessary re-working of tasks. As long as your work is not done, even if it’s busy work,  you won’t have the excess time, capacity, and boredom to seek out what you are uniquely gifted and created to do.

Operationalizing 

The flip side of busy work that can appear as busy work is operationalizing your tasks. I started out organizing my sister and I’s rooms. Then I graduated to organizing the homes I babysat in. I have always loved gifting an act of service. I organized the “craft area” by the fire place at my house and my mom loved it. So I did it annually around Christmas for her. But then my parents expanded the house and she got a larger space. My mom is an artists and that was definitely a challenge to understand what was valuable and not. I asked a lot of questions!! I would help other teachers to organize their classrooms. And eventually organized my clients. But in each of those instances I was growing my skill set. I was learning how the spaces were used and why the items were in there. I was operationalizing how I helped other get organized. You can do the same with repeated tasks. That’s why on Planning Day I tell you to stock up your storage for the trimester. Don’t order one of the same thing each month, operationalize it. 

The Sunday Basket Replaces Your Checklists

First of all, there is a time and place for checklists. Checklists can be useful if you are trying to establish a new routine. Be careful not to let it become a crutch. Don’t be so stuck on the list that it supersedes your role in the company. And not everything needs to go on the list, just big things you can’t forget. And checklists are good for something you don’t do often. My best example I shared was our packing list for Florida each year. As we grow and change the list does too. We edit when necessary so we don’t forget for the next time we need to use the checklist. 

I can remember the last time I used a master to do list. In 2014, I wrote 10 legal pad pages of all my to do’s. I organized them by family member or entity and then prioritized them. I transferred each item to an index card. And I filed them away to deal with on Sunday. It is nice to look at all tasks individually and decide on importance, my time, and my money. I may write down the same task multiple times and that’s ok because I got it out of my head and who cares if I wrote it multiple times. I place them in the appropriate slash pock. I take action on the actionable items. Then once I complete the task I get to toss it in the recycling. Lists never go away, with index cards you can complete them and toss them. The Sunday Basket is safe keeping till you can take action. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Friday Workbox®

• The Productive Home Solution

• 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!

As many of you know, following one organizer will bring you to another. In fact, that’s how some of you ended up in my community. So many of you reached out suggesting Kendra Adachi with The Lazy Genius podcast for an interview for the Monday Connections episodes. Thank you so much for the recommendation and we had an insightful conversation.  

Lazy Genius

Kendra Adachi was a perfectionist to the extreme. She was teacher’s pet, valedictorian, and voted most dependable by her peers. In 2015, she started a lifestyle blog. The podcast, The Lazy Genius, followed not even a full year later. She teaches women to “Be a genius about the things that matter, and and lazy about the things that don’t.” Once she became a parent she learned that rule. She was so used to doing everything perfectly but once her second child came along she realized you can’t be perfect at everything. And that’s how she got to pointing out to women how to find a happy medium between Boss Babe and Hot Mess. 

We agreed how nice it is to come on an episode with an idea and through the recording think out loud. Inevitably we end up with feedback from the community that results in solutions or next steps. When I asked her if she worries about running out of episode topics. She replied with the fact that the perspective on laundry changes with your lifestyle. For example, she may be talking about endless stained laundry from toddlers and grow to sharing about how she is teaching her teenagers how to do laundry. We commented on the value our listeners get from hearing how a female is doing things. Kendra shared that 93% of time management books are from male authors. It’s time for women to learn from each other. 

And Kendra shared about “Big Black Trash Bag Energy”. You know when you’re just over it and so you get out the big trash bag with the internet to toss everything and just start over? No need. Just start small. Work on one thing. 

Women Have Always Ran the World

Kendra shared the point of view that maybe there’s a stigma to the importance of the female role and how much men value what women do. And I agreed through the lens that  women have always ran the world but now that women are in the workforce, it’s coming to light how much women are really doing. And sorry guys, it’s more than you. Men get to watch a football game but women feel like they need to be productive making the meal plan or planning car pool while watching that same football game. We have been the CEO’s of the households but now all that invisible work is being identified. We have these never ending tasks that replenish themselves and leads to weary spirits. Planning is essential for women to manage the household and take care of everyone. Kendra pointed out you are inherently a preparer, an adjuster, or a notice-er. And then we talked about the mindsets and lifestyles of being 30, 40, and in your 50’s. And the two scenarios determine how you got about what you gotta get done.

