Organize 365® Podcast (general)

I am grateful that you are reaching out to share your stories and progress with me and with the Organize 365 community. On Wednesdays, we will be sharing the challenges, progress, missteps, and triumph of women just like you who are progressing along their organizing journey. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply here. I promise, I’m not scary and it’s just us talking!

Today, Sandy O shares her journey of getting organized. I am humbled and honored to have been part of her journey.

For more information about the programs and products mentioned in this podcast please check out these links

Organize 365

The Sunday Basket

100 Day Home Organization Program

ALL ACCESS

Workboxes

Paper Organizing Retreats

I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

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

As I tell you all the time, getting organized has 3 steps - decluttering, organizing, and increasing productivity. Today on the Podcast, I deep dive into organizing. Sometimes, people get stuck in decluttering mode and get rid of too much instead of moving forward in the cycle. Organizing is matching like with like and then ensuring everything has a home. Today, I answer your questions about organizing including:

  • How do I get organized when I don’t have enough space to sort, group, and categorize my stuff?
  • How do I get organized if I don’t have a traditional storage area like an attic, garage, or basement?
  • If I am in the 100 Day Home Organization Program, and I am “falling behind” (PS - there is NO falling behind when you are getting organized!), how do I know if I should keep working in an area or move along?
  • How do I handle items if I’m on the fence about keeping vs discarding?
  • How do I make sure I get the most important areas of my home organized efficiently?

If you have been around here for more than a few days, you know I love teaching you how to get your home and paper organized! Thank you for submitting your questions. Keep making progress!

If you are ready to share your story of success with Organize 365, you can apply here to be my special podcast guest.

Direct download: Org365-295.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

As I tell you all the time, getting organized has 3 steps - decluttering, organizing, and increasing productivity. Today, I deep dive into changing your mindset to get better at decluttering so you can move towards a more organized home and life. I teach you how to adapt your thinking in order to be more successful in your decluttering. I answer your decluttering questions including: 

  • How do I stop bringing things I don’t actually need (like those pesky just in case items) into my home?
  • How do I get rid of the clutter associated with all the projects on my to do list? 
  • How do I keep book clutter under control without having to eliminate my entire TBR pile?
  • How do I follow through with my decluttering plans and actually get stuff out of my house?
  • What is the thing that is holding me back from getting rid of things I no longer want or need?
  • And, at the root of all of this, how do I move from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset?

I am here to help you get your home and paper organized in one year with functional systems that work. I help you figure out what questions to ask yourself to get some of your most difficult clutter out of your home and move towards a more organized life. 

I share some of my own challenges in clearing out my house. I also teach you how I was able to adapt my thinking to move me towards the organized and productive life I am living today. 

I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

:)
Lisa

Direct download: Org365-294.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

So many of you asked me to create a virtual Embrace experience. I carried you in my heart the whole time Embrace was going on. And I kept thinking ...

How could I do that? I thought and puzzled and then puzzled some more. And then I did it!

Listen in to the podcast this week to hear the Embrace attendees telling you about THEIR experience at Embrace and THEIR transformations. Including:

  • Doing what you need to do to make your family better
  • Overcoming fear and guilt
  • Repairing a broken marriage
  • Depression happens, but you will get through it
  • A mindset shift from feeling like you are drowning to learning how to relax and let the next thing come
  • How to create a life purposefully and want the best for YOU - not just everyone else
  • We are all more alike than we are different
  • Dumping the guilt and not looking back
  • It's ok to be single
  • Grieving the loss of what you thought your life was going to look like
  • You are not broken
  • You are WORTH IT!
  • It is ok to accept the love you are given without trying to "pay it back"

And then consider experiencing Embrace for yourself in our new "Embrace the Journey Bundle". We even created a custom Organize 365 puzzle just for you to work as you puzzle through your own organizational transformation.

You can check out the whole bundle here.

Direct download: Org365-293.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about both the present and future of Organize 365. I wanted to fill you in on everything that’s been going on here at Organize 365.

That’s right, we’ve got lots of exciting things happening including an awesome book tour following the release of my new book that’s hitting the market in August 2020!

So, if you’re dying to hear more, tune into this podcast episode to discover everything you need to know about the big things that are coming to Organize 365 very soon!

The Evolution Of Organize 365

Sometimes, I have to really give myself a pinch when I look back at what we’ve accomplished to date with Organize 365. Setting out with the goal of helping people to organize their lives has inspired me in so many ways as I’ve moved forward on this journey.

Visions happen when you take the right steps to make them work. You’ve probably heard me say that before, but it’s so true!

Hiring a team gave me time to launch this podcast as a free learning resource followed by lots of amazing products that I’m extremely proud of including the Sunday Basket100 Day All Home ProgramPaper Organizing BindersWorkboxes and lots of great Masterclasses, too!

Along the way, we partnered with other professional organizers all over the United States in our Certified Sunday Basket Workshop Organizer Program.

Most recently, we came out with the Kids Program, which is a digital course designed to walk your kids through all sorts of skills they need for organizing their bedrooms, clothes, backpacks, and whatever else they manage to bring into the house!

With such a great choice of products and resources available, I feel like this leg of the journey has come to an end. We have all the basics needed to help you organize your home, develop your organizational muscles, and keep it going. So, it’s time to move onto the next thing!

NEW Book Coming Soon!

Did you hear? The Paper Solution will be published by Putnam Books next summer!

Since launching my business back in 2012, my vision of what I wanted Organize 365 to become has developed into something more than I could ever have imagined. My ideas continue to be crazy exciting, not just for me, but hopefully for you guys, too.

One of my biggest visions I have had was to become a traditionally published author and have a national book tour.

My main vision with this new book is to take the message of paper organization NATIONAL. In America, so many people are fooling themselves into thinking we’re a paperless society and we’re not. You can have less paper, but you’re probably not paperless.

The Paper Solution will help people from all over the country get their paper organized.

My Dream For The Book Tour

You might not know this about me, but I’ve always wanted to have a book tour. I don’t know how it’s going to go or where I’m going to go just yet, but I can promise you this – I am going to have the book tour to end all book tours!

If I could have my dream book tour, I would spend 12-14 days in a different part of the country every month for eight months. I know it might sound a little crazy, but that would be my dream.

In the first leg of the tour, I’d hit the West Coast and do morning TV, book signings at Barnes & Noble, and attend a few paper organizing retreats hosted by the certified organizers. Tune into the podcast to hear about all my dreams!

Are You Dreaming?

I bet you are! As you take back the organization of your home, you start to realize how much control you have over your space, your energy, and your time. The next step – to dream about the next thing you want to design and put your time and energy into...

Enjoy the last full week of July!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/certification-update/

Direct download: Org365-292.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Learn more about the Organize 365 Kid's Program here

Direct download: Org365-291.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Have you ever wanted to make a behavior change to your personal or professional life?

Maybe you want to start eating healthy, pick up a new hobby, or live a more organized life. Whatever your "big change" is, there are five simple steps you can take to help conceptualize lasting and impactful changes to your behavior.

All these steps are outlined in the Transtheoretical Model, a biopsychosocial model that incorporates five sequential stages to help you modify your behavior long-term.

If you’re anything like me, you probably freaked out a little bit with the mention of the Transtheoretical Model. I mean, it sounds so serious. Thankfully, I know just the person who can help break it down for you into bite-sized chunks that you can follow and apply to your own life.

Meet Rachel Miller Kroouze, a Health Communication and Education professional with experience in health and prevention programming. Rachel has always been interested in health communication and helping others make positive health behavioral changes.

She’s also an organizer at heart and has a lot to say about the Transtheoretical Model and how it can fuel positive behavior changes in just about anyone.

So, if you want to make some impactful changes to your personal or professional life using a tried and tested method with a proven track record of life-changing results, dig in!

 

Stage 1 – Precontemplation

The precontemplation stage is when you don’t have any foreseeable intentions to change within the next six months. This is the very first stage of the Transtheoretical Model and you might not even notice you’re in it or have been in it in the past.

You might have a few habits that aren’t doing you any favors. You continue to do them because you aren’t aware of the consequences. You’re probably not even aware that a problem exists and if you do, you’re ignoring it.

Or, you might have even tried to put a stop to them in the past but failed and continued along the same path. Thinking the classic “failure is inevitable, so why try?” is a common thought to have when you’re at this stage of the process.

 

Stage 2 – Contemplation

Ah, contemplation… an inner epiphany in which you finally start to think about change.

This is when you know you need to make a change to your behavior and fully intend to do so within the next six months or so.

To move from precontemplation to contemplation means something sparked you to put this goal to change on your radar. Maybe your doctor told you that you needed to make lifestyle changes for your health. Or, perhaps your home has run out of storage space and you realize it’s time to declutter and get organized.

A wake-up call has happened and now you’re asking yourself what you should do next to address the problem. You begin thinking about what action you need to take, and you may spend weeks or even months hanging out in this contemplation stage, which is totally normal.

 

Stage 3 – Preparation

When you move out of contemplation and into preparation, you’re ready to make a change. You know that you’ve reached a crossroads and you can’t linger in the middle forever. You need to move forward.

The only thing stopping you is figuring out how you’re going to do it and what action you’re going to take. So, it’s time to make a plan of action.

If you’re trying to organize your paper or get fit and healthy, for example, this is when you prepare and get yourself ready. You may want to learn how to get organized across the board, in which case the All Access Membership may be for you because it gives you EVERYTHING you need to get your home and paper organized in 365 days.

But, if you want to focus on something more specific and keep most of your organizing to one day of the week, the Complete Sunday Basket System may be more to your liking.

Take your time and have a look through our different offers to find what works for you. What’s going to help you make the behavioral changes in your life that you desire? Once you can answer that question, it makes the preparation stage so much easier.

Rachel and I are both huge fans of the Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Quiz, where you’ll discover whether you’re more of an upholder, questioner, obliger, or rebel. Understanding your tendency and how to leverage it to your advantage is a great way to help you find ways to plan for action, make better decisions, and meet your own expectations.

 

Stage 4 – Action

The action stage of the Transtheoretical Model is when you’re in the process of making behavioral changes with your actions. You’ve made different modifications to your lifestyle and are trying to turn these into habits that will soon become second nature.

The strength of action comes from the preparation stage. So, if you’ve prepared well enough, you’ll be more than ready to take some action and make the necessary changes in your life that you know you need to make.

Action is when you’ve convinced yourself why this is something you need to change and act on. You've prepared yourself, done the research, got all the approvals, everything is in line, and you’re ready to do the thing!

Remember that action includes making modifications as you go. Nothing is set in stone. If you find that something isn’t working for you and you want to change it, do it.

 

Stage 5 – Maintenance

Once you reach the final stage, you’re maintaining the changes for a prolonged period of time. You’ve been working hard to sustain the behavior change and as the months go by, you’re working to prevent a relapse.

The more you do something, the easier it becomes. As you develop new behaviors, the initial resistance you felt at the beginning gets lower. You start to see the benefits of what you’re doing, and you’ll be even happier with the decision you’ve made.

Maintenance is the stage we all aim for when we set out to make a positive behavior change in our personal or professional lives.

If you find that you make your way through these steps, only to find something that didn’t work for you or maybe you’ve “fallen off the wagon” and are right back at the first step again, don’t be too hard on yourself.

Each time you climb up the staircase, you build upon it. You’ve been there before, and you know where the squeaky step is. You know what not to do and you know what you need to change in order to make it this time. And you WILL make it!

Rachel is a member of the Organize 365 Facebook group and we expect a lot of interesting conversations to come from this episode of the podcast (and blog post) so if you want to talk to her more and get involved with the discussion, join the Facebook group – we’d love to hear from you!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com//transtheoretical

Direct download: Org365-290.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Learn more about the Organize 365 Kid's Program here

Direct download: Org365-289.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Do you have a big project looming over your head?

Maybe you’ve been procrastinating on it for a while and now you’re ready to get things in order. Or, maybe you woke up this morning with an amazing idea to start a big project in your home or office.

This is a great weekend to tackle those BIG projects!

Here’s a little-known fact about me – I love projects. The bigger the project, the better. I love everything about big projects from the planning stage right through to completion.

So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to reveal how I tackle really big projects in hopes that it might help or inspire you to organize a big project of your own.

The Basement to Bedroom Project

It all began with a basement… last spring.

Abby had outgrown her bedroom and we’ve talked about the idea of her moving down to the basement for some time.

Did you know she has a pet ferret living in her bedroom with her? Yeah, those things need a big cage and they take up a lot of room. So, we decided she could move to the basement and have the space she needs for her and Willow (the ferret).

Plus, it worked out pretty well for me because I’ve been working from a home office in my bedroom for years and I knew Abby’s old bedroom would make a great office. So, it’s a win-win situation for both of us.

The only problem is that moving Abby’s bedroom to the basement is a mammoth task. One thing to remember about doing a big project in your house is that it doesn’t just affect one person. One room is like an octopus with tentacles that trickle out to other areas of the house and, before you know it, you’ve got the entire house involved.

To make the process go as smoothly as possible, I needed a plan. And before I knew it, project basement was underway!

In the podcast, I recount how I tackled that project:

Step 1 – The Planning Phase

Step 2 – Budgeting

Step 3 – Getting to Work!

Last weekend, I started... The Master Bedroom & Lisa's New Home Office Project.

I have been sharing my progress on all three of these projects in my highlights on Instagram. :)

What about you? Do you like to tackle really big projects? Do you have a project scheduled for this holiday weekend?

Tag me online so I can see!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/big-projects//

Direct download: Org365-288.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Learn more about the Organize 365 Kid's Program here

Direct download: Org365-287.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I’ve got some exciting news to share with you on the podcast as we launch lots of exciting NEW products here at Organize 365!

I’m going to walk you through everything going on including a deep dive into our brand new and highly anticipated Kids Program! If you’ve always wanted to get your kids organized and even encourage them to jump on this organizational train ride with you, this is your chance!

But that’s not all! (Yes, there’s more… a lot more!)

We’re also launching our new Lattice Binder, Kids Clips, and Volunteer Workbox!

I’m beyond excited to finally share this news with you! If you want to find out more about all these new products and all the amazing things happening here at Organize 365, tune in!

