This week I want to talk about lists. Why I don’t have to do lists, cleaning lists, work lists, etc. I just all the sudden realized I didn’t have them and had to figure out, where did they go? When did I get rid of them? How long have I been living without lists? Where was my security blanket? It just seems like the more productive you are, don’t you need more lists? Shouldn’t your lists have lists? 

So my new to-do list is my Sunday Basket®. Many of the things that our brain reminds us to do or that end up in our Sunday Basket® don't need to be done now, or in the near future, or in some cases, ever. But our brain wants to let us know about it as a possibility… of a potential way of spending our time if we'd like to sometime in the future, maybe.

What I’ve moved into after so many years of checklists is establishing better routines, better cadences of natural structures inside my house, inside my day, inside my work. Looking at my morning, afternoon and evening routines. There are six routines that I have Monday through Friday, and then my household management and household cleaning day. There are no organizing emergencies. 

Having good, strong routines for the essentials and then wide open spaces for whatever you WANT to do. Let’s play more! Are your lists really serving you anymore? Are they helping you? Are they reducing your stress and anxiety or making it worse? For me, the answer has been the Sunday Basket® at home, the Friday Workbox® at work, planning days every 3 or 4 months for home and work, and the Organize 365® Blitzes. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Kitchen Productivity & Profitability Blitz

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Jump Start - Personal

• Jump Start - Kitchen

• 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!

My fellow Americans…I bring you this state of the family economy due to what my household is experiencing and the relief I want to offer you! Have you also noticed the increased prices of the following? I asked the Organize 365® community and this is what you all said:

•Groceries •Home Owners (especially in southern and coastal towns)

•Electricity •Property Taxes

•Rent •Healthcare

•Tipping •Streaming Services/Entertainment

•Service Providers

Wait, I’ve been here before…

In December I realized the hustle was back and I started to feel like something else was “brewing” but hadn’t quite put my finger on it. Towards the end of January when I didn’t see financial relief at the end of the tunnel, I knew what it was. We are all feeling inflation, and quite honestly, “shrinkflation.” I have experienced this 4 times in the past.

•2004-2005 - I remember those 110 doctor appointments, which I have approximated at 3 hours each. The bills that were racked up due to those doctor visits. And all of the invisible work I put into my family as a result of those doctor appointments, from caring for my children to science experiments called dinner. 

•2008-2009 - My father was in poor health, and when he passed away, it was my sister and I who were left to take care of his affairs since my parents had divorced a few years prior. I was the executor and on top of kids medical needs, the direct sales company I worked under filing bankruptcy, a recession, and just life! There was a lot of invisible work being accomplished by me of which no one else was aware. 

• 2011-2012 - The year I decided that if it was to be, it was up to me! I started Organize 365® in an effort to get my life under control and help others to do the same. I just love the American spirit, immigrant risk takers with passion, and how we can all pursue what we want in the way we want to because you all know traditional is not what you would call my business sense. 

• 2020…Need I say more? This was a time of immense fear and uncertainty. We were home so we organized. Now that we are not home as much, it’s even more important that we stop, plan, implement. Stop doing 800 thousand million trillion things. Get off the treadmill to nowhere. 

Your home is THE business that powers the American economy! 

The pandemic pointed out how important small businesses are and today the American home as a business is flexing its muscle. We power America from 123 Main St. And we are really feeling it in the grocery stores. I noticed the ways I have solved this issue in the past are not effective this time around due to my family needs. I stopped (how did I solve this in the past?), planned (took a look at my family and our needs), and now I want to implement it with the Organize 365® community. 