You Only Know What You Know

I find it so difficult to find other women CEO’s to learn from. We joked those women are too busy to sit down to write a book or record a podcast. My hope is for all women in the 20’s and 30’s to find a community to show them systems on how to be a household manager. You get a new job, you get training. You buy your first house and you’re responsible for the payments but no guidelines on how to care for it. Up to you to hopefully stumble across the Household Operations Binder. Don’t get intimidated by the CEO role. It’s not meant to be this manly corporate role. You only know what you have been taught. Women need to be in community with each other, doing life together. We are the experts in this role! 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Sunday Basket®

• 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.

It’s 2017, I’m on the plane home from California. I just attended a conference, a mastermind with a virtual friend of mine, Chris Ducker, and I’m writing down the 5th value that I want for Organize 365®. The Power of Community: In community, everyone can learn to be organized, action is easier, and happens exponentially. Organize 365® believes organization is a learnable skill. 

I’m a CEO

After the investment I had made in that 6 days in California, it sunk in, I’m a real CEO. I was making money and needed to structure my company to be able to purchase inventory. After considering our current phase of life and how I envisioned Organize 365® would grow, I was advised to structure it as a C-Corp. All the details and thought process I shared in this episode. I also decided on the way home that I was going to need to hire 7 contractors for areas that were not my strength. In community with these contractors I grew Organize 365®

Virtual Friends

I had a really hard time in the friends category really my whole life. I shared a really vulnerable time in my life in Catholic school where the girls weren’t so nice to me. Maybe it was me? I was used to talking to adults. The place in my family where I was born had me surrounded by adults all the time. I had my successful female lineage, my father who owned his own business, and then the smart men on my dad’s side of the family. I was so mature in conversation but naive in interacting with kids my same age. I finally had a pretty solid friend once I was married.  Around 2012, my pit of despair, I was back to no community. My parents divorced and it kind of blew up the whole family, I ditched my friends so I would not be around negativity, we were in a tough parenting season so church had become less, and I wasn’t teaching anymore. I didn’t even have my Creative Memory parties anymore, the women I had scrapbook with once a month for years. 

So I turned to authors. I listened to their audio books. I gleaned all they were talking about and trying to apply it to my business. And then I found podcasts. Like, what? It was an endless supply of basically audiobooks.  They were my virtual friends, Pat Flynn with Smart Passive Income, John Lee Dumas with Entrepreneur on Fire,  Chris Ducker with Youpreneur, to name a few.  I would mull over the questions Chris Ducker would ask his guests and then I would practice answering them. But then I got to thinking how the female lived experience is so much different than a male’s. So I searched out women to follow and listen to. Life is so flat when you don’t have friends. I couldn’t seem to make any friends so this was what I had. I was always talking with them, they just couldn’t hear my side of the conversation. 

Organize 365® Community

Being such a fan of community and understanding community helps others to learn, I knew it had to be a core value of my company. I also knew that the growth I was expecting and the experience I wanted for my customers,  I would not be able to hold the community together alone. I’m still very much involved with the Planning Days, Embrace, and other webinars n such. But you see team members running some of the clubs and other things. Life is better in community, connecting with other humans. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Sharon T. who is married and at the time of this interview was caring for her special needs sister, full time. Sharon has always been organized but was looking to “up her game.” Fun fact; Sharon lives in Singapore, joined me at night for this episode, and there they spell organization with an “s.” She was looking for help with both spellings. She found the Organize 365® podcast and felt like language was being given to what she was going through. 

She and I talked about how women in general try to straddle home and work life balance. But to what degree is it talked about? There are subcultures with in races, right? I talked about being White Irish, wonder where my sarcasm comes from, and White English, who tend to be more reserved. We felt it important not to generalize cultures. But it did bring up the fact that some cultures talk about the struggle of doing it all as a women and others “suffer in quiet.” This is the language that was speaking to Sharon so much. 

Sharon watched her cousin take his last breath in 2019. The doctor said his diet was in part due to his passing. That really forced Sharon to take a look at her life and listen to what she felt she was being called to do and that was to help the special needs community. Diet can affect people positively that have special needs. And diet can support those care givers to take care of themselves. To combat the “Woe is me” mentality. Sharon thought about this as she considered her mom’s caregiving life to her sister. She and her sister started their business, Possible Nutrition. 

In 2022, Sharon looked at the pile of papers and decided to finally systematize them with the Friday Workbox® she had treated herself to for her birthday the year before. Sharon loves to write things down and reflect on them. Is it possible? Is it needed? Does it make sense? Then she can share it with her sister or whoever. She finds it very cathartic to seasonally review the business and plan for what is coming up. And it’s so important to document care. As we change so too will our care. If I was going to babysit, I’d have the parents fill out a little form such as nap time, foods, pacifier or not? If it had been 6 months or more, a lot could have changed!

It was a dentist's findings that really got Sharon thinking about how our diet really affects our bodies. We need to eat for nutrition and in a manner that facilitates absorption. With the right diet she’s seen symptoms subside quite easily. Well this opened a big can of worms and I started picking her brain about macros and what she considers a nutrient rich diet. Then I asked a burning question about protein. We talked about the order in which to consume your meal. And it’s pretty cool how the order alone can affect your glucose, if it spikes or not and how quickly you resume your baseline glucose level. 

There is no universal diet or organizational system because we are not all the same. And life changes which means the way we eat and organize will too! We shouldn’t view our health as our idol rather to be good stewards of our bodies so we can do what we were uniquely created to do. 

Sharon’s advice is, “ I think that if you're just starting out maybe say establishing a home or, just getting a first job, start with Sunday Basket®.  We need to get our own personal lives in order before we can look at managing a home, before we can go out there and do anything else.” 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The 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!

There are two ways you can proactively anticipate. You can act like it’s Y2K again. When the 1000’s place in computers was switching to 2 at the end of 1999, Greg and I proactively anticipated from the stance of lack. We stocked up on water and toilet paper in the event the world ran out. OR you can proactively anticipate with a positive mindset and life in abundance.  You know where you are going and what you want and plan how to get there. 

Get What You Want

I love holding babies! So when I was younger I thought how can I get to be the one to hold the babies because others in my family too like to hold the babies. I anticipated no one wanted to change the stinky diaper, so I did. Then after I took them to the bedroom or somewhere away from everyone, I’d change the diaper and then steal my cuddles. “Lisa, are you bringing back the baby?” they’d ask. I also anticipated that people like to sleep. So when my aunts started having babies, I’d offer to stay over to take care of the baby during the night. I knew they baby would be up in the middle of the night and my aunts wanted to sleep. What do you want and how can you be helpful? Maybe by giving an act of service that fills your cup too. If you remember last week’s episode, I did this with babysitting too. I wanted to be the babysitter of their choice each summer. I made sure I lined it up in plenty of time for the parents to be able to line up summer camps or whatever on the days I would be watching their children so they could rely on me for transportation and care of their children. 

What Can You Do In 20 Minutes?

Thank God Abby was a sleeper but my lil Joey only took 20 minute naps. I had so many plates in the air and without a sufficient nap time to address anything, lots of things were falling through the cracks. I had, literally, a foot of paper piled at the end of my kitchen counter. One night I decided to tackle it by sorting it in to 40 categories. By the time I was done, it was late, I needed to pick up my mess but also have it accessible. I threw the sorted and paper clipped papers into a Lonaberger basket till the next day at nap time. I knew I was going to have a small window to accomplish something. I was proactively anticipating this nap and I was ready. Slowly over the next six weeks I was able to get caught up one paper packet per nap time. Having my paper organized I was able to get systems in place so I could keep growing Organize 365® because I realized that is what I was uniquely created to do. 

Proactive Anticipation Go Hand in Hand with Planning

I have always had the ability to look into the future and anticipate what is coming for the female American Household Manager. I have been in many homes, of all types. I know things like the energy during different times of the year, how supply chain works, and kids! The Sunday Basket helps you to proactively anticipate the next week. Planning days help you to proactively plan for the next 120 days. I found these systems to be effective for my house and then created ways to teach them to others in the Organize 365® Community. Once you find what you are uniquely created to do you need the systems more than ever. At first they give you time to find out what you are created to do. You could dive into the fulfillment of what you discover but then you may have your train go off the rails. The systems continue to provide time to keep doing what you are uniquely created to do, in combination with everything else a Household Manager must do. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!

Anna, our lead researcher is back and we are talking about the American Household and looking at the data from the Census of the past. We came across this info graphic that is interactive. You can slide the dial to see stats based on where you have placed the pointer. We were entertained with the results we were seeing and we wanted to talk about what we found on the podcast. How much has the American household changed over time? 

What continues to blow my mind is 2 things. These studies keep being conducted proving what we already know while no studies are being done to support a solution. There is only about ¼ of the population that is even being addressed because the focus for solutions and the conversation is for houses with married couples and children. Children are usually identified as being under the age of 18 and living at home. Our best guess says that this data is based on people 18-55 years old. I guess that’s one more thing that blows my mind, “adulthood” ends at 55. And “old age” starts at 65. So from 55-65 there is a dearth (using my big PhD words), as in not very much, of information for people 55-65. But as you will hear in the episode people are getting married and having babies later, so some 65 year olds could still have children under 18 at home.