Inside The Volunteer Workbox

Let’s kick things off with the Volunteer Workbox!

It’s the eighth edition in our line of workboxes that are carefully designed to help organize your work both at home and you know, actual work. You can visit the Organize 365 Shop to browse through our collection of workboxes if you’re interested.

The Volunteer Workbox was the one thing we were missing in our collection. We wanted to launch a special workbox for all the different volunteer things you do. This could be anything from helping out at your church, hosting the local book club meetings, or participating in a volunteer organization.

The Volunteer Workbox will work if you have a support role in a Volunteer organization or you are the leader. :)

Exploring The Lattice Binder

We have added a new Lattice Binder to our office supplies. This deluxe 2" D-ring, one-touch heavy duty binder with an extended back will protect your slash pockets and help you containerize projects.

The Lattice Binder is a white on white basket weave that’s similar to the Sunday Baskets with an Organize 365 logo on the back. Because it’s white, you can use it for anything you want.

The Kid Clips

Next up… we’re bringing back the Kids Clips! (Hooray!)

If you’ve been around for a while, you may remember I used to sell little Kid Clips that were basically super strong magnets for your refrigerator. I called them the ONE Clip back then because you just needed one for each of your kids.

This time around, the Kid Clips are CUSTOMIZABLE. Grab your sharpies and color each clip to match your child's personality.

The Kids Program

Okay and now for the big reveal… the one you’ve all been waiting for – The Kids Program!

This program is designed to help organize kids of all ages 0-23. The current program supports kids 0-17 and the LAUNCH program will be added next year (at no additional cost) supporting kids 18-23.

What You Can Expect From The Kids Program

When you buy the Kids Program, you’ll get access to the dashboard. This is where you’ll find all the cute slash pockets and when you click on them, you’ll be taken to a new course, video, or download.

You’ll find five slash pockets inside the Kids Program. Each one is independent of the others, so you don’t have to do anything in order if you don’t want to. These slash pockets are organized into the following categories: Parents, Littles, Learn, Saturday, and Sunday.

Here’s a little more information about each of the slash pockets:

Parents – This one is for all the parents out there who need help getting their kids organized. I help you assess your home and your life and reveal what exactly you need to do to teach your kids to declutter and organize. Each lesson comes with a video and additional resources to help you along the way.

Littles – This part of the program is aimed at kids from birth through to age five. Trying to organize your home with kids under the age of five is like shoveling snow in a snowstorm. Almost impossible. But with this program, I help you with everything from organizing feeding zones, playing zones, sleeping zones, moving from one size clothing to the next, and so much more.

Learn – If you have older kids who happen to be organizationally inclined, you’re in luck. The Learn Program is where most of the videos are and it seriously takes you through everything, such as cleaning a bedroom and making it more like a mini apartment that’s divided into zones. With this program, I teach the skill of thinking like an organized person. And those skills will carry your kids into adulthood.

Saturday & Sunday – The slash pockets inside of the Saturday and Sunday slash pockets are all about creating habits and routines. Saturdays are the days when you clean and organize your bedroom. On Sundays, the slash pockets will walk you through how you’re going to plan your week using six simple steps.

You can read all about the Kids Program, watch a video showing you inside the program, and watch the replay of our Kids Program Masterclass all over at organize365.com/kids.

I hope you have a great weekend and 4th of July week! Snap a few pictures of your kid's cleaning their rooms and tag me on Instagram or Facebook! I can't wait to see!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/new-products-summer-2019/

Direct download: Org365-286.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I’ve been talking about health and fitness on the podcast a lot lately. In Episode 283, I shared my own wellness and weight loss journey. Then in Episode 284, I had my Director of Operations, Kelly Leardon, on the show to discuss weight loss and developing healthy eating and wellness habits.

What each of those episodes had in common was Amanda Tress’ FASTer Way to Fat Loss program, which Kelly and I both love. I’ve been following the program for the best part of a year and have seen amazing changes in both my physical and mental health.

I’m very excited that I got the chance to sit down with Amanda herself to discuss the FASTer Way to Fat Loss program and to share her story of how she became one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in the country.

Meet Amanda

Amanda is the founder of FASTer Way to Fat Loss, the premier virtual intermittent fasting fitness and nutrition program. She’s not only a fitness fanatic, but an inspiring business woman who I’ve been following for years (her Instagram profile keeps me motivated!).

Before she launched FASTer Way to Fat Loss, Amanda spent years training people in the gym. She experimented with different nutrition strategies and, remarkably, her clients began to see an epic change.

She spent a lot of time fine-tuning the strategies until she came up with the best way to bring them together for optimal results. Since then, she’s worked with over 100,000 clients, helping them to achieve their health and fitness goals.

Helping others improve their health and wellness came very naturally to Amanda, who always says, “I didn’t choose the fitness industry, the fitness industry chose me.”

Amanda and I dive into:

  • How to work from home
  • When is it the right time to hire people for your business?
  • Why do women put their health last on their to do list?

In these last 3 episodes, I have pulled back the curtain on how I am tackling and progressing through adding a new habit and mindset to my life. I hope it has been helpful for you to see how I have approached this new lifestyle and can relate that back to your organizational journey.

Watching other women chase and embrace their dreams is inspiring to me. Would you like to hear more interview podcasts like this on Organize 365? Let me know!

Next week, we will be diving into the NEW Organize 365 Kids Program. I can't wait to share with you the program we have been building for the last year.

Sign up for the Kids Program Masterclass being held Tuesday, June 25th to learn all about it!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/Amanda-Tress/

Direct download: Org365-285.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Every weight loss and wellness journey is different. Everyone has their own unique story to tell and I don’t know about you, but when I hear how someone made a drastic change to their health and well being, it motivates me to do the same!

So, I wanted to invite Kelly Leardon onto the podcast to talk about her wellness journey because not only is it inspiring, but she actually used a lot of the same methods we talked about in the previous episode of the podcast – “Lisa’s Wellness & Weight Loss Journey.”

In this episode, we dive deep into what Kelly did to boost her nutrition, lose weight, and get her "mojo" back. It’s a great story and you’ll discover a few great resources along the way in case you wanted to try any of these things out for yourself!

Meet Kelly

As you may know, Kelly joined the Organize 365 team at the beginning of 2019. She keeps me on my feet for sure and I’ve never met anyone as good at setting goals and smashing them, too!

Kelly is an experienced Director of Operations with a history of working in the Executive Office industry. Welcoming Kelly onto the team as the Director of Operations means that I am leaving the management role of Organize 365. I have so much more free time and I am so grateful to have Kelly on the team.

When you hire someone onto your team, it does two things. First, it takes tasks off your list. Second, it forces you to level up your skills because you have to be more productive, proactive, and profitable. Interestingly, when she first joined, we were both in a very similar stage of our lives where we wanted to prioritize our wellness and weight loss. My main reasoning to do so was because, hey, I want to live to be 100 years old… you know, like one of those ancient tortoises.

Kelly wanted to slim down because she has a fabulous wardrobe and wants to keep it!

In this podcast, we dive into:

  • Establishing New Monthly Habits
  • How We Track What We Eat And Other Habits
  • A Closer Look At The “FASTer Way to Fat Loss

Are you on your own weight loss and wellness journey?

If so, I’d love to hear all about it!

Head over to our Facebook group and join to take part in the discussions. And here’s a fun idea... if you have any before and after photos of your weight loss journey, please share them with me on Instagram and tag me @organize365, I’d love to see how far you’ve come and plus, it’ll motivate me to keep going with my own wellness journey, too!

 

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/weightloss/

Direct download: Org365-284.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Most of us like to form our own opinions about what maintenance means to us. On the podcast, we talk a lot about the cycle of getting organized and increasing productivity.

But what about the maintenance stage of your organizational journey?

What does it really mean to maintain something?

According to the good old dictionary, maintenance is the process of maintaining or preserving a condition or situation or the state of being preserved.

While this gives us more clarity on the meaning of maintenance, it doesn’t dive into the details or tell us how it equates to the maintenance of our homes.

As we go through the 100 Day Home Organization Program and declutter and organize each space in our homes for the third or even fourth time, we enter a phase of maintenance which I want to unpack with you in this episode of the podcast.

What Maintenance Looks Like In The Physical Areas Of Your Home

If you asked me what stage of the organizational journey I’m currently in, I would say I’m living in maintenance. I don’t do much. Everything in my house is decluttered and organized (I am a professional organizer, after all).

But that doesn’t mean I don’t do the dishes or laundry. I still have non-organizational, cleaning related tasks to do just like anyone else. I still have to put things away at the end of the day. However, once you’ve decluttered and organized your entire house, it usually stays organized.

One reason why your house might not stay organized is because of the kids. I don’t mean just the toddlers either. No matter what age they are, kids are like little chaos creators. They tumble through the house like mini tornadoes and just have a way of messing things up.

But if your kids tend to mess up their own rooms and the joint family rooms but stay out of your storage room and master bedroom, etc., the work you’ve done to get the majority of your home organized is probably well maintained.

To me, living an organized life that’s maintained is when you reach the end of the day and you don’t have to start decluttering and organizing everything. All you have to do is pick things up and put them back to where they go. It’s simple.

In the podcast, I dive deeper into...

Maintenance In Different Seasons Of Life

Maintenance In Everyday Home Life

What Does Maintenance Mean With Your Paper?

One thing that you need to come to grips with when it comes to organizing is that your home will never be perfect. Perfect is not the end goal here. The end goal is to live a more organized and functional life and being able to maintain it as a result.

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/what-is-maintenance/

 
Direct download: Org365-282.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Your inner thoughts can have a serious impact on your state of mind. If you see the world through a darkened lens, that negative way of thinking can quickly become a way of life.

When I tell people that I used to be the queen of negativity, they find it hard to believe. I’ve since adopted a more positive outlook on life which I talk about in episode 261 of the podcast, My Personal Seven-Year Transformation.

Nowadays, thinking positively comes easy to me. I like to think about negative thoughts as weeds in our mind. Weeds that need to be pulled out from the roots. If the garden of your mind has become overgrown with persistent weeds that you can’t clear, it’s time to tackle the root of the problem.

When I gave myself the quest to declutter my negative thoughts, I did three things. First, I realized how negative I was. Second, I replaced anything negative in my life with a positive difference. And finally, I eliminated all the ways that negativity was coming into my life.

In this episode, I reveal the steps you can take to overcome your negative mindset and start living a more positive and happy life.

Ready to say goodbye to negative thoughts?

In this week's podcast, I cover these 3 points:

1. Be honest with yourself

2. Replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts

3. Eliminate the negativity

I hope that these tips help you to declutter your negative thoughts so that you can start living a happier life with a positive outlook.

The more I press into this, the more I truly believe that we are in control of our thoughts and feelings. You can literally design any future you can imagine.

Have you ever cut something negative out of your life and replaced it with something positive? Let me know over on Instagram or Facebook, I’d love to hear from you!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/negative-thoughts/

Direct download: Org365-281.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Whenever spring hits, do you feel like you’re in a mad rush to get everything organized?

I know I do. I’ve often talked about the fact that I like to divide my year into three trimesters. Each one is carefully planned and, although it starts out completely organized, it ends in a chaotic whirlwind.

If you feel like you’re caught in an enormous tornado of tasks, not unlike the one from The Wizard of Oz, I want to help you step out of the chaos.

Focusing on what’s important and finding more planning time to eliminate some of the to-dos from your list will help you lead a more peaceful life.

In this episode, I reveal why you need an admin day. An entire day where you can go through your Sunday Basket and knock tasks off your list in one epic swoop.

Why You Need An Admin Or Errand Day

If you’re anything like me, you’ll discover a lot of administrative tasks when you go through your Sunday Basket. Things like forms that need to be scanned, scheduling doctor’s appointments, emails that need your attention, and so on.

The only problem is that a lot of these things can’t be done on a Sunday. The doctor’s office is closed, so you can’t call up to make an appointment. Before you know it, you’ve got a stack of administrative tasks or errands you need to do on a different day other than Sunday.

This is why you need to assign an administrative or errand day (or both!).

An errand day is when you take a full day to do your errands. You’re probably in the car going from one place to the next. An administrative day is when you’re at home (probably in front of the computer) and you’re plowing through things that can’t be done on Sunday.

If you’re new to Organize 365, you’re likely wondering why I talk about Sunday’s so much. Well, it’s because I have this thing called The Sunday Basket System. This is where you can defer all your ideas, mail, paper, forms, and to-dos into a pretty box that sits on your kitchen counter.

Each Sunday, you systematically go through the basket. To find out more about the Sunday Basket and how it can help corral all your kitchen counter papers and to-dos, click here.

Getting Organized In Each Trimester

On the Sunday before the start of each trimester, I go through my Sunday Basket as normal. I pay the bills, update my calendar, and all the rest. But there will also be an exorbitant list of things that I can’t get done on Sunday. I need a full workday for these things. And you might, too.

If you work nine to five for somebody else, finding the time during the week for these things can be tricky. But, it’s totally worth it to take a vacation day to do this. You can get a lot done with just one day off work.

So, the next time you do your Sunday Basket at the busiest times of the year, I want you to do something slightly different. Instead of putting everything that can wait until next Sunday, keep everything in front of you in a pile.

You’ll probably have a lot of index cards and papers you’ve repeatedly put back into the Sunday Basket and that’s okay. In previous podcasts, we talked about eliminating such pockets altogether in what I like to call Sunday Basket 3.0.

We also talked about decluttering obligations out of your Sunday Basket, and now we’re going to get into clearing all of the things you’ve been putting off time and time again.

Creating Your "Brain Dump" List

To help organize your time, I suggest making two lists. One for all the errands you need to get done and another for all the administrative tasks list. Or, you can combine the two.

So over on the errand list, you might have things like buy the end of year teacher gift, post that parcel to your mother in law, and things like that. The administrative list will be home to tasks like changing your passwords, replying to emails, making phone calls, and so on.

Make the biggest list you possibly can. Next, start crossing things off that you really don’t want or need to do. Then, grab a pencil (yes, we’re going old school for this one) and write down how long each task is going to take to complete.

When you’ve got that done, add up all that time to figure out how long you’ll need to complete the entire list. If it’s going to take you five hours, you’ll need to set five hours aside during the week to get those things done.