Kitchen Productivity & Profitability Blitz - March 4-8th

-Family surveys (the all skate)

-Get clear on breakfast preferences, snacks, and the restaurants you operate daily

-Stop wasting money at the grocery store - make your business (your home) profitable and productive

Bonus: Great conversations, including how to get 5 “wins,” sparked from the comments after this Instagram Live.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Kitchen Productivity & Profitability Blitz

• CustomerService@organize365.com

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter 

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

Last week I talked about Saturday time versus Sunday time, having housework time versus having household management time. Here’s another layer: big projects, small projects, big tasks and small tasks. When I’m stressed, I tend to check off as many small tasks as possible - things that don’t require a lot of mental bandwidth. It’s basically decluttering, and that energy makes you feel lighter so you can move into organizing. Then there’s big project energy. You can feel the difference between these. The problem is when you have a whole bunch of little tasks to do, but you have big project energy…or you have a big project energy, but not a big chunk of time. 

For organizing, sometimes you will want quick wins and you’re organizing with little 15 minute tasks. Sometimes you will want really big two or three hour sessions, or maybe something that takes the entire weekend. When you’re first learning to organize the Organize 365® way, there are two schools of thought. You do short, 15-minute activities…or you empty out the entire closet and get it all organized in one day. As you move along, these 15-minute quick wins that you learn to do just get expanded into longer and longer organizing sessions. 

It’s all about the kind of energy you have for organizing, what kind of energy you have for projects. That is going to wax and wane throughout the weeks, months, and years. This ties back into Golden Windows. Golden Windows are seasons where the organizing energy is high for everyone. The organizing energy for February is finances. Organizing your finances, crafts, or photos. That is what most people will naturally organize this time of year. 

Your job right now is to keep going. 15 minutes a day. Just do a 15-minute organizing activity a day while your energy is low and then you just wait. It’s going to happen. Be ready to either task stack a whole bunch of 15-minute sessions in a row, or tackle something really big that you’ve been putting off that you didn’t know when you were going to do it. The more you understand how time is used at home and for what purpose time is used at home, the better you will be able to do it. Saturday time is not the same as Sunday time. Small task energy is not the same as big project energy. 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Jump Start - Personal

• Jump Start - Kitchen

• 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!

Today starts another three part series, and in this series we’re going to be talking about time, tasks, task stacking, and how to really think about our time at home differently. Today’s episode is about the difference between Saturday time and Sunday time. I’m going to take us all back to our childhood, because I think in childhood we understood the difference between Saturday and Sunday time. So on Saturdays, you cleaned your room (even if that meant just being able to see the floor and the laundry was put away) and then you went out to play. On Sundays, you cleaned out your backpack and got ready for the next school week - check all your folders, finish your homework, give all papers to your parents that they need to see, and so on. 

As adults, your bedroom turns into the entire house. Saturday becomes your housework day. Saturday work is very visible. Vacuum, clean the house, do the laundry and dishes, grocery shop, clean out the refrigerator…the list never ends. Sunday is for household management. Sunday work is invisible. This is where you go through your Sunday Basket® - open your mail, pay your bills, plan your schedule for the week, decide when you’ll run errands…you get the idea.

Both days are important, but both days are different in the amount of visibility other people have about whether or not you have done your work. They have completely different energies to them. My goal is to always make visible the invisible work you’re doing so that we can do LESS OF IT. I want you to stop always working. There’s always, always going to be more to do. When are you able to say it’s done? 

When you become disciplined at having bigger time blocks for even your housework, you will find those little pockets of time where you could go for a walk, take a longer shower, find a way to start using those for yourself and your wellness - not to get one more thing checked off a list. Challenge yourself to do a time study and try to see if you can get your housework and your household management done in less time next weekend and instead give yourself some free time. Start to prioritize when your free time is going to be and what it will be used for. Start looking at your time like little buckets or Lego bricks, how can you manipulate them based on your energy? 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Paper Solution®

• The Productive Home Solution®

• Jump Start - Personal

• Jump Start - Kitchen

• 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!

First of all…don’t panic! It’s just a small, 6-week break. You know, every once in a while you need to get reorganized and pause something so you have more bandwidth to address another project. That’s all we’re doing! In the meantime, I’d love to record an episode with you about your transformation with Organize 365®! Just go to the website >Podcast >Wednesday Podcast >Apply to be our guest…it’s that simple!

But when I come back, the episodes will be a mini series with Jayme from Greendale Middle School who participated in the teacher pilot. This way when new educational faculty want to learn more about the program, they can listen to this mini series instead of having to sift through 9 years of episodes. 

Adult Circle Time

Second of all, have I got something big for you! I’ve been mulling over this idea that as adults we need circle time. You know, think about the weather, what’s for lunch, and activities we have coming up…but for adults. I still have that kindergarten teacher brain. And I really think as adults we could all benefit from a little heads up as to the organizing energy of the week/month, golden windows that are coming up so we can be prepared to get a specific project accomplished, plan for holidays so they don’t just pop up on us, and offerings from us here at Organize 365®! I mean if you think about it, the schools do this for us, right? They let us know all the things that are coming up and then you as the parent plan ahead how you want to participate in each activity/event. Do you have time, money, and availability? Then you know what to expect. That’s all this is - a little circle time that will be every Thursday evening so you can make a proactive plan. I hope you’ll join me!

It’ll be everywhere your eyeballs would be

That’s right! At 7pm in all the places: your email inbox, the app, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook! The video newsletter will be published and you will get adult circle time to make better informed decisions about your upcoming week! If you have unsubscribed from the newsletter - I hope you’ll reconsider because this will be the one and only communication to go out each week and it’ll be jam packed with helpful information!! There will be a printable PDF for you to get organized, plan, and be more productive.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Wednesday Podcast Guest

• 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 week, I shared with you our first Jump Start initiative which is your personal organization, where I would counsel anyone to start getting themselves organized after they’ve implemented the Sunday Basket®. However, some of you are not going to want to start in your personal spaces for various reasons. One, maybe they are already organized. Two, it doesn’t matter how much it would help you if you were organizing yourself - you are drowning so much that you must start in family spaces. Or three, you need your organizing journey to be more visible and not invisible to get a spouse’s approval or buy in for you to continue. 

Our second Jump Start option, you could do in place of personal organizing or do after. You could do these in reverse order; it doesn’t matter. We’ve pulled the lessons from The Productive Home Solution® into a Jump Start Kitchen Organization Program and walk you through how to get your kitchen all the way organized in six weeks or less. Typically, you get surface level organized and then move on, because everything else seems so much more disorganized than the kitchen. These Jump Start programs encourage you to get all the way organized - either in your personal or in your kitchen spaces. And all the way organized is pretty detailed. 

When you get all the way organized in your kitchen, you’re going to start with figuring out what your zones should be, and what phase of life you are currently in. I want you to pretend that you are moving into this house for the first time. Think about if you were moving in right now, how you would organize this kitchen without looking at anything that’s in any cabinet. Your kitchen is really like a whole house. It does so many things, and every cabinet is like a tiny room that has a purpose for the phase and stage of life you are in. The size of your kitchen doesn’t matter as much as the functionality. Instead of wishing that you had something that you don’t, take what you have and make it as functional as possible. Then if you ever do move or you have the opportunity to make improvements to your house, you’ll know exactly what you want to put in there. 

Secondly, when you organize your kitchen, there are so many of the lessons that will carry over into other parts of your house. For example, when you learn how to organize a drawer step by step, you will know how to organize ANY drawer in your house. The next thing is establishing stations. Organizing stations are dependent on the phase of life you are in, as well. If you have kids, you can create a lunch packing station. Do you host a lot of dinners? Make a dinner station. Drink stations, snack stations, the list goes on! What can you add to this kitchen that will give you some extra space? What can you take away that you only need seasonally? Whoever is the primary cook should be the one to establish the organization in the kitchen. 

I want you to spend a full three to six weeks in your kitchen because you’re going to add 30% more organization to your life. So if you couple this with the Jump Start Personal Organization Program - you will be living an organized life 80% of the time! 

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Jump Start Programs

• The Productive Home Solution®

• 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!