So many numbers 

So when we look at this information, the breakdown was in 1960 30% of the population was married without children and today about the same at 29.4% of the population. We talked about a lot of demographics, “other household” types. We looked at the 50 ‘s and 60’s vs. 2023. The biggest change we noticed was in the age men and women are getting married. Women in the 50’s were getting married at age 20 but today they are waiting till around age 28. And it’s the same for men. In the 50’s, men used to get married around age 24 but are now waiting till around 30. People are waiting longer to get married which means they are having children at a later age, if they are having children at all - DINKs. Anna reminded me of that acronym DINK, that stands for dual income-no kids. And we discussed possible reasons for this. Who is going to take care of these people as they age? 

I’m going to be a doctor!

It recently dawned on me that people will call me doctor after I get this PhD. I didn’t realize how science-y it was going to be, but I will know the brain when all is said and done. I lost sight of that because my goal in all of this was to have a seat at the table and do research to come up with solutions. My studies will include people 18 - 85 year olds so that I can get the full picture of how our houses are operating and who is in them. I want to change the conversation to include all household types. Our housework will never be done but I do want to be able to offer solutions how to plan for success that anyone can apply. I’m turning academia on it’s head with everything from funding, maybe finding where planning is in the brain, to coming up with solutions to problems that have redundantly been proven.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• 559 - What Do You Mean I May Settle 7 Estates?! - Organize 365 Team Unexpected Events - Virginia
• https://usafacts.org/articles/how-has-the-structure-of-american-households-changed-over-time/
• https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/emerging-trends-and-enduring-patterns-in-american-family-life/
• https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/09/14/the-modern-american-family/
• https://www.parents.com/parenting/dynamics/the-changing-face-of-the-american-family/
• https://www.nbcnews.com/health/parenting/how-modern-us-family-size-changing-charts-map-rcna65421
• 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.

“We have a hard time just wanting what we want.” Transformational Freedom is my driving force through personal development and unapologetic gumption to pursue the things I want. Our houses are holding us back. When we feel like we are taking care of our primary role of household manager, spouse, and parent, then we feel free to pursue what we want.

4 Generations of Ambitious Women

When you have a great grandmother who gets her teaching degree because it’s the only degree a woman can get, you learn to succeed despite limitations. She went on to run a floral shop, a restaurant, and a gift shop which is definitely not what other women were doing those days. AND she divorced her husband! And then you have a grandmother who gets her Home Economics degree because again, limitations. And see her and her husband start a student loan - ish business, you see an example of a woman not waiting for permission. But then goes on to set an even greater example when she remarries and starts up a home economic kit mail order business of sorts out of her home. Like how did people order? She figured it out because it’s what she wanted to do. And a mother like mine. She was so focused on business. She started The Fine Line out of our basement and created cases of clothes she bought one weekend in NYC. She did that for 6 years and then sold it for a profit. 

Didn’t Get Permission, I Went After What I Wanted

Which gave me the gumption to start my own babysitting business. The examples of women in my life I saw growing up didn’t wait for permission to pursue what they were uniquely created to do. I didn’t wait for permission or see someone else doing it. No, I paved my own path to filling up my summer calendar with baby sitting positions. I saw a need and solved a problem for moms who needed to get tasks done and take care of themselves per my suggestion. I used my unique skills of loving children to make money on my terms. 

Transformational Freedom

At Organize 365® we say “As you let go of one thing, you are open to receiving the next. We strive to unlock your life’s purpose through the process of decluttering, organizing, and increasing productivity.” You also don’t know what you haven't experienced. I acknowledge that if you haven’t seen, for example, a healthy marriage then you don’t believe they exist and don’t know what they look like. I love the Organize 365® community for this reason. Hopefully you are hearing healthy examples on the podcast and then being exposed to more in the community. Community opens our eyes to possibilities. And because we don’t believe in those possibilities, we cling to what we currently have. That’s why it’s so important to acknowledge letting go of one thing, only to experience something even better. Remember this life is not happening to us, it’s happening for us. 

Permission Granted

Greg didn’t flinch when I told him I was going to quit because he knew I would make money still. I had replaced my teaching salary with Creative Memories and planned to grow my organizing business to contribute to the family finances. In my organizing experiences, one client broke down when the last area was done, saying she could finally go back to work. What? The emotional weight of our homes on us women is great. Ladies, our houses hold us back because whether or not you work, you view your household manager role as primary. Organize 365® is here to get you decluttered and organized so you can be productive. Here is your permission to explore what you want and to pursue it. Fly out of your golden cage. Return as much as you want but you are free. Permission granted. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• 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!