You might find that some things will take time and money that you just don’t have or want to invest in right now. That’s okay. Just cross it off your list.

Now that you have your lists cut down, it’s time to prioritize the tasks on the list in order. That way, you know what’s the most important things that need to get done compared to the things at the bottom of the list that you can probably do later.

You’ll end up with a concrete list or plan that you can follow on your admin or errand day.

Give it a try! Go through your Sunday Basket, do a big brain dump, and make a list of everything you want to get done. Then, set an admin or errand day and work like a trooper to get everything on that list done.

If you decide to have your own errand or administrative day, I’d love to hear how you got on! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips. Don’t forget to share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Full the full post here: https://organize365.com/adminday/

Direct download: Org365-280.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

When our life gets unorganized, we tend to blame outside sources such as our spouse, our lack of money, not having enough time, and so on. But the truth is that your cluttered life (and home) has nothing to do with any of that. Those are just the things we like to think are holding us back. What’s really holding us back from living a more organized life is having a plan to achieve that life.

If you’ve tried to get organized in the past and failed time and time again, you’re in the right place. Today's podcast is designed to help get you organized and decluttered once and for all.

Before we dig into the good stuff, I need you to download this fun worksheet to follow along with the podcast.

We have ALL been unorganized at some point in our lives... even me.

Before I turned 40 back in 2012, I reached the most unorganized stage of my life. My home was so cluttered, it was tearing at the seams. My "epiphany" moment hit me on a random afternoon when I came home with a few bags of groceries and realized I had nowhere to put anything that I bought.

The fridge was packed and some of the things in there were way past their expiration dates. The cupboards were the same. But the madness wasn’t confined to my kitchen. Oh no. The clutter rampage had spread throughout my entire home. Every drawer was a junk drawer.

So, I sat down and made a list of every single space that needed to be organized and I spent the next 100 days organizing. I needed to regain control of my house and my life. It wasn’t easy, but I got there, and now I want to help you do the same.

Sometimes life just gets moving too fast and we literally get run over. Unfortunately, it is not a matter of if this will happen, it is a matter of WHEN. And when it does, it takes a herculean effort to get back up and get organized again.

Many of you ask me... "How do you know what I am thinking or what my house looks like?" Well, because we have all been there.

I know you feel like no one has ever ended up with their house as disorganized as yours, but we ALL have.

And after analyzing when and why this happens, I have actually determined that there are some key seasons in your life where almost everyone will feel like you do today...

In the podcast today, I unpack...

1. What’s your why.

2. What season of life are you in.

3. Understanding the Cycle of Organization.

And why we can get organized in one phase of life and everything seems to fall apart as you move from one phase to the next.

Now is The Best Time to Get Organized :)

Don't roll your eyes at me!

You know you are itching to clean out the garage, wash everything in sight, and declutter!

And you will... for a weekend. And then you will fall back into your daily routines and stop your organizational efforts.

It is not you. It is totally normal!

But do you want ordinary? Or are you ready for EXTRAORDINARY?

Living an organized and productive life is extraordinary!

The 100 Day Home Organization Program is your plan to move from an ordinary reactive life to an extraordinarily productive life.

Sign up! We start on Monday!

View the full post here: http://organize365.com/3reasons/

Direct download: Org365-279.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I received an email the other day and it honestly had me in tears. It was from a listener of the podcast who reached out to thank me for being so open and honest about the struggles of motherhood in episode 261, "My Personal Seven-Year Transformation."

She also talked about her own challenges that she faces on a daily basis as a mother of three boys, one of whom was born with a very rare, life-threatening disease.

As you can imagine, she is not your everyday mother. What many of you find normal, she does not.

You ARE The Mother That Your Children Need

The subject line of this email read, “All I ever wanted to be was a mom.”

When I first read that, I was immediately hooked. As many of you know if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, I shared the same dream when I was younger. I always wanted to be a mother and I knew I could relate to the sender almost immediately.

We all have an idea of who we will be as a mother. But, more often than not, that vision never comes into view.

I am keenly aware many of you have never been able to birth a child... like me. Which makes posts like these about parenting, or announcements about our Mother's Day coupons, hard to hear.

It is also why the 100 Day Home Organization Program doesn't organize kids, it organizes YOU... any woman in any size dwelling.

For me, when I found out I couldn’t get pregnant, I hit a roadblock and it almost floored me. But, I steered off that path and made a new path to motherhood. My own path. Adoption turned out to be my road to motherhood and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Motherhood Is Never What We Anticipate... Easy Or Hard

Let me share a few lines from her email:

“Our boys are not typical. Our oldest was born with a very rare disease and will most likely not make it to 18. Each time he gets a cold or any type of illness, it can cause brain damage. He has spent a good portion of his life in the hospital as we fight to give him the best chance he has.”

As you can imagine, not many mothers prepare themselves for such a heart-breaking and difficult roadblock. How can you prepare for something like that? You can’t.

It’s so easy to doubt your ability as a mother, but you ARE the mother your child needs you to be.

Motherhood might not look or feel the way you thought it would. But it doesn’t matter. This is your story as a mother, and you are the mother that your children need.

Parenting A Child With Additional Needs

Whether your child has learning or physical disabilities, your role as a mother becomes so much harder when faced with more than the everyday parenting challenges.

For me, the hardest part of mothering was stepping into and owning the mother my children needed me to be and not the mother that I thought I would be.

If you are struggling with the weight of your mothering right now, listen to this week's podcast.

Don't let society's expectation and what everyone else is doing change how you view your child, your relationship with your child, and what your child needs. You’ve got this and I'm right there behind you.

Happy Early Mother's Day! Still looking for a gift for your mom or what to ask for yourself?

We created Mother's Day coupons you and your family can use to give the perfect Organize 365 gift!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/not-normal-parenting/

Direct download: Org365-278.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Do you ever feel like you’ve got too much on your plate?

Sometimes, we can be so focused on making things more organized, efficient, and productive that we forget to pull the brakes.

Do we really need to do all the jobs we’re doing?

If you’ve been listening to the last few episodes of the podcast, you’ll notice that I’ve talked about shifting mindsets and changing habits a lot lately.

We revealed how you can eliminate your to-do list, and what an organized life feels like. We also uncovered the Sunday Basket 3.0, which isn’t a new product, but a new way of tackling your Sunday Basket when you’re a seasoned pro.

Now we’ve reached the fourth episode of this mini four-part series, where I talk about decluttering jobs and obligations. You know, the things that have loomed over our heads for weeks and we really don’t want to do.

You might feel like you don’t have a good enough reason to get rid of them, which is why they’ve stuck around for so long.

But, I’m here to help you kick the guilt monster out and shut the door on some of those jobs that you just don’t care about anymore. So, if you want to finally declutter those jobs and obligations that have gathered dust at the back of your mind, tune into this episode and find out how to:

Take a step back and evaluate your current obligations

Identify your unique vs. competent abilities

Eliminate tasks from your calendar

And the controversial one... How to break away from a direct sales company.

I received a question about how to quit direct sales. It was a loaded question, but I could really relate to it because as many of you know, I used to work in direct sales. I loved it at the time. But I reached a point in my life and business where I knew I had to break away from direct sales.

Even though you work for a direct sales company, it doesn’t mean you’re obligated to stay until you’re old and gray. You’re a unique person with a unique gift and ability. Don’t sell your soul to any company. You don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors.

A company, no matter what size it is, will always put their best interests first. So, you should do the same and put yourself first, too.

I talk about all this in more detail in the podcast, but what I will say is that if you think now is the time to leave your direct sales gig, or any job for that matter, you’re probably right.

Ask yourself if you were asked to re-join the same company all over again, would you say yes?

If not, it’s time to pack your bags and move on.

It’s Okay To Say No

It’s time to eliminate jobs and obligations from your calendar that you just don’t want to do anymore. Remember – it’s okay to say NO. No can be a complete sentence if you want and need it to be.

If you decide to eliminate things from your calendar using any of my suggestions, I’d love to know how it went for you and how many things you managed to eliminate?

 

Follow me on Instagram to follow our adventures at the Cincinnati Homeschool Convention this weekend!

Registration for the next round of the 100 Day Home Organization Program is OPEN!! And.. we now have PAYMENT PLANS! I'd love for you to join us!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/decluttering-jobs-obligations/

Direct download: Org365-277.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

A few weeks ago in my regular Facebook LIVE on Tuesday mornings for the women in the 100 Day Home Organization Program, I started to expound on and articulate how I have moved into a new level of using my Sunday Basket.

The first thing you need to know about Sunday Basket 3.0 is that it is not a physical product.

Lisa, what do you mean it’s not an actual product? You got me pumped up for nothing!

Hold on! I say it’s not a physical product because it’s an evolution of the original Sunday Basket System you already have.

If you’re not familiar with the Sunday Basket Club or the Sunday Basket System, let me explain real quick…

A Mini Lesson On Sunday Baskets

The Sunday Basket is a system for processing ongoing household projects and developing a weekly routine of collecting, processing, and maintaining it all in one place.

You start with a basket. Well, it’s more of a box but kind of looks and operates like a basket, hence the name. You can buy the Complete Sunday Basket System for $97.00 and receive all the necessary workshop materials you need.

This includes two sets of slash pockets called the 1.0 and 2.0 slash pockets.

With the 1.0 slash pockets, you get red, orange, yellow, green, and blue slash pockets. Everything you put into these slash pockets are things that need to get done this week. So, any errands, events or bills, etc. that need to be completed this week will go inside the 1.0 slash pockets.

The 2.0 slash pockets are monochromatic and include five pink, five blue, five green, and five purple slash pockets.

With the 2.0 slash pockets, each color represents a category. So, purple is for anything household related, blue is for family members, green is for financial, and pink is for your own hopes, dreams, projects, and goals.

When Sunday rolls around, you take everything out of the basket and sort through what you’ll do this Sunday and what can wait until next Sunday.

Eliminating Things From Your Sunday Basket

When your home is organized, you’ll generally have a lot less to do in terms of organizing. Another gift that leading a more organized life will give you is TIME.

Time to do a puzzle in the evening, give the dog a second walk around the block, and time for yourself.

But, when you have all this free time, many of you talk about feeling guilty. It’s like if you’re not doing something "proactive" and productive, you’re lazy or even selfish (which is crazy!).

One rule of the Sunday Basket System is if it can wait until next Sunday, it must wait until next Sunday. But, what if something in the basket can always wait until next Sunday? Do you keep it moving onto the following week for months or even years?

Well… you can if you want to. But if you want to get it out of the way, I suggest picking a time during the day or week to work on it and do it then. The more you live an organized life, the fewer things you’ll have in your Sunday Basket.

If you become a seasoned pro like me, you might not even need all the slash pockets in the Sunday Basket anymore. But getting to that stage of eliminating things from your basket will take time. And, as each task is completed and each week you’re organizing more and more, you’ll receive an extra gift of time each week.

So, what does all of this have to do with the Sunday Basket 3.0?

The Sunday Basket 3.0 is about eliminating things out of your Sunday Basket that are no longer serving you or that you just don’t want to do anymore (or ever).

Deciding What To Do With Your Free Time

When you are in the process of eliminating your to-do list and moving to the Sunday Basket, you develop the habit of writing down every idea that you have in your head onto index cards.

You’re also continuing to defer those things until the following Sunday when you can. This process helps you to make the decision if you're going to do it at all, and if so, when. For the most part though, you can knock out a lot of your index cards on Sunday. You may have to set time aside to do some of the things during the week and then anything that can be put off until later goes into your 2.0 slash pockets, which are for projects.

If you’re in a stage similar to me where your kids are grown up and everything’s pretty much taken care of, you’ll have all this time you don’t know what to do with.

Can you relate?

If so, here’s a little challenge for you…

Think back to when you were a teenager. What did you like doing? How did you spend your free time?

I hope you can come up with something because let me tell you, I can’t. I always wanted to be a mom. I got a teaching degree because I knew it would help me when I did have kids. But, after I got married, we realized we couldn’t have kids. So, we adopted.

My entire life has been about wanting kids and being a mom. And, I did it all. But now the kids are grown up and my "mommying" is kind of over.

So, now what should I do with my free time?

I have no idea.

Well, that’s not totally true. I like doing puzzles. Yes, I’m like a retired old lady, but you know what? Those guys in the retirement homes are up to their eyeballs in puzzles. They have a library, and they get their dinner made for them each day. Plus, they’re surrounded by their friends, and they don’t even have to go outside if they don’t want to.

To me (a.k.a someone that doesn’t like nature all that much), that sounds like a dream. So, yeah… I guess when “I grow up,” I want to be retired and doing all the puzzles in the world.

The Sunday Basket 3.0

So, when you reach the stage where your house is organized, and you’ve entered the Sunday Basket 3.0 era, it’s okay to have projects in there that you have no intention of doing. Just get rid of them.

You don’t have to stick to the same projects you wanted to do before you got organized. Heck, you don’t have to pick up the same projects you wanted to do yesterday! It’s OKAY.

Just because you had a passion for something before, it doesn’t mean it has to be your passion for the rest of your life. Passions aren’t always forever. Sometimes, a passion hangs around for a season and then it transitions into something new. And, that’s okay!

So, the next time you go through your Sunday Basket, and you sort through your 2.0 slash pockets, ask yourself if you still have the passion and desire to do that thing at all.

If not, it’s time to say goodbye and move on! No guilt necessary!

Are you in the Sunday Basket 3.0 stage yet? Let me know over on Instagram or Facebook and tell me, what are some of the things you like to do just for the fun of it?

Any puzzle fans out there?

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/sunday-basket-3-0/

Direct download: Org365-276.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I talk about organizing a lot on the podcast (it’s called Organize 365 after all!). I’ve covered everything from discovering your why to the Psychology of the Sunday Basket and how to know Which Workbox is Right for You?

But surprisingly, I’ve never addressed what living an organized life actually feels like... until now!

In this episode, I reveal what an organized life really looks like. No unrealistic expectations. No idealistic dreams. None of that. Just an honest look behind the curtain of an everyday, organized life.

Setting Realistic Expectations

I’ll be honest with you. There was a rather delusional time in my life when I pictured a perfectly organized life to mirror Martha Stewart’s.

You know, with everything neatly packed into pretty containers, angelic children floating around the house, and waking up to an adorable puppy licking my nose as he waits for his morning walk. Like I said, delusional.

Once I started to declutter and really focus on living a more organized life, my previous expectations were, for lack of a better phrase, shot to hell.

I realized that you’re never going to have everything you want just perfect. You can drive yourself crazy trying, but it’s like trying to reach the end of the rainbow. It’s never going to happen.

The sooner you get rid of unrealistic expectations and focus on the achievable, the sooner you can start living not only a more organized life, but a happier one, too.

In the podcast I explore...

  • How an Organized Life Looks Different in Each Stage of Life
  • How an Organized Life is Being "Company Ready"
  • How Living an Organized Life is Having More TIME

So, what does an organized life feel like?

An organized life feels like all your basic needs are met and all of the things in your house are done.

And then the real work of stepping up to who you were uniquely created to be takes center stage.

THAT is what I want to see. WHO were YOU uniquely created to be and give to this world?

It sounds so Oprah like, but it is for YOU, too.

It is my greatest fulfillment in life to have found the time to create a curated program for you to get your home organized to free up your time so I can see what your unique gift is to the world.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your journey!

PS - If you are stuck in your organizing and are not sure why, I'd love for you to join me in my masterclass this month: 3 Reasons You Can't Get Organized And What To Do About It.

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/what-living-an-organized-life-feels-like/

Direct download: Org365-275.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Last week, we talked about why it’s impossible to be behind when you’re organizing. We covered how organizing will always pay you in time and finished with a discussion about why you should aim for progress, not perfection.

Shifting your mindset to focus on progress rather than perfection takes practice. We become so obsessed with ticking off every task on our to-do lists that we lose sight of the progress we’ve made.

A few of you recently messaged me and asked me to talk about how you can change the way you structure and plan your time. It’s easy to let your to-do list control your time and how you spend it, which is only part of the reason why I think it is time to eliminate your to-do list.

Yes, you read that right.

Eliminate your to-do list.

Don’t re-prioritize it. Don’t take tasks off and move them onto next week’s to-do list. I want you to take your to-do list, hold it up and set a flame to it (you know, hypothetically).

You might not know this about me, but it’s been 18 months since I wrote out and completed my last to-do list. I just don’t need it anymore.

If you want to join me over here in the (almost) stress-free zone with more free time than you know what to do with and no to-do lists to worry about, this is the podcast episode you’ve been waiting for!

How I Got Rid of My To-Do List

There was a time in my life when I lived for my to-do list. Or rather, I lived through my to-do list. I would list everything I needed to get done that day and, like most of you, ticked them off one by one as I completed each task.

When a task was left unfinished, I carried it onto my to-do list for the next day. It helped me to get things done, most of the time. But I found myself constantly referring to my list throughout the day, so much so that it honestly felt like I couldn’t live without it.

To go from that level of dedication to a to-do list to not having one at all is quite the turnaround, don’t you think?

The funny thing is, I didn’t even realize I didn’t have a to-do list anymore until people started asking me for advice on what to do with theirs. As someone who had an answer for every question about organizing, I was stumped.

Then, of course, I had the "a-ha!" moment when I suddenly realized I was living my life without a to-do list. And, you know what? The world didn’t stop spinning. I didn’t lose focus, and my productivity levels were better than ever.

At some point over the last seven years, I went from being depressed, overweight and in debt to feeling much happier, thinner and debt-free. But it didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of small steps, and one of those steps was ditching the to-do lists.

I can't wait for you to email me and let me know that you too have ditched your to-do list!

PS - Do you feel stuck in your organizing? Sign up for the April FREE Masterclass, 3 Reasons You Can't Get Organized & What to do about it Masterclass here.

PPS - We just made our BIGGEST announcement of 2019... You can now buy the 100 Day Home Organization Program and ALL ACCESS with PAYMENT PLANS!

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/stop-to-do-list/

Direct download: Org365-274.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Do you ever feel like you’re behind in your organizing routine?

Maybe you went on a sunny vacation and came back with a stack of mail to sort? Or, perhaps you skipped a few days in the 100 Day All Home Program?

You might feel anxious, worried, or even a little guilty. But, here’s the truth…

After you start, it’s physically impossible for you to be behind in organizing.

Don’t believe me?

Listen to this episode of the Organize 365 podcast to find out why your organizing journey is more like an endless escalator than a staircase with an infinitive first and last step.

The Organizational Journey

To put all of this into perspective, I want you to think about organizing in a similar way to how a baby learns to crawl, walk, and run.

In the beginning, a baby will learn how to crawl on the floor. In organization land, this is basically you when you’re decluttering your house.

Next, the baby might stand up and take a few steps while holding onto furniture for support. This is when you’ve reached out for help and taken the first steps in organizing (congratulations, by the way!).

Maybe you signed up for the 100 Day All Home Program, or perhaps you hired a professional organizer to help you out. It’s all going well because you’ve got that extra support and encouragement.

Eventually, the baby lets go of the coffee table and starts taking its first steps on its own. Granted, they’re wobbly steps, and the baby looks a little like a duckling with its bottom stuck out and arms flying everywhere. But, at least they’re finally walking unaided, right? Sure, they might fall a lot but they’re making progress, just like you.

When you “go it alone,” you might stumble and even feel like giving up at times. But you’ll get there. Soon, you’ll organize all the main areas of your life so well that when you return to re-organize them the following year, it won’t take you half as long.

As you go through your organizational journey, your skills, or "organizational muscles" as I like to call them, will continue to develop and grow.

And, like the baby in this analogy, eventually you’ll start running.

Organizing is Hard. Productivity is Fun!

In Episode 251, I talked about the fact that decluttering is easy. Organizing is hard. And, productivity is fun!

Once you’ve got the hang of things and you start building your organizational muscles, you’ll become so much more productive. Remember that organization is a learned skill. You can’t learn it overnight.

When you first start decluttering like a mad woman, you’ll be left with things that you’re not sure if you want to keep or not. The things that you do want to keep will need to go into containers. At this stage of your organizing journey, you’ve swapped your declutter hat for a productive one instead.

When you go through the 100 Day Home Organization Program for the first time, it can be a bit overwhelming. You’ll get a lot done in your first round. You’ll declutter the house, and by the time you’re done, you’ll think, well, that should do it for another five or 10 years!

The truth is that you’ll never be done organizing!

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it’s not until the second or even third time through the 100 Day Home Organization Program that you start having those big "ah-ha!" moments.

You’ll discover that organizing your kitchen for the second time with the program is so much easier and fluent than the first time. You’ll have productive formulas and routines in place for your paper. And, because your processes are more streamlined, you’ll be able to get a lot more done in that 100-day time frame.

Snap Photos of your Progress

When you’re in the middle of organizing everything, it’s tough for your mind to see the progress you’re making. So, grab your camera and snap a few before and after shots.

Give yourself that instant gratification of seeing what things looked like before your inner organizing ninja got to work. You don’t need to show anybody the photos if you don’t want to. They can be there for you to look back at on those terrible days when you feel like you’re never going to be organized.

Whenever you feel that way, you can look back at the photos and see how far you’ve come. You’ll know that you have made real progress, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. Be proud of yourself. You’ve decided to start living a more organized life. You’ve put the gears in motion, and you’re building organizational muscles. That is something to be proud of.

On a side note… If you do decide to share your before and after photos, I’d love to see them on Instagram! Please remember to tag me @organize365!

Organizing Pays You In Time

In Episode 269, I talked about the time, money, motivation trifecta that’s necessary for change. Organization always gives you more time. It doesn’t pay in cash, but it does give you the time you need to balance other areas in your life.

When you’ve got more time because you don’t need to spend hours organizing paper, you can put that time to better use.

The 100 Day All Home Program is designed to give you the freedom to live your best life without worrying about organizing your home 24/7. It gives you the tools you need to make a lasting, incremental organizational change in your home throughout the seasons.

Once you complete the program, you’ll find that the areas in your home where you spend most of your time are all better organized. But, when you’re in the heart of the action all the time, it’s easy to look around and think about all the areas lacking the standard of organized heaven that you were reaching for.

But, if you take a closer look, you’ll realize that you’ve come a long way since taking those first baby steps. Your organizational muscles are growing. By the time you do the 100 Day Organization Program for the second or third time, you’ll find areas that you perhaps didn’t address the first time. And, you’ll realize that organizing comes a lot more naturally to you now.

Don’t aim for perfection, aim for progress!

Realize that reaching the perfect organized life takes time. It’s not instantaneous. But, even by taking that first baby step, you’re already ahead of the game. You’re one step closer to living a more organized life that gives you the time you need to live your best life.

Direct download: Org365-273.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Let’s be real. Not every item in your home will spark joy as soon as you see it or pick it up. And, it doesn’t have to.

In this episode of the podcast, I explore what we should do with the items that don’t give us any real joy in our lives. But first, I’ve got a question for you…

Have you ever read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo?

It’s a great book that encourages readers to transform their homes into a clutter-free zone using the KonMari Method. As an organizing nut, I’ve read this book from cover to cover. Although I enjoyed it, I don’t think its paper organizing solutions work for American women.

The KonMari Method challenges you to keep the things you really love and get rid of the rest. Literally. While this method might work for some, it doesn’t work for people like me who have a lot of stuff and no time to stop and think if an item sparks true joy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for keeping items that have real meaning and decluttering the things that don’t have much of a purpose. But, what about paper? In her book, Marie’s key principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away (I know, I had to hold myself up after reading that, too).

There’s no way we can get rid of ALL our paper. I can’t function as an American woman, business owner, homeowner, wife, and mother without paper. I just can’t.

So, we’re going to dive into this further and figure out just how much paper we can get rid of and how much we can keep. Let’s jump in!

Sorting Your Papers

85% of the papers you have in your house are shreddable. That leaves you with 15% that you’ve deemed important or necessary enough to keep.

So, let’s take that 15% and start a complete paper organization overhaul, shall we?

Unless you’re a passionate organizer like me, sorting your papers probably doesn’t fill you with feelings of joy and happiness.

Instead of picking up a paper and asking yourself if it sparks joy, ask whether it is useful.

If you don’t have any use for it, it’ll meet its grim fate in the shredder. If it does have use, it can be organized into binders.

Should You “Go Paperless”?

Is going 100% paperless a good idea? And, is it even possible?

The short answer is no.

Yes, you can go digital with lots of different things in your personal life and/or business. But, paper is never going to stop. It’ll always find a way to slip back into your life, whether that’s in the form of a letter, tax return documentation, or your kid’s art pieces!

Although it seems like the world is taking everything digital, there will always be a place for paper. You can try to go digital. But sooner or later, you’ll need somewhere to organize your papers.

Take a young couple as an example. Yes, they’re all into technology and the "Cloud." But, when they have their first child and he/she returns home from school with a backpack filled with drawings, they want to keep them all forever. Three kids down the line, they’ve got stacks of old drawings and no storage space for all the paper they’ve accumulated!

If you’re in a similar situation, have a binder for each child. Then, choose 100 of your favorite drawings and keep those. You don’t need to keep every little thing your child creates. Sure, your kid might be the next Picasso, but how many pumpkin pictures does one family need?

Save the ones that are the most useful. They’re the ones that make you feel good and are laced with happy memories. If you need help sorting your kid’s school papers and art, check out our Kid’s School Memory Binder.

Organizing Your Reference Paper

Actionable papers and reference papers have different usefulness, profitability, and portability, which means you’ve got to organize them differently, too.

I recommend that every family have four specific binders:

1. Financial Binder

2. Medical Binder (for each family member)

3. Household Reference Binder

4. Household Operations Binder

(Each of these binders is also available for International use. You can find the International versions over in our Shop.)

All your reference papers can go into one of these binders, where you can access them easily and update as and when required.

You can’t haul a filing cabinet around with you. But, with all your papers neatly organized in binders, you can literally just grab and go.

Organizing Your Actionable Paper

Actionable papers are things like bills, receipts, forms, and things that require some form of action. Reminders like changing air filters, giving your dog flea and tick medicine, and so on all come under this same category of "actionable paper."

The problem with this type of paper is that it just gets everywhere. You’ll find them on your nightstand, on the kitchen table, and even tucked away in your car’s glove compartment.

So, how can you organize all your actionable papers?

The answer is with the Sunday Basket System.

Keeping all your actionable to-do lists, bills, reminders, and so on inside your Sunday Basket gives you complete control over those papers and helps you develop a more organized way of thinking.

Don’t Let Paper Control You!

I honestly can’t imagine a world without paper. Technology is great, but there’s nothing like writing things down and having a physical copy of the things that are important to you.

Remember that paper doesn’t have to control you, you control paper.

If you’ve tried any of my suggestions for paper organization, I’d love to hear from you! Share your stories or snaps with me on Instagram and don’t forget to join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips! Tag me in your posts @organize365 or use the hashtag #organize365!

Direct download: Org365-272.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Decision Fatigue

Do you suffer from decision fatigue? When you’re bombarded with too many decisions, your brain works in overdrive. And, you end up mentally and physically exhausted.

So many of you have asked me to talk about this issue on the podcast, so…here it is!

But, before you jump into this episode, it’s worth checking out the Time, Money, Motivation podcast (ep.269). The trifecta I talk about in that episode will help change your mindset.

When you learn to look at things differently, you’ll have the willpower to make real transformational change.

To help you out, we offer a FREE week trial of the 100 Day Home Organization Program. It won’t work miracles. But, it will bring you leaps and bounds closer to living a stress-free and more organized life (minus decision fatigue!).

The truth is that you don’t need to run a marathon or get a PhD to experience a transformation. You can achieve a very BIG change from a very tiny shift to your mindset and daily habits….and, I’m going to show you how!

What is Decision Making Fatigue?

When you’re lost in decision fatigue, you usually lack time, money or motivation (or all three).

When you wake up in the morning and go about your day, you’ll have X amount of decisions to make.

Your decision-making ability only goes so far. If you’re faced with decision after decision, you’ll burn-out. That’s what decision fatigue is.

A nasty little thing, isn’t it?

How can you beat decision fatigue?

Want to know how you can kick decision fatigue’s hypothetical butt?

Grab a hammer, lift your little decision fatigue monster up by the scruff of its neck and…. ah, I’m just messing with you!

To overcome decision-making fatigue, you’ve got to create rules and habits. Habits take up to 100 days to form and cross the barrier from something you do now and then, to something you do ALL the time.

My entire life is an outpouring of habit stacking. You wouldn’t believe the number of habits I’ve accumulated over the years. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way because they’ve helped me live a super productive life. And, supplied me with lots of energy.

However, habits take a long time to cultivate and develop. I’d be lying if I said it's easy. It’s not. My advice is to start small. Create no more than three habits per year and make them stick.

Next up, you need to have rules. Rules are instantaneous, and they can adapt.

The $50 Decision-Making Challenge

Everyone has a decision-making limit. An infinitive decision-making capability isn’t a thing. You only get a limited amount of decisions each day. You’ve got to decide whether the decisions you’re making every day are worth your time.

Is stopping to decide what shoes to wear to the gym worth sacrificing a decision slot? Probably not.

So, here’s my challenge for you….

When you go through your week, imagine that every decision you make costs $50. Deciding what to eat for lunch? $50. But, if you’ve already got your lunch prepared and you know what you’re having, you can put that $50 back in your pocket.

If you start looking at each decision as having the same worth, you’ll build your organizational muscles as you begin to see which choices are worth it and which ones are not.

Thinking about the where, why & what

The reward of organization is time. When you’re organized, you get to decide how you use your time. The fewer decisions you make, the higher quality decisions you can make.

To beat decision fatigue, you’ve got to consider the where, why and what.

  1. Where?

Where does an item go when you don’t want it?

Will it go in the trash or to goodwill?

When thinking about the where, make a decision for each physical item that you no longer want or need in your home.

It could be as simple as picking up an item and asking yourself if you want to keep it. If you do, put it where it needs to go. If you don’t, ask yourself if it’s trash. If it is, it goes in the trashcan. If not, it goes to goodwill.

The same can be said for shredding. If you’re faced with a stack of paper that needs shredding, you’ve got to decide where and when you’ll shred it. Don’t bombard yourself with questions. Keep it simple.

Will you shred it, or will you hire someone else to do it? When will you shred it?

The goal is to try to make your decision tree as small as possible. You can do this by creating rules that help reduce the amount of decisions you need to make before reaching an outcome.

  1. Why?

Next, think about your ‘why.’ Why are you making all these decisions?

Pick up your nearest item. Mine happens to be a cup. So, if you were me, you’d ask yourself whether you want to keep this cup. If not, decide if it has any value. If it does, it’s good enough for goodwill. If not, (maybe it’s got a chip or crack) then toss it in the trash.

During this thought process, you’ll have an entire conversation in your head about why you will or will not keep the item in your hand. But you’ve got to be ruthless.

Quiet the chatter in your mind, take control of your decisions, and move on!

The Sunday Basket is the physical way of learning how to detach your self-worth from what your brain is going on and on about.

  1. What?

Decision fatigue is partly about what you’re going to do with the object you don't want. But, perhaps even more than that, it’s about what you’re going to do about all the thoughts that you have about the object that you don't want anymore.

Don’t let your brain get in the way. That little inside voice you’ve got chatting your ear off 24/7 needs to be silenced.

Get in the habit of making tactical decisions.

Create rules that you feel good about. If you feel good donating to goodwill, make that a rule.

The key takeaway I want you to go away with is to make your decision of where, turn off your brain about the why, and then you'll have more time and focus for the what! That’s how you’re going to overcome decision fatigue.

View the full post here: https://organize365.com/decision-fatigue/

Direct download: Org365-271.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I don’t have enough money to …

If I have more time I would …

I’m just not motivated.

These are the top 3 things holding you back from the change you crave and I finally figured out how they are RELATED!

Did you know what the most common New Year’s Resolutions are?

  1. To get fit/lose weight
  2. Pay off debt/get money in order
  3. Get organized

Did you also know that when you start on one of these goals, the others fall in line, too?

It takes time, but it will happen. I promise. And by time I mean … years.

I was an EXTREMELY productive child, working 40 hours a week babysitting because I could easily sell the moms I worked for into hiring me for more time if I told them I was available. (Suckers!) ;)

Time, Money and Motivation all go hand-in-hand.

TIME

Organization always gives you more TIME. ALWAYS.

If you decide to be a minimalist, you are, hands down, going to have more time.

Part of organization is decluttering. But decluttering involves more that just your physical objects.

You will declutter items from your calendar, out of your email inbox, organize your paper, and occasionally declutter past relationships that are no longer mutually beneficial.

Personally, I started my journey in the “getting organized” category. It took me about 18 months.

Organizing is proactively choosing how you are going to use your time.

If you are a reactionary, others choose how you spend your time.

Productivity is the outpouring of living an organized life.

MONEY

Your money is your resource.

Money comes from constraining yourself so that you can budget yourself and get out of that resource what you want.

No one has unlimited money. NO ONE. Money is a constraint that makes you CHOOSE what you invest in.

My money journey has been life long and it was not until about 2 years ago that Greg and I finally got consumer debt free.

And then we slipped. We are still working on this area together.

MOTIVATION

Your energy and your motivation come from your health and wellness.

With a great set of genes and not too much vanity, I haven’t minded a “few” extra pounds and unhealthy food choices.

Recently, I have started prioritizing my future health by being more responsible now. I could never have the time and money to focus on this in the past.

Listen in as I deep dive into my 7 year journey of health and wellness, from fast food and fountain cokes to salads and zone bars. I haven’t “arrived,” but I HAVE improved.

Habits change slowly, consistently, over time as you will see from my health and wellness story.

Listen to the podcast to hear the 3 steps I took in each area to make improvements.

It has been a 7 year journey from drowning in reactionary mode to the thriving productive woman you see today.

And I wouldn’t change any of it!

As I said last week, making major changes, one step at a time, is hard. And I can see in our FREE Facebook group Organize 365 and on Instagram, when people share their photos of the inner struggles they are facing as they make progress in their organizational journey and I honestly cheer OUT LOUD to see the progress and I think to myself, look how far they have come! :)

Organize 365 is here to support you on your organizational journey. What is your number one priority in the new year? I’d love to hear it.

I’m cheering for you!

The Self Coaching School - Brooke Castillo episodes mentioned in this podcast (32, 71, 76, 77, 85, 104, 105, 129, 243)


If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Direct download: Org365-269.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa invites Monique Horb back onto the podcast. Monique is a Sunday Basket Certified Workshop Organizer and runs her own professional organizing business, Organizing Your Chaos.

In today’s episode, Lisa and Monique tackle the nuanced and difficult conversations surrounding parenting children with special needs. Speaking from experience, both moms discuss the challenges and joys of parenting their unique kids and the documentation needed to do it well.

Organize 365 introduces the Warrior Mama Binder, a workbook and documentation powerhouse designed for moms by moms of children with unique learning needs.

Be sure to check out www.organize365.com/warrior-mamas for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

If you’re ready to use my strategies to finally take back your home, jump right in to the 100 Day Home Organization Challenge. You can try a week free to see if it’s right for you!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-WarriorMamaBinder267_UPdated.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

The past year in the life of the Sunday Basket  has been a whirlwind!

I wanted to pause and clarify the differences between the Sunday Basket Workshops, the Sunday Basket Club and the Paper Organizing Retreats.

Why do we need a Sunday Basket anyway?!

What do you do with your mail when it comes in your door?
What about the ideas that flood your head while you’re driving your kids to school?

How about prescriptions, coupons, “to do lists”?

I promise you are spending more time managing these things than you think. The Sunday Basket System is the answer to eliminating that to do list and freeing your mind from constantly trying to keep up with the hamster wheel of ideas that flood it daily.

If you haven’t started your Sunday Basket yet, you can purchase the Complete Sunday Basket System here. The purchase of the Complete Sunday Basket comes with a virtual “on demand” training you can access on Organize 365 in your dashboard.

I just updated those training videos last week. Additionally you can listen to the Sunday Basket podcast here to learn more about the Sunday Basket and follow along as you set yours up.

Where did the IN PERSON workshops come from?

The Sunday Basket Workshop was designed after my passion for Creative Memories workshops, where women would come from all over Cincinnati (and in my backyard) to laugh, drink wine or lattes, listen to 80s music and put photos into albums on the last Friday of the month in my home. It is my vision that we will have Certified Sunday Basket Workshop Organizers in every major city in America teaching and helping women organize their paper and be freed from the guilt and burden that piles of unorganized paper brings.

If you are looking for a Sunday Basket Workshop Organizer in your city or town to help you get organized, please check out our Certified Organizer Directory!

How about the Sunday Basket Club?

Because the Sunday Basket became so popular, and because I love community so much, when the demand came to have a “Sunday Basket Club” on Sundays where I would go through your Sunday Basket with you, I wanted to say yes, but I was overwhelmed with the prospect of having to teach that EVERY SUNDAY. However, two of our all star Sunday Basket Workshop Organizers volunteered to run it … so I said yes!  

The Sunday Basket Club has a 90 minute Facebook Live time where you can go through your Sunday Basket with Monique Horb and Ryan Lanier EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY.

The Sunday Basket Club is a virtual weekly workshop kind of like “co working” as you go through your Sunday Basket. But it is more than just your Sunday Basket papers. Everyone in the Club also has the basic 4 binders I use to ditch their filing cabinet.

To gain access to the Sunday Basket Club, you can sign up for the Complete Paper Program or All Access. You can learn more about and/or purchase the Complete Paper Program here. You can learn more about and/or purchase All Access here.

Last but not least, Paper Organizing Retreats.

Lastly, let’s come full circle. The Sunday Basket Workshops started because of the good ol’ Creative Memories days. And even though you can learn about the Sunday Basket System and Workshops from our Certified Organizers, or participate virtually by buying it on demand from Organize 365, and you can go through your Sunday Basket weekly in the Sunday Basket Club; like I said, I like community. And I LOVED hosting Creative Memories workshops and my famous “Winter Wonderland Retreat”. So naturally, Paper Organizing Retreats were born and I am LOVING hosting them and so excited about all the progress I have seen women make in this weekend away to really focus on and tackle those paper organizing projects.

So join me, my team and our Certified Organizers at an upcoming Paper Organizing Retreat in April! You can learn more and/or register here! We would LOVE to help you get your paper organized and most importantly, give you a BIG HUG!

PS Have you thought about becoming a Sunday Basket Workshop Organizer? The program is OPEN! But only until February 10th! Hop on over to Sundaybasketcertification.com to learn more and/or sign up! We would love to have you on the team. :)

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

View the complete post here.

Direct download: Org365-266.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, we get an update on Molly, who you first heard about in Episode 239.

As an almost-40 mother of three, Molly was living in a state of overwhelm. She found Organize 365, and her whole life transformed. This is the second six months of that transformation.

Lisa walks us through Molly’s year not as a perfect model to measure ourselves against, but to reassure us that an imperfect path to organization still leads to organization.

Resources from Molly’s journey:

The 100 Day Home Organization Program

Paper Organizing Retreats

The Sunday Basket

Friday Workboxes

Embrace: You are Enough National Conference

Be sure to check out www.organize365.com/a-year-to-get-organized-molly-update for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

If you’re ready to use my strategies to finally take back your home, jump right in to the 100 Day Home Organization Challenge. You can try a week free to see if it’s right for you!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-264.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Come peek at a year in the life of Molly, a woman who has decided that she has had enough; it’s time to take back her life. In order to do so, she needs to get organized, and that means organizing her paper, organizing her house, and becoming more productive. She wants to free herself from the everyday responsibilities that she thought were solely hers to open herself up to her unique talent. Lisa walks us through the first two rounds of the 100 Day Home Organization Program that is part of All Access, as well as a few of the bonuses offered with the program. If you’ve ever wondered what these systems are and how they can transform your home, listen in!

Check out the new web site (and the All Access Program)!

Binge the top 7 podcasts Lisa recommends to start.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/239 for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!


If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook Group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Direct download: Org365-239.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:55am EDT

In this episode, Lisa chats with Virginia Deane, the daughter of Holly Knill, and a productivity expert in her own right.

Lisa and Virginia examine the way that the Friday Workboxes, specifically the Corporate Workbox, can help a team of individuals cut through the paper piles, skyrocket their productivity, and truly enjoy their jobs.

Interested? Grab your spot at one of our free Master Classes and start tackling your scattered to do lists.

That Boot Camp Virginia mentions in the episode? It’s now the Grow Your Business Focus Day at our Paper Organizing Retreat!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/piles-to-productivity for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

Are you interested in joining us for one of our live events? View the upcoming events and come make progress (not perfection) on your organizational goals!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

If you’re ready to use my strategies to finally take back your home, jump right in to the 100 Day Home Organization Challenge. You can try a week free to see if it’s right for you!

Direct download: Org365-263.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

If you’ve ever wondered how Lisa finds “balance,” how she manages to grow a six-figure business while managing her home, you’ll want to listen to this episode.

In a heaping dose of vulnerability, Lisa shares how she has transformed over the past seven years professionally and personally after enduring a dark valley in 2012.

This episode is all about grace, and is a triumphant story about following a dream while still being Mom.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/my-transformation for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Join us for the Embrace: You Are Enough Conference this summer and start (or continue) your own personal transformation.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Are you ready to make this YOUR YEAR? Sign up for a FREE Masterclass to learn more about the 100 Day Home Organization Program here!

If you’re ready to use my strategies to finally take back your home, jump right in to the 100 Day Home Organization Challenge. You can try a week free to see if it’s right for you!

Direct download: Org365-261.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

This episode does not follow the usual format you may be used to. In this episode, the words aren’t Lisa’s; they’re yours!

Lisa is combing through stories, anecdotes, and testimonials from the Organize 365 audience. She is celebrating big wins and little victories alike, and finding that we’re all in this together.

Many of these come from the Organize 365 Facebook group--if you’re not a member of the group, join us!

The Out with the Old Decluttering Challenge begins on December 26th. There’s still time to join!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/2018-blessings for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

If you’re ready to use my strategies to finally take back your home, jump right in to the 100 Day Home Organization Challenge. You can try a week free to see if it’s right for you!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-260.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In the last episode of this interview series, Lisa sits down with Angela Watson of The Cornerstone for Teachers and Truth for Teachers Podcast. Angela is a veteran elementary school teacher turned instructional coach who helps overwhelmed teachers prioritize their obligations and reduce their working hours without reducing their impact.

Follow Angela’s blog, learn more about her online course, and subscribe to her podcast, where Lisa will be a guest in early 2019.

In addition to Angela’s strategies, the Organize 365 Teacher Friday Workbox and Homeschool Friday Workbox are great tools to use if you are an educator.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/angela for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

This year, celebrate Boxing Day with the Out with the Old Decluttering Challenge! Tackle your home room by room in this free blitz starting December 26th.

If you’re ready to use my strategies to finally take back your home, jump right in to the 100 Day Home Organization Challenge. You can try a week free to see if it’s right for you!

 

Direct download: Org365-259.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In the next installment of our interview series, Lisa sits down with Holly Knill, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Maryland, to discuss the science behind why The Sunday Basket™ works for just about anyone. Based on actual brain science and universal human nature, Holly explains the five ways that The Sunday Basket™, both the routine and the physical tool, are helpful in changing habits to lead a more proactive life.

Lisa’s depression story can be found in Episode 69, and more information about the work that Holly does can be found at The Expanding Heart Center.

You can learn more about The Sunday Basket here, and you can purchase the complete Sunday Basket Workshop or just the box in our shop. The entire Sunday Basket system also comes as a part of The Complete Paper Organization Program.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/sunday-basket-psychology for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

 

Direct download: Org365-258ThePsychologyoftheSundayBasket.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa chats with Julie Morgenstern, a force in the field of personal and home organization.

Between her books, including Organizing from the Inside Out and Time to Parent, to her informative podcast, Julie has positioned herself as an expert on the effects of true organization on the entire family.

You’ll hear familiar refrains, like “it’s not about the containers!” and “You don’t have to throw everything out!” You’ll get practical tips for organizing a family. You’ll leave with an understanding about the one thing every woman needs in her life.

Enjoy this insightful episode!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/julie-morgenstern for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Try the 100 Day Home Organization Program for free, and see if it’s right for you!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

 

Direct download: Org365-257.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa chats about those coveted pockets of time she finds throughout the day. So often, we set aside time to do a task, only to spend the first half (or more!) thinking about what approach we should take. Since our brains are always with us, Lisa shows us how to use humble office supplies to skyrocket your productivity. You may not be able to create time, but you can take full advantage of the time you do have, using the tips in this episode. Grab your index cards!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/more-planning-time for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

This episode, on linen closets, is mentioned in the episode. You can tackle your linen closet, and all of the other spaces in your home, using the 100 Day Home Organization Program (now offering one week free!).

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-254.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Are you ready for a rebirth? In this episode, Lisa explains her new perspective on generations and how when we were born affects how we use our home. Since we are living longer, we have “extra” time to live a vibrant life and use our gifts.

What’s holding us back? Our homes. What can we do about that? And what will Lisa do with her extra years? It’s all in this episode.

Both Generations and The Mindset of Organization are available on Amazon.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/60-is-the-new-40 for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

 

Direct download: Org365-253.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

How do I get so much done? Find out in this episode as I talk about what endurance means to me and how I manage to live a productive live without a running to do list.

But basically? Endurance means not stopping. Doing one more (small) thing after you complete a task is like getting a two-for-one bonus. Once you get rolling in your organizing, it’s so much easier to keep going. Starting is the hard part, and you’re already doing that! Just keep going!

Sign up here for the FREE sneak peek of the 100 Day Home Organization Program. Like it? Join the entire program or dive into All Access.

The 2018 Holiday Blitz starts on November 12th and ends with a free webinar on the best way to organize your holidays. You won’t want to miss that webinar, because in it I’ll be releasing a super secret Black Friday special!

Want these show notes delivered to your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter and get everything from the podcast episodes, plus a few extra bonuses!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/endurance for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Direct download: Org365-252.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa is talking about why, when taking control over your home and paper, the organization stage feels like the hardest. It’s why the cute container systems don’t work, why we don’t see true organization in photos on Pinterest, and why we need to go through the 100 Day Home Organization Program three times a year. In her simple, logical way, Lisa breaks down the common reasons why organization feels difficult and what we can do to overcome that hurdle.

Turn your memories into tangible treasures at Once Upon a Time.

Learn more about the Paper Organizing Retreats in Cincinnati, and all our other upcoming events, here.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/organizing-is-hard for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

 

Direct download: Org365-251.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa discusses how your mindset and visualization of your goals can actually help you achieve them. By righting your mind and fulling believing in that progress, your goals are dust. By using how Organize 365 has changed in one calendar year, Lisa talks about putting your energy in the right places in order to visualize and realize your goals. Full disclosure: She gets a little woo woo! Hang in until the end--you’ll be glad you did!

Bummed you missed the fall Paper Organizing Retreat? No worries! One is coming up in January--you can sign up now!

The Medical, Financial, Household Reference, and Household Operations Binders are available in our shop.

Workboxes for professional organizers, those in corporate jobs, teachers, homeschoolers, entrepreneurs, and direct sellers are also now available!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/manifesting for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-249.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa describes the seasonal energies throughout the year and how to take advantage of these high and low tides. She’s structured the 100 Day Home Organization Program around this concept, and is carving out space during the fall to dig deep into how she’s spending her time. The Deep Dive calls for each task and responsibility to defend itself and its place on the to do list. Instead of asking, “Can this wait until next Sunday?” she is asking, “Can this wait until January?

For more details on how to do a Sunday Basket deep dive, you won’t want to miss this episode of The Sunday Basket Podcast.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/yearly-deep-dive for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-248-My_Big_Yearly_Deep_Dive.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa opens up about why she feels that women have so many responsibilities in the home, and how she’s tackling them by thinking about her week differently. We are used to thinking of the week as Monday morning through Friday afternoon, and the weekend as Friday night through Sunday night. But what if the balance shifted, and our week was divided in true halves between our “work” life and “home” life? Would that create the sense of work-life balance we all seem to be craving?

Visit Laura Vanderkam’s website and check out her interview with Lisa to learn all about reframing the way you think about time.

To get Lisa’s Productive Home CEO Planner, join the 100 Day Home Organization Program or get everything with All Access.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/dividing-week for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-246.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Episode 245 is the audio of a Facebook Live, where Lisa chats about all the fun and productive things we’ll be doing, and the delicious food we’ll be eating, at our very first Paper Organizing Retreat. Many people are able to organize their home and paper using our Complete Paper Organizing system or the 100 Day Home Organization Program (now available as an All Access bundle), but many of us thrive on community. The Organize 365 Paper Organizing Retreats will give you just that! In this episode, Lisa goes over the weekend’s agenda and answers frequently asked questions about the event.

If you’re missing this one but want to join us for the next Paper Organizing Retreat, check out the live events page to get upcoming dates.

We are proud to have Shred-it, the world leader in information security, sponsor our very first Paper Organizing Retreat.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/paper-retreat-2018 for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-245.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Christine Miserandino’s Spoon Theory pivots around the fact that some people, especially those with chronic illnesses, start with less energy than others. In this episode, Lisa breaks down this theory and how it applies to home organization. Lisa shares actionable steps for anyone to make progress in their homes--because having a chronic illness does not mean you can’t live an organized, productive life.

My two books, How ADHD Affects Home Organization and The Mindset of Organization address aspects of this issue as well. You can also listen to this episode of the Organize 365 podcast to hear my experience with ADHD.

If you’d like to hire a professional organizer, in-person or virtually, find the list of Certified Organizers here.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/spoon-theory for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-244.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

We tell ourselves all kinds of reasons why we can’t get organized. Some of them are legitimate, others others are thinly veiled iterations of “It’s hard” or “I don’t want to.” In this episode, Lisa strips down two of the most common legitimate excuses--chronic illness and young children--and uncovers a new way to tackle the 100 Day Home Organization program that doesn’t involve small bits each day. If you’ve got one of these barriers, or if you’re just a project-oriented person, you’ll want to listen to this episode to find out how to modify the program to fit your needs.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/get-organized-faster for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-243.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa outlines what she calls “Golden Windows” of opportunity, life phases that bring with them circumstances that are prime for organization. Some Golden Windows happen just once in a lifetime, others happen several times a year. When these Golden Windows come along (or better yet, more than one at a time), we can capitalize on them and target that energy toward resetting and reorganizing our home.

The directory of Organize 365™ Certified Professional Organizers can be found here.

Listen to the podcast about Lisa's three new years for details on how she divides her calendar year, and learn about the 100 Day Home Organization Program and All Access, both of which follow those new years.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/golden-windows for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-242.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

When we use our planner as our datebook, we may have an idea of the times of our appointments and commitments, but we don’t align our weekly focus with the goals we actually want to accomplish in our lives. In this episode, Lisa explains her purposeful decision to not do laundry, and the deeper reason why she chooses intentionality over obligation.

Lisa shares the problem with the readily available planners in today’s market, and why the Home CEO Planner is different.

If you are looking for permission to let go of the guilt and start intentionally focusing your time toward the things that matter to you, this episode will speak to you.

Listen to Podcast 134 to get the full details on how Lisa divides the year into three planning seasons.

If you want to get your hands on your own Home CEO Planner, join the 100 Day Home Organization Program.

Be sure to check out organize365.com/planner-productivity/ for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org-365-241.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Grab the tissues! This episode was recorded live at the Organize 365 RISE: You Are Enough National Convention, held in June 2018. Lisa interviewed Dawn Carlson, a wife, mother of four, business owner, and new Certified Sunday Basket Workshop Organizer.

In this interview, Dawn shares her story of transformation from depressed, struggling, frazzled woman to a confident, productive CEO with Organize 365. Using the 100 Day Home Organization Program and virtual organizing, Dawn took back her home and freed herself to do what she is uniquely created to do. Dawn gives us a glimpse of the real-life ups and downs of home organization, and brings us the inspiring message that YOU can do it.

Dawn is a member of our All Access, a program designed to help you transform your home in one year.

Interested in a live event with Organize 365? Check out the upcoming events!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/240 for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook Group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Direct download: Org365-240.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this episode, Lisa talks us through the story of Angela, a wannabe professional organizer who finds encouragement and motivation through Organize 365. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a profitable, confident, productive professional organizer, this episode is for you. Organize 365 has launched programs to help you START your business, MARKET your business, and GROW your business. With the Sunday Basket Certified Workshop Organizer program, Angela transforms her business from a small hobby business to a money-making profession she loves.

Snag that free checklist here!

Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer’s Think Tank is for you.

Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We’d love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Be sure to check out organize365.com/238 for notes, links, and photos from this episode.

Like the show? Leave a review!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

Direct download: Org365-238.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

We’ve reached the final episode of the Kid’s Organization Series. I hope you’ve all enjoyed this mini-series so far and found the advice useful when it comes to organizing your bedroom – or mini apartment as I like to call them!

In previous episodes, I’ve talked about organizing your clothes, closets, and rearranging the furniture in your bedroom. But now I want to talk about organizing your toys, collections, and how to save space if you’re sharing a bedroom with someone else.

Eliminate Your Nightstand

If you share a bedroom with a sibling or a friend at college, every space counts. With two beds in the room, it’s unlikely you’ll have a lot of space to work with unless you’re lucky and have a massive room for you both.

If you’ve been keeping up with the podcast, you’ll know that my son is preparing for college and we’ve been shopping for his new apartment. During one of my many Walmart visits, I came across storage headboards. Well actually, there were more like mini bookcases with shelving suitable for things like an alarm clock, picture frames, ornaments, books, and other small items.

A storage headboard eliminates your need for a nightstand, giving you more floor space to work with. If you want to have a lamp near your bed, you can use a clip-on dorm lamp that can clamp onto your headboard. They are adjustable and you can angle it so that you can read at night without shining a stream of light in your roommate’s face – phew!

Cube Units For Bunk Beds

If you have bunk beds in your room, a storage headboard is probably out of the question. But don’t worry, I’ve got the perfect solution!

IKEA are the masters of storage units! Their KALLAX shelving units are my favorite. They are available in a range of different sizes, but if you’re looking for the perfect bookshelf for bunk beds, I suggest going for the 1 x 5 unit. It takes up very little space and you can easily attach it to the wall with a standard L bracket.

You’ll need to think about functionality over appearance. Most people will immediately assume that the unit should be facing outwards, but this isn’t how I do it. I recommend connecting the unit to the wall sideways so that the kids can reach into the shelves from their beds.

Reducing The Bedroom Clutter

If you share a room, you MUST reduce the number of collections and toys that you keep because there just isn’t enough room to spare. If your family has additional storage space or a family bookshelf, etc., then you might be able to keep some of your possessions there if you don’t want to donate or throw them out.

Cube units are easier to work with for organizing your bedroom because they’re functional, long-lasting, and you can easily separate them if you like. A 2 x 8 unit, for example, can be stacked on top of each other with your TV on top.

My daughter took a slightly different approach to her shelving units and, instead of putting a TV on top of her 2 x 8 unit, she put her hamster cage on top of it. It’s not a regular hamster cage either – it’s a hamster mansion!

Organizing Books

Is it just me or is every home overflowing with books? I was a preschool teacher and when my kids were young, we literally had EVERY picture book ever published. The house was covered in them until I finally decided to do something about it.

My kids were never big readers. They preferred to play with toys rather than sit and read for hours. So, I took all the picture books and stored them in the loft. I then put their toys in their bedrooms and they were so much happier.

If you’ve got a lot of books, you should think about donating some of them or moving them to where everyone else in the family keeps their books. I suggest assigning one of your cubes in your shelving unit for books – and that’s it!

Organizing Your Toys & Collections

Everyone has a passion project. Your passion project is the type of toys that you’re currently into. Whether it’s PS4 games, Monster High Dolls or Lego, your passion project will probably take up at least four of the cubes in your unit.

Toys are different from collections because toys are the things that you play with while collections are more personal and private. Your collection is special because it has a memory connected to it and, even though the rest of the family sees it as junk, you don’t see it that way.

There’s just one thing to remember – your entire collection HAS to fit into one cube. You can store them in a bin, but once that container fills up – it’s time to go through it!

You should spread everything out on the floor and go through it piece by piece. Prioritize your collections and only keep the items that you still love. Everything else should be donated or thrown out because they’re just taking up space that you don’t have.

Find A Display Area For Your Collections

Once you’ve gone through the bin, you need to find a flat surface in your room where you can display your favorite pieces from your collections.

I suggest putting them on a ledge or “floating shelf” that you can hang up on the wall with a nail or L bracket. This type of shelf comes in a range of sizes and is relatively inexpensive. You can find them anywhere, including IKEA, Target, and even Walmart.

You can attach it to your wall and use it as a collection shelf. If you share a room with a sibling, get two shelves for your collections and stack them on top of each other.

I hope you enjoyed this special Kid’s Organization Series as much as I enjoyed making it! I’ve organized plenty of kid’s rooms in the past. It’s one of my favorite things to do because each child is different and their bedrooms reflect their personalities – I think that's fantastic!

If you tried any of my suggestions, I’d love to see them! Follow me on Instagram for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/237

Direct download: Org365-237.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

We’re continuing our Kids Organization Series and following up last week’s topic of redesigning your bedroom with an episode all about cleaning out your closets and organizing your clothes – it’s exciting stuff, I know.

But don’t worry, a closet clean out doesn’t take as long as you might think. As you continue to improve your organizing skills and return to a space you’ve previously organized, the process becomes much easier and quicker.

If you haven’t listened to my previous podcasts offering clothing organization tips, you can go back through podcast episodes 103 to 107 to listen.

Have you caught up? Great! Let's get stuck into organizing your closet!

Donating Unwanted Clothes

Donations should happen on a regular basis. In fact, I would go as far as saying it should be a part of your everyday life.

I go through my closet and reorganize the clothes quite often. So when I began going through everything recently, I didn’t have much to do. There weren’t many clothes that I needed to donate, but that wasn’t the case when it came to organizing my kid's closets.

I’ve always taught my kids the value of donating to those in need. When they were really young, like around six or seven years old, we would reorganize their room together and they would give me the things that they wanted to donate. Now that they’re much older, they take the things they want to donate and put it in the donation area.

So when it came to organizing their closets, a lot of the clothes were set aside to donate. This is not only a great way to get rid of all the clothes you don’t want anymore, but it also frees up closet space and gives those clothes to someone in need.

Organizing Hangers

When I told my kids I was going to help them clean their closets, they were pretty excited about it. I started in my son’s room first, and if there’s one thing you need to know about his closet set-up, it’s the fact that everything he owns (except for socks and underwear, etc.) is hung up in the closet.

However, a large part of his closet consisted of empty hangers that took up way too much space. So, the very first thing I did was take all of the empty hangers and put them in a laundry basket. I made sure that all of the hangers faced the same direction because as you know, hangers love to get tangled together.

Putting your empty hangers in a laundry basket is great because it gives you more free space on the rod and you can just grab a hanger whenever you need one.

Keep Vs. Donate

To keep or not to keep? – that is the question!

One of the biggest decisions you’ll make when you clean out your closet is deciding which clothes you want to keep and which you wish to donate. When I help my kids go through their closets, I hold each item of clothing up high for them to evaluate. They look at it and decide its fate with a simple “yes” or “no” response. It’s a quick process of elimination and I go through the clothes super-fast for two reasons:

  1. I don’t want this to take forever
  2. I know kids can get bored

All of the clothes that they want to keep are hung up in the closet and all of the clothes they want to get rid of are put into trash bags for donation. Instead of carrying all the bags downstairs and into the car, I tie a tight knot at the top and take them to the top of the stairs and I roll them down! It saves a lot of time and energy because I don’t have to keep running up and down the stairs – plus, it’s just fun to roll things down the stairs!

Sorting The Clean Laundry

The next step is to go through all of the clean laundry items and sort out the pieces of clothing in the same way as we did before. This is where you’ll look at each piece of clothing and decide if you want to keep it or donate it to Goodwill.

While you organize your closet, you should keep in mind whether or not you plan on buying any new clothes soon. For example, my son needs new white long sleeve t-shirts for college, so we ended up donating his old ones because we knew that we were going to add a bunch of new t-shirts to his closet very soon.

As we organized the clean laundry, I held up each piece and again, my kids answered either “yes” or “no.” Anything that they wanted to keep went back into the closet. And anything they wanted to donate went into the donation bags – and yes, we rolled them down the stairs again!

Organizing Closet Shelves

My daughter's closet has multiple shelves that I built for her when she was much younger. Back then, she would use them to store her toys, but now she uses them to store her clothes. So when we were in the process of organizing her closet, we used the shelves to store other pieces of clothing that she didn’t want to hang up including her leggings, workout clothes, soft shorts, etc.

We hung everything else up in the closet and put the winter clothes on one rod and the spring/summer clothes on the other rod. We then took small bins or storage boxes and used them to store things like socks, underwear, swimwear, and things that she can grab whenever she needs them.

And there you have it, the easy (and speedy) way of organizing your closet!

I hope you have fun going through your clothes. And if you have a dresser drawer in your room, you can arrange it in the same way. But instead of hanging the clothes you want to keep in the closet, you fold them up and put them into your dresser – simple!

Next week, I will be talking about collections, toys, and sharing your bedroom. :)

Remember to sign up for the Back To School Blitz!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/236

Direct download: Org365-236.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

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

Before I get into this week’s topic, I have TWO very exciting announcements for you!

First, this is your LAST chance to register for the Organize 365 National Convention! That’s right, tickets are almost sold out, and registration for the event closes at midnight on May 29th – so make sure to click here to learn more and sign up!

The second announcement is for all the teachers out there and anyone who feels like once the school year starts, their head starts spinning! If this sounds like you, the 100 Day Home Organization Double Time is EXACTLY what you’ve been looking for. It cuts the time of the 100 Day Program in half, which means you can get it done TWICE as fast!

Don’t miss out on this one time offer! There are just 120 slots available! So, if you miss out this time, you’ll have to wait until August to sign up. If you manage to get your hands on one of these treasures, you’ll receive the current planner AND the brand-new planner that we’re launching in August – now that’s what I call a real VIP experience!

Registration for the 100 Day Home Organization Double Time opens Friday May 25th and ends on May 29th at midnight or until the 120 slots have been claimed. Once they are gone, they are gone!

If you want to be one of the first people to try the 100 Day Home Organization Double Time Program, click here to sign up!

Now, onto setting your summer goals!

Summer Is Coming!

Summer is just around the corner and most of you are probably busy packing your suitcases and planning your summer vacation. It’s an exciting time of the year. I know I’m really looking forward to planning my summer and spending more time with my family.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like summer is the dreamiest season of the year? Do you know what I mean? Things just seem to merge together and before you know it, you’re right back at the start of the school year again and you’ve no idea where the time went. Weird, right?

Well, I think I’ve gotten to the bottom of it. Let me share how you can reach your summer goals without fail – I promise.

Try Not To Have Too Many Goals This Summer

When you think ahead to the summer, it’s tempting to overestimate just how much you can get done. I’ve always thought of July as the “Bermuda Triangle” of months. Nothing happens in July. It’s almost impossible to get any work done and I can’t explain why.

Instead of giving yourself a hard time because you “failed” to reach all of your summer goals, take a step back and realize that it’s okay! It’s okay that you didn’t get the kitchen painted this summer or that you didn’t have time to declutter your closet – give yourself a break, it’s summer after all!

I think one of the main issues we all run into over the summer is the mistake of setting too many goals for ourselves in such a short space of time.

Summer is very short, and it’s very spontaneous. One minute you could be focused on organizing your kitchen and the next thing you know, you’re running down the street in your flip-flops trying to sniff out where that delicious smell of BBQ'd ribs is coming from – unplanned things just happen.

Give yourself the grace from the beginning and know that you’re not going to get a ton of goals accomplished in the summer – and learn to be okay with it.

Set Yourself One Or Two Goals MAX

I always try and focus on one specific area of my life over the summer. Sometimes, I might go as far as assigning myself two goals for the entire summer, but it’s okay to have just the one.

Here is a glimpse into a few of my previous summer goals throughout the years:

In 2015, I decided to focus my summer on improving my personal health and working on my marriage. I walked 10,000 steps per day and invested in having more one-on-one time with my husband. We spent summer nights talking outside on the patio, and that was the same summer we discovered (and binge-watched) the TV show “24.” It was an easy-going summer and one that I really enjoyed.

In 2016, I redesigned my websites because we had just launched the 100 Day Home Organization Program. A lot of my free time was spent in front of my computer screen. I decluttered my desktop, posts, and Pinterest boards, which helped me to have a real work-focused year with limited distractions and clutter.

In 2017, I focused on decluttering the house and began to work on redoing different spaces, such as the kid's bedrooms and our landscaping. This summer project grew more momentum and ran into the beginning of 2018 – we recently had our windows and doors replaced!

So now that you’ve heard all about my previous summer goals, I bet you’re thinking, “Great Lisa, but what are you focusing on this summer?”

Well, this summer, I’m going to focus on my kids.

My son is preparing to leave for college and will be moving into his own apartment, so we have to help him get ready and prepare his living quarters before he begins his studies.

My daughter also got her temporary license, so I’ll spend a lot of time driving with her and taking a few road trips to help her gain more confidence as a new driver.

What Is Your ‘BIG Summer Win?’

You’ve heard all about my summer goals, but now it’s time to start thinking about what YOU want to accomplish this summer. What “BIG WIN” do you want to achieve over the next few months?

The key here is to get as specific as possible with your big summer win. The more you can narrow it down to just one specific goal, the more likely you are to succeed.

I would love to hear your big goal for the summer so please share it with us in the Organize 365 Facebook Group or go over to Instagram and tag me on what your big summer priority is going to be – I can’t wait to see what you guys will be up to this summer!

Oh and don't forget... if you are ready to jumpstart your home organization journey, I would LOVE for you to join me in 100 Day Home Organization DOUBLE TIME. Registration is only open until Tuesday IF the planner supply lasts that long!

Join Here.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/230

Direct download: Org-365-230.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Before we get into the main topic of this week’s podcast episode, I have two time-sensitive subjects I want to share with you.

First, the Organize 365 National Convention will be held in Dallas from June 7th to June 9th. Ticket sales end at midnight on May 29th, so make sure you get yours while you still can! The tickets are selling FAST, so click here to get your ticket today!!

The second thing I’d like to discuss is the 100 Day Home Organization Program. Although it can be completed within 100 days, some of you may not be able to complete the program within the recommended time slot, and that’s okay. So, keeping this in mind, I’ve decided to reveal how you can do the 100 Day Home Organization Program in double time on next week’s podcast episode!

Now with that out of the way, let’s get into the meat of this week’s podcast episode!

This one is a little different from my usual podcasts because I’ll be focusing on the seasons of parenthood and how each one brings new changes to our organization routine.

My Mini Epiphany

The other day seemed ordinary enough, nothing that remarkable or exciting happened. I pulled into my driveway with my daughter, and at the same time, my husband Greg arrived home with the dog from daycare. Then, my son pulled up to the house. At that moment, we all arrived home together as a family – and I had an epiphany.

Okay, so it wasn’t like a mind-blowing ordeal where I discovered the true meaning of life or anything. But still, it made me realize something very important.

I’m happy.

It may seem like a throwaway thing to say but if you think about it, how often in our busy lives do we take a moment and appreciate what we have? How many times have you stopped to ask yourself, "Am I happy?"

It’s not as easy as it seems, right? And yet, that’s how I felt. Happy.

Seasons of Parenting

I’m the type of person who enjoys every season of parenting. I live in the moment.

My son Joey is leaving for college soon, and many people have told me that I’m going to be sad when he leaves. But I don’t think I will be that sad. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll miss him when he goes. But at the same time, I love seeing him grow up and going off to college is just another step in his journey.

If you’re a new parent, you’ll face many obstacles throughout your child’s life, and with each stage that passes, another will take its place. When you overcome these obstacles, your organizational strength will grow, and you’ll have the tools you need to prepare for the next challenge in life.

So, let’s take a look at each season from babyhood all the way through to your child graduating from high school (you may want to grab a tissue!)

The Early Years of Parenting

New parents face a great deal of change in the early years, especially in the baby, toddler, and pre-school stages. Babies are a handful, and they can quickly go from one diaper size to the next. You always need to change your stockpile of diapers and then you need to organize what your kids will eat and drink.

As you continue to expand your family, you’ll also develop your mental bandwidth to include not just yourself, but each additional little human that you’re responsible for.

Grade School: The Game Changer Year

When you have younger kids, your house can suddenly become overloaded with toys, clothes, and apparatus such as strollers and car seats, etc. But as the kids grow up, you can start to move the toys into their bedrooms and put the strollers and things into storage or give them to another family member if you don’t plan on using them yourself.

And once the kids go to all-day school, your home and organizational routine will change drastically.

This is a time that I like to call "The Game Changer Year."

It’s dramatic, I know. But seriously, when the kids are in school for most of the day, you’ll not only have more time for yourself, but you’ll also have more time to organize your home. Everything seems to flow a lot easier, and you can treat yourself to some quiet time now that the kids are off to school.

Even those of you at work while your kids are at school will notice a distinct difference in function of your home and the organizational progress you make will STAY!

FYI - I highly recommend taking a day or 2 off work while your children are at school to reclaim your home. :)

Middle School: Gaining Independence

Oh, middle school – how I’ve missed you!

If you didn’t know, I used to be a 7th and 8th-grade school math and science teacher, so forgive me if I get a little nostalgic thinking back to the good old days.

What I love about this age group is their ability to form their own opinions, and being able to witness their brains process change and develop as they progress through the school year.

Middle school is a time when kids are starting to become more independent in their actions.

High School: Graduation & College

Whether you love it or loathe it, high school is one of the most memorable times of a child’s life. Their independence starts to take shape, and they begin to think about driving and colleges.

I don’t know about you, but I love helping my kids take their beliefs, ideas, and unique talents and figuring out what it is that they want to do with their lives. It’s up to us as parents to launch our kids into adulthood with the tools and strategies they need to make decisions that will help them succeed and live a fulfilling, happy life.

Eventually, my kids will be done with college, and maybe someday they’ll get married, or they’ll travel around the world with their friends – and I’m really excited for all of it. I have enjoyed each season of parenting and the organization that goes along with it and I hope you do, too!

 

As I am typing this, I just received the final workbook for the Organize 365 National Convention in Dallas from June 7th to June 9th. Oh my goodness, is it chock full of productivity, goal setting, and personal development! It brings tears to my eyes as I envision those of us attending being transformed and connected in ways only a live event can.

I know many of you have immovable plans, but if you are still thinking... maybe I should. You SHOULD! You will not regret it! Come see me!

Register at www.organize365.com/Dallas.

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/229

Direct download: Org365-229.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Spring break isn’t just for kids. Adults need a breath of fresh air every so often to recharge their batteries and diminish work-related stress and anxiety.

Taking a spontaneous break isn’t something I do very often, but the more I live a truly organized life, the clearer I can see the patterns of how to breed more productivity in organization and a large part of this is taking the time to relax, unwind, and de-stress.

My impromptu adult spring break adventure began a few weeks ago without me even realizing it until I was mid-way through the week!

I share my story on this week’s podcast episode and it begins with replacing the windows in my home. I know what you’re thinking, what does something as mundane as windows have to do with spring break? As it turns out, deciding to upgrade my windows kick-started a week of relaxation and organizing because it gave me the opportunity to take some time off work.

Upgrading Our Windows

Greg and I had been thinking about moving for some time, but we finally decided against it and focused on renovating and upgrading our current home instead.

Our old wooden windows were once the envy of the neighborhood back in 1986. But that was over three decades ago and they are no longer functioning.

The entire process took three days. Although this didn’t bother us much, our dog Hunter wasn’t pleased since he had to get shipped to doggy daycare until the workers were done.

Even though all of this work would be going on in the house, I knew I couldn’t take a break from my work schedule. However, I also knew that the workers would be replacing the windows in both of my kid’s bedrooms and trying to walk through the room to reach those windows would be almost impossible!

There was one clear solution – I had to take a break from work (if only for a few hours) and clean my kids' rooms so the workers could cross the threshold to reach the windows.

Cleaning & Organizing The Kids' Rooms

Since both of my kids are teenagers and their rooms are more like mini apartments than bedrooms, let’s just say that I don’t go in there very often!

But on this occasion, I didn’t have a choice. I took the morning off work and assigned myself an hour and a half to clean each room. I stuck to my schedule and finished both rooms on time, but when I finished cleaning, I didn’t feel like working.

If you know me, you’ll know that I always feel like working. However, Monday passed, and then Tuesday came and went, and I still didn’t feel like working.

My Adult Spring Break

By the time Wednesday arrived, it hit me. I had scheduled my own spring break! Granted, most of you probably would prefer to go on a sunny vacation for spring break, and the idea of cleaning your kid’s rooms and organizing the inventory sounds like work. But for me, it’s heaven!

I spent a large part of my spring break creating and organizing my Household Reference, Household Operations, Financial and Medical Binders. I even revealed how I arranged them and I also recorded a podcast series that you can listen to on The Sunday Basket Podcast.

When I wasn’t organizing my binders, I was out shopping with my family and getting things done that I usually didn’t have time to do.

Finding The Time To Organize

We all live such busy lives that it can be challenging to find the time to organize anything. The more I started to think about a week-long adult spring break, the more I was convinced that this is something I’m going to do every year.

My Sunday Basket and 100 Day Home Organization Program with 100 Day Productive Home Planner saves me a minimum of five hours per week. It helps me to organize and plan by season – which is much more practical than planning for the entire year in advance because life always gets in the way of our plans.

By planning your schedule every 100 days, you can carve out pockets of time for yourself so you can spend your time wisely and get more done.

Find out how you can live a more organized and happy life by joining us at the Organize 365 National Convention. It’s going to be an awesome experience and I would love to have you there. Grab your tickets here before they sell out!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/227

Direct download: Org365-227.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I took Gretchen Ruben’s Four Tendencies quiz and discovered that I’m a Questioner.

I say "discovered," but I guess it’s not that much of a surprise at all.

Did you take the Four Tendencies quiz and find out what you are?

A couple of weeks ago here in Cincinnati, Ohio, I had the Sunday Basket® Workshop Certified Organizers in town for a boot camp. I told them that I had recorded the podcast with Gretchen Ruben and so they took the Four Tendencies quiz. We found out that the majority of them are Obligers. We also had a few Questioners in the mix, though I don’t think we had any Rebels or Upholders.

So I think the majority of people who listen to my podcast are probably Obligers or Questioners. And as a Questioner myself, I know that being a Questioner is not an easy road.

Questioners are analytical.

I’m going to tell you about my questioning tendencies and how it relates to the Organize 365 products I develop. Instead of using the term Questioner, I’ve always said that I’m very analytical. So I think people who are very analytical are probably a Questioner on Gretchen Ruben’s scale.

Also, I think your personality comes into play, because you can be a contrary Questioner or you can be a productive Questioner. I’m a productive Questioner. I question and I analyze so that I can get an end result or so that I can help others get an end result. That is my overarching questioning–ness. I question something to figure out how to solve a problem.

My ultimate goal as a teacher, educator, coach, motivator, parent, and human being is to solve problems and help people achieve the end result that they have for themselves. So I am a Questioner, an analyzer, in order to get you to the end result that you desire.

Obligers & Questioners

I think the majority of you up to this point have been Obligers, but in March I think I had some Questioners on the 100 Day Home Organization Program wait list! I got a couple of emails that asked, "Why are you making me wait? This is ridiculous. Here is my money, let me in please. Can I have the program? I don’t want to wait a month." I literally got three of those emails in one week!

I do not promote the 100 Day Home Organization Program every day of the year. I promote it for ten days, three different times of the year, when I know you will have the best end result of jumping into it. Now, I analyzed this quite a bit. I do not need the external motivation that an Obliger needs.

My goal for Organize 365 is to get you to your desired end result which is an organized home. And as an educator, and a teacher, and an analyzer, I know that your best chance for success is to start in September, in January, and in April. You’ll get as far as you possibly can because you’ll be going with the natural energy of the year.

However, I know that doesn’t work for everyone. And so in the future on the wait list page at the bottom, there’ll be a button that says, “Can’t wait, click here.” If you just took that quiz and you’re an Obliger, you wait until September and you start with everybody else. You will have so much more success with the 100 Day Home Organization Program if you’re doing the weekly Facebook Lives and if you’re in the Facebook Group because everybody is doing the same thing which will help you get to your end result of organizing your house.

The next round of the 100 Day Home Organization Program starts on MONDAY! And... I have opened registration for those of you who keep emailing trying to get in. :)

You can sign up through the new store here... https://organize-365.myshopify.com/

(Your planner will get there by FRIDAY.)

An Update On The Sunday Basket® Club

We started the Sunday Basket® Club because a bunch of you Obligers came to me and said that you needed to pay a monthly fee so you would do your Sunday Basket®. And you said you wanted a Sunday Basket® class. I want you to have excellent value when you put money into Organize 365. When you pay for something at Organize 365, I want you to say at the end, “Oh, my gosh, it was worth so much more than that!”

So, I price accordingly. I price for the value that is in the product, but I also price so that when you’re done, you realize you got even more than you expected.

With the Sunday Basket® Club, I was going to do twice-a-month training sessions on how to organize your paper, which I started doing in January. But I quickly realized that people were joining in February and not getting January’s "how to get started with organizing your paper." There’s an order to it that was missing.

So… introducing the new Sunday Basket® Club! It’s $99 a year. You can do the Sunday Basket® on Sundays with Monique and Ryan, and then every other Monday night, is a Facebook Live Q & A, just like in the 100 Day Home Organization Program. It’s an opportunity for you to tell me what you want to hear by telling me what questions you have about your paper.

For Questioners, simplicity comes at the end when you’ve decided what the answers to your questions are. That’s how we get simplicity. So go ahead, ask me all the questions you want in the Sunday Basket® Club!

I Want To Get You Results

We are constantly analyzing and tweaking. Part of why I say, “Progress, not perfection” is because as a Questioner, I know there’s no perfect. If you give me something that’s perfect, I’m going to question it.

I want you to get the best end result and that is why I do everything that I do. I want to give you all of the options so you can get the end result of getting your house organized. And sometimes, you see too many choices so you can’t make a decision in order to get to your end result. I am trying to tailor my products to what you need.

So that’s a sneak peek into how a Questioner thinks and why I make changes. Every change I make is to benefit you.

The 100 Day Home Organization Program hasn’t changed in years. I am going to make it available on demand in the future, but I’m still going to do the launch model because that’s what works for the majority of my audience.

Next week, we’re going to dive into physical products and the highs and lows of creating them!

And there’s still time to join me in Dallas, Texas for the Organize 365 National Convention on June 7-9, 2018! I can’t wait to meet you and give you a BIG hug!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/224

Direct download: Org365-224.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

You asked and I listened. This week on the podcast, I’m thrilled to welcome author Gretchen Rubin.

Gretchen is one of the most influential writers in the world on human nature. She hosts an award-winning podcast and her best-selling books have been published in 30 countries and sold over 3 million copies!

On the podcast, we talked about Gretchen’s most recent book, The Four Tendencies, and how your personality type relates to getting your home organized.

Which Personality Type Are You?

Gretchen explained that the The Four Tendencies are four different personality types:

  • Upholder
  • Questioner
  • Obliger
  • Rebel

You can probably tell which one you are just from the name! But if you want to take the survey for free, visit gretchenrubin.com.

Gretchen explained that these personality types vary depending on what motivates you. We’re all motivated by two main kinds of expectations:

  • Outer Expectations: such as a work deadline or request from a friend
  • Inner Expectations: our own desire to do things

Upholders readily meet both types of expectations. Questioners question all expectations, so they'll only do something if they're convinced it makes sense. They make everything an inner expectation and object to anything they see as inefficient or irrational.

Then there are Obligers, those who readily meet outer expectations (things other people want), but struggle to meet inner ones (the things they want). I think there are a lot of you out there!

Finally, there are Rebels, those who resist all expectations, both outer and inner.

Obliger is the most common type of tendency, with Rebel and Upholder being least common.

Listen to the podcast to find out which tendency I have. Hint: No one guessed it correctly on Facebook!

Making The Sunday Basket® Work For Your Personality Type

I enjoyed telling Gretchen about the Sunday Basket® and it was interesting to unravel that it’s my Obliger audience who were saying, "We need you to go through the Sunday Basket® with us on Sunday."

I’m so pleased that I created the Sunday Basket® Club to give people the outer accountability that they need.

How Does Personality Type Affect Home Organization?

I think we have all of the tendencies in our family of 4! So how does this help us to get our homes organized, especially when dealing with the variety of tendencies in our family?

I listened with great interest to Gretchen’s advice on how to get the home organized when taking personality types into account.

Gretchen explained that a big problem for Obligers is that they often struggle to delegate tasks. Do you recognize this tendency in yourself? This is where it helps to have people hold you accountable.

Another great tip that Gretchen gave is one that I’ve heard myself say before… if you want to clean out the spare room, invite guests. That may well be the only thing that you need to do!

Your Habits = Your Identity

Like Dr Phil always used to say – You have an identity from being cluttered, but then you get organized and you have a new identity. So you have to really focus on that. Once you become organized, you ARE living a different kind of life.

We don't realize how much of our life is habitual.

This is why both mine and Gretchen’s podcasts ask so many questions. It's to help people think about making choices and changing habits.

I LOVED talking to Gretchen. She concluded on the show that if we have habits that work for us, we're much more likely to be healthier, happier, and more creative.

 

Hey, have you signed up to join me in Dallas, Texas for the Organize 365 National Convention? I can’t wait to meet you and give you a BIG hug!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/223

Direct download: Org365-223.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I want to share with you three reasons that I am an ultra-productive person. Productivity is definitely a mindset and a way that I was just inherently hard-wired for, but it is something you can learn.

#1 Productive People Don't Waste Any Time

You might be thinking, “Well, duh. I don’t waste time either.” But it’s more than just not wasting time. I see time as my friend and I am in complete control of my time.

This mindset shift alone will take a while for you to cultivate, especially if you’re thinking it can’t work for your circumstances. It is a mindset.

Along with not wasting time, I reorganize my time - all the time. I see my day as blocks of time, but because I’m in control of all of my time, I move things around.

#2 Productive People Are Results Oriented

I didn’t realize until recently how I do a to-do list and how an unproductive person does a to-do list. If you watched both of us doing our to-do lists, we would both look equally busy and look like we were getting the same amount done. But at the end of the day, my to-do list is done and you feel like you never got started on your to-do list.

Here’s the difference. I measure my success each day in finished products, not actionable work. Busyness gets me nowhere.

Productive people are not busy, they are producing. That is the big distinguisher. You have to stop some of your busyness in order to get an end result, which means you have to know where you’re going.

When you look at the whole day at the end of the day, what did you actually get finished? What did you get done? What have you produced?

Productive people are measuring what we are finishing and producing, not how we are spending our time.

#3 Productive People Follow Tried And True Action Plans

The biggest secret about productivity is that it is all about experimenting and creating habits. That is what productive people do. They try, they analyze, they look at their results and then they tweak and tweak.

Productive people follow tried and true action plans. Whenever I have something new in business that I have never done before, I try to find somebody who has done that and I ask them what people they use, what system do they use, what is their process? I may tweak that for my own business, or I may tweak that for my own productivity or where it fits best in my schedule, but I don’t start everything from scratch.

The 100 Day Home Organization Program was developed by a professional organizer (me!) who took all of the spaces in your house, divided them into an organized chart, and then created the order in which you organize them according to the areas where you spend the most time and the areas of the house you have the most control.

The 100 Day Home Organization Program WORKS!

If you are looking to PRODUCE an ORGANIZE home, follow this system. ;)

Being A Productive Person

The things that I do that make me a very productive person are I don’t waste any time and I feel that my time is in my control. I am results oriented, not busyness focused, and I follