Organize 365® Podcast

On this week’s podcast, I kick start the 3-week Kid’s Organization Series. It’s for kids between the ages of 7 and 21 – so whether you’re still in school or preparing to graduate from college – this series is for you!

I tried something a little different this week and recorded my podcast on video, too. If you would prefer to watch this episode, you can do that here... https://youtu.be/2Q9JWKBOFVc

Organizing Your School Art & Memories

But before we get started, I want to reach out to all the kids out there who are bored out of their minds this summer. If you can relate, I’ve got your back! One of the things you could do is go through all of your old artwork and school papers and sort out the things that you love and want to save to look back on in years to come. Sort everything into two piles – a keep pile and a recycle pile.

Once you have gathered all of the papers and artwork you want to keep, you can store it all in a plastic tub and keep it in your closet, or you can put everything inside a binder using sheet protectors. You can create your own binder OR you can ask your parents (as nicely as possible) to let you order the Organize 365 School Art & Memory Binder where you can safely store and protect all of your papers and artwork so that they will last a lifetime.

Organizing your artwork is something you could do while you’re in the process of redesigning your bedroom, which is something that I did A LOT when I was a kid because I loved switching things around and making my room feel “brand new” again.

So, if you want to redesign your bedroom this summer and change things up for yourself, follow these easy redesign tips!

Planning On Graph Paper

I don’t know about you, but I find it easier to envision a redesign when I’ve drawn up a quick plan on paper first. Measure your bedroom and notice where the windows, doors and outlets are.

In my case, I’m redesigning my son’s bedroom which measures 10' x 10'. So, I’ve drawn out my plan on the graph paper to fit 30 squares across and 30 squares from top to bottom.

[So, three squares of the paper is equal to one foot and one square of the paper is equal to four inches.]

Marking Doors, Windows & Outlets

Before we can get to the fun part of moving furniture around and getting creative with your bedroom, there are a few things you will want to mark on your plans such as doors, windows, electrical outlets, and vents.

Leave enough space for any door openings in your room, whether it’s the main door to your bedroom, a closet door, or the door to a bathroom, etc. Figure out how much space you need to leave free and mark this on your graph paper as a semi-circle. You can watch how I do this in this week's video... https://youtu.be/2Q9JWKBOFVc

Also mark the placement of all of the windows in your bedroom. I also like to label each of the electrical outlets and the vent to allow heat and air conditioning to enter the room without any obstruction.

Using Post-It Notes As Furniture

Now that you have all the boring stuff marked on your plan, you can start redesigning your bedroom with Post-It Notes.

Create a Post-It Note for each piece of movable furniture in your room. Many of you will have a desk, a dresser, or a bedside table. Measure it and cut a Post-It Note in the same shape and size that corresponds with your plan.

Remember, three squares on the graph paper is equal to one foot. So if your bed measures 6' x 3', you’ll need to convert that measurement to fit the dimensions of the squares of your plan. You can liven things up by using multi-colored Post-Its and labeling each one as you go.

When I was a kid, I would do this ALL THE TIME. I would plan my new bedroom design over and over again. And when I was done with that, I made a plan for future homes – I just loved it. What can I say? Some kids played sports and some kids planned their future homes in excruciating detail and precision!

Moving Big Pieces Of Furniture

When it comes to redesigning your room and moving big pieces of furniture around, you need to think of the process as a huge jigsaw puzzle. Make sure you leave enough space in your room to move things around in the most efficient way possible and try not to limit your own walking space. You’ve got to be able to walk around your room without climbing over furniture to get to the other side!

In this week's video, I show you (using my Post-It Note furniture) how to move your bed and desk and not get stuck in the room!... https://youtu.be/2Q9JWKBOFVc

If you have too many things that can’t fit in your bedroom or your college dorm room, I suggest renting an outside storage unit. This is especially useful if you’ve recently moved back home with your parents and there’s not enough space to keep all of the things you accumulated throughout college. Just put it all in a storage facility – out of sight, out of mind!

The Kids Organization Series

I hope you enjoyed this first episode of the Kids Organization Series and found some useful tips and ideas for organizing and redesigning your own bedroom or apartment. In this series, I’m going to be focusing on all the things that you don’t have time for during the school year that you could finally do in the summer.

If you’d like to catch up with the podcast’s I recorded last year for organizing your bedroom and collections, go to organize365.com/kids. Don’t forget to take photos of your newly organized bedroom and tag me @organize365 on Instagram – I’d love to see how you're organizing your rooms and share it with my followers!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/235

Direct download: Org365-235.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Living through renovations, natural disasters, and moving can be a very stressful and disorganized time. Your house is turned upside down in the blink of an eye and before you know it, you’re stepping over stacks of books on your way to the bathroom and the dog is snoozing on top of a box labeled, “The GOOD China” – just thinking about it gives me a headache!

Instead of gritting your teeth and living through the chaos, you can follow these three easy steps that will help to not only organize your home during transitional times (such as moving or renovating the kitchen), but they’ll also help to keep you sane.

1. The Hot Mess Room Challenge

The first step is to do the Hot Mess Room Challenge well in advance. The challenge is different for everyone because no two “hot mess rooms” are the same. Your hot mess room could be your basement, the guest bedroom, or your garage. It’s the room in the house that has collected a mass of random items that don’t have a place anywhere else in the home. If you’re thinking of a room like that in your house, it’s your hot mess room!

So, what is the Hot Mess Room Challenge?

The Hot Mess Room Challenge takes 28 days to complete and it takes you through the progress of getting your hot mess room organized. You can think of the hot mess room like a jigsaw puzzle. The challenge will help you to separate each piece, organize each one and, in the end, put them together into an organized storage unit.

The Hot Mess Room Challenge can be download it right here. It’s delivered directly to your inbox, ready to download!

At the end of the 28-day challenge, instead of a hot mess room, you’ll have an organized storage room with shelving, bins with color-coded labels, and a complete inventory of everything you have stored in that room.

When disaster strikes and you need to find something such as a flashlight or a photograph of a family member, you can’t waste time looking through boxes upon boxes. Having an inventory gives you peace of mind knowing that if you ever needed something in a rush, you'll know exactly where to find it.

2. The Sunday Basket®

Once you have completed the Hot Mess Room Challenge, you’re ready to move onto stage two – organizing your Sunday Basket® System!

You need to make sure that your Sunday Basket® is ALWAYS accessible to you 100% of the time. In fact, you should think of your Sunday Basket® as your lifeline during these stressful transitional times.

Your Sunday Basket® is where you will keep your color-coded lists of everything that is in your storage room and an inventory of the things you have packed into boxes. If you are renovating your kitchen, for example, you would label boxes with things such as “Utensils,” “Dishes,” “Pots and Pans,” etc. So when you need to find something inside one of the kitchen renovation boxes, you can check the Sunday Basket® checklist and it will tell you exactly where you can find that item.

Another reason why you need your Sunday Basket® up and running when you’re moving or renovating your home is that, in both of these cases, you’ll have paperwork coming in such as household bills, invoices, etc. and you can keep all of these papers organized in your SundayBasket®.

3. The Organize 365 Binders

Before you move or renovate your home, you need to make each of the four Organize 365 Binders to eliminate your filing cabinet and organize all of your paperwork. Once you have all of your binders arranged, you can move to your new house without trailing a bunch of unsightly and disorganized filing cabinets with you – how awesome does that sound?

It takes time to organize each binder, so I would suggest tackling one at a time. If you’d like to find out how I organized my binders, you can head over to the Sunday Basket® Podcast to hear more about that and each of the four binders I mention below:

Medical Binder: You should think of the Medical Organizing Binder as a caregiver binder and store information regarding your family’s medical and health history, doctor information, diagnosis tracker, immunization record, hospitalization and surgery history, and so on.

Financial Binder: The Financial Organizing Binder is for all of your finances, which includes everything you need to keep your finances in order during a home renovation, a move, or when a natural disaster strikes. Inside, you should keep your insurance policy information, financial prep sheet, credit card inventory, bill payment records, debts and loans, and any other finances that you need to keep track of.

Household Reference Binder: Every homeowner needs a Household Reference Binder. It’s where you should store everything that you want the new homeowner to know (if you’re selling your house), including home exterior and interior information, home appliances, and details of things such as when you last checked the hot water heater, etc.

Household Operations Binder: The Household Operations Binder is the key to maintaining your home and running the household. Inside this binder, you should keep all of the basic household information, important dates, trackers, meal planning, and your plan in the event of an emergency.

Whenever you’re moving to a new house, renovating, or in the aftermath of a natural disaster, you’ll need to know where you keep your four binders. I suggest keeping them in the same place where you store your SundayBasket® so you can just grab it all and go!

I hope you found these three steps useful when it comes to living through renovations, moving to a new home, or recovering from a natural disaster. Purchase your Sunday Basket® and Binders in my shop today!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/234

Direct download: Org365-234_Living_Through_Renovations__Moving.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Friday Workboxes will increase your productivity in your "work" just like the Sunday Basket® does for your home. 

This podcast was originally a Facebook LIVE. You can watch the video here

Check out all the Organize 365 Friday Workboxes here.

Join the Organize 365 Newsletter to stay on top of new products as they launch.

And follow Lisa on Instagram to see behind the scenes of her everyday life and watch new products as they are developed. 

Direct download: Org365-Bonus-Workboxes.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Just because you live in a small home doesn’t mean your storage space has to be limited. Over the years, I’ve received A LOT of emails on the subject of maximizing storage space in small living spaces such as studio apartments, condos, and tiny houses.

In fact, I received this email from an Organize 365 fan named Amy just the other day and wanted to share it with you:

Since having a baby, it’s been so hard to keep on top of things at home, but listening to your podcasts in the afternoons usually gives me a little push. Do you have experience with organizing small homes and apartments? Our apartment constantly feels cluttered, but in reality, there are very few things we can get rid of, it’s just a small space. Any advice for those of us who don’t have basements, garages, spare rooms or even a hall closet and also don’t have a lot of money for complex storage systems that fancy tiny homes all seem to utilize?”

Amy is in a situation that I know many of you can relate to. Living in a small space with a baby usually means that there is going to be a lot of “stuff” – it’s just the way it is.

The issue lies with the fact that you genuinely NEED all of that extra baby stuff because you never know when you’ll need it again, especially if you’re planning on expanding your family in the future.

The Baby Issue

I’m not saying that having a baby in a small space is an “issue,” but it’s important to realize that children come with a lot of clutter. Expecting to add more kids to your family without expanding the amount of space taken up in the home is an unrealistic expectation.

Now that I’ve given you that little reality check, we can dive into the good stuff!

If you’re fortunate enough to have a nursery in your home, it’s a good idea to try and keep most of the baby related items in there as much as possible. And if you want to maximize your space WITHOUT decluttering, I have four space-saving suggestions for you!

1. Create More Space

Before you say anything – Yes, I understand that you can’t just click your fingers together and magically increase the size of your home to create more space. That’s not what I’m saying, but it is essential to start looking at your house with “new eyes.”

Try and see your home’s potential. It may be difficult at first, but trust me – there’s always a way to create more space!

A great tip I have for you is to use shoe holders over every door in your house. You can avoid using hooks (which can damage the door frame) by using 3M Command Hooks instead.

With Command Hooks, you can just pop the shoe holder over the top and it’ll hold the rack in place without causing any damage to the door – phew!

So, what can you store inside these fantastic shoe organizers?

I’m glad you asked!

You can literally store all of the little things in your house inside the shoe holders. For example, on the back of the bathroom door, you can put your shampoo, soaps, and items that you would typically put in your medicine cabinet, etc. On the back of the nursery door, you can store cute little baby things like hair accessories, tiny socks, diaper rash cream. and baby wipes, etc.

2. Increase Storage Space With Bed Risers & Space Saver Bags

A bed riser is cheap. You can pick one up from somewhere like Walmart for just $10. Bed risers can lift your bed a few inches or even a few feet above the floor, giving you additional storage space.

I’m a huge fan of bed risers. Our master bed has not one, but TWO bed risers underneath it because… well, I couldn’t see the TV screen over the bed frame!

We also ended up putting our dog’s bed underneath our bed. So, every night our dog Hunter sleeps underneath our bed. If you have a dog and he’s a part of the family like ours is, then this news probably won’t surprise you in the slightest. It’s definitely a unique storage solution to store your dog’s bed (and your dog!).

You can use one bed riser or double it up for even more storage space. Another great way to maximize space in the home is to use a Space Saver Bag. You can put your big fluffy blankets in there over the summer and other out-of-season clothes to help save yourself more space.

Use a vacuum to suck all the air out of the bag and watch in awe as the fluffy blanket that kept you warm all winter gets flattened into a very thin pancake. Store the bag underneath your bed and don’t think about it until next winter!

3. Go ‘Vertical’

If you really want to make the most out of the small space that you DO have, you’ve got to start thinking vertically.

Take a trip to Ikea and get yourself one of those cube storage units and stack them on top of each other against the wall. Build it all the way up to the ceiling if you can and store different items in each cube so you can have less clutter around the house – sorted!

4. Use An Outside Storage Facility

I understand that not everyone can afford to invest in an outdoor storage facility, but if you can save up just a little bit of money each month, you can have enough to rent a small storage unit to help declutter your home.

Choose a size that’s right for you and use it to store all the extra things in your house that you won’t need for a while such as holiday decorations, memorabilia, and baby equipment that your child no longer needs but you may come back to in the future for the next little one.

There’s ALWAYS storage solutions if you’re willing to think outside the box. Don’t let yourself be limited by the physical amount of space that you do have and try to look at it from a new perspective and, who knows, you might even come up with a few of your own creative storage ideas along the way!

 

My entire company is run from my small home office in my bedroom. A small space forces you to constantly prioritize your space and your to-do's. Check out the NEW Friday Workboxes and get your homeschool, teaching, direct sales and entrepreneur businesses organized in a box. :)

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/233

Direct download: Org365-233-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Summer is meant to be a relaxing time of the year filled with fun activities, holidays, and warm afternoons spent soaking up the sun on the beach. However, summer is my least productive season (and I’m a productivity NUT, so that’s saying a lot!).

Things just don’t get done and, before you know it, the summer has ended and all you have to show for it is a great tan but not much else. When we go head first into summer without a second thought about routines or schedules, we often end up feeling bored because we don’t know what to do with our time.

I’m not saying you should have a structured plan and organize every little detail of your summer, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a few routine days that you can use sparingly throughout the summer.

I have five different routine days for the summer that I’d like to share with you:

1. Help & Support Day

If you have kids, you need a day off. It’s as simple as that. Yes, we love our children, and we’d do anything for them, but sometimes we need some time for ourselves – a bit of ME time is good for you!

I’m a full-time working mom with two teenagers and just last summer, I hired a nanny. I know what you’re thinking, “Why on earth did you hire a nanny for two teenagers?”

Well, here’s why:

Reason 1: There was a lot of random driving that needed doing last summer and I didn’t have the time to drive my kids around. So, the person I hired to help me out would drive my kids to wherever they wanted to go and I was able to concentrate on work without any interruptions – success!

Reason 2: I had a lot of household chores and projects I wanted to be done, but had no time to get to. She was able to scan all of my scrapbooks, do the dishes, clean the kitchen, and do the laundry – and it was fantastic!

If you’re not a mom, this probably sounds ridiculous. But if you ARE a mom, you might be thinking… “brilliant – I NEED THIS!”

When I was a teenager, I worked as a babysitter. Before the summer kicked off, I would approach the parents I worked for and ask them if they wanted a day to themselves. I would be happy to look after their kids while they got their hair done (because it was the 80’s and hair was literally everythingback then) and when the mom’s heard this, they thought it was a genius idea.

I created a desire in them that they didn’t even know existed! Not to boast, but I was basically an entrepreneur from birth.

So, when I became a mom, I was looking for someone who would sell the same services as I did – and I found them!

2. Pool Day

Who doesn’t love a pool day? Whether you’re practicing your backstroke or soaking up the sunshine, everyone loves a good pool day in the summer.

Most pools open between 10 am and noon, so you have most of the morning to do whatever you like, and the kids can have their own independent time, too.

When it’s time to go to the pool, pack your swimwear, towels, and whatever else you need to bring with you and go out and enjoy the day as a family!

Remember, the pool tends to zap up all of your energy and brain power, so you probably won’t have the energy to get much done when you get home. Take it easy and order some pizza to finish the day off in style!

3. Errand Day

You can eliminate a lot of time from an errand day by just buying things online like I do. You can shop for groceries online as well, so this might be a good option for you if you don’t feel like pushing a cart through a store.

You’ll probably need at least one or two errand days over the summer. Some of you may need an errand day each week, while others will need just one errand day per month.

The best way to prepare for errand day is to create a list of what needs to be done and check off each task as you go.

4. Home Day

This is my favorite kind of day where you can stay home and do whatever you like with your time – it’s paradise!

I usually like to focus on one of my larger projects on a home day because I’ve got plenty of time to get it done. However, there’s nothing worse than enjoying your home day and having someone tell you that you need to get up and leave the house. That’s the worst, isn’t it?

Avoid this scenario by telling everybody it’s a home day. Make sure they know that you have no intention of driving them around the country or to McDonald’s for some fast food (unless you change your mind, in which case, that’s perfectly fine!).

One of the best ways to make a home day super successful is to introduce your kids to a new activity. This can be anything from a new subscription box to a science kit or homemade play dough.

I love play dough, and I often make homemade play dough that kids of all ages (including me) like to play with. It’s a creative pastime and it doesn’t cost a lot of money, which makes it perfect for a low-key day at home!

Visit the blog post to get my homemade play dough recipe to try for yourself!

5. Big Event Day

A big event day is basically a day spent outside of the house doing something BIG. This can be anything from the amusement park to the zoo. It’s always a good idea to plan for the big event day the night before it actually happens.

If you’re going to be traveling, make sure to fill your car with gas in advance. You should also pack and plan everything you’ll need for the big event day, such as snacks, food, etc.

Each of these summer routine days is designed to give you some inspiration and guidance if you’re struggling to be productive over the summer months. I hope you found it helpful and you can use some (if not all) of these routine days this summer!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/231

Direct download: Org-365-231-2020.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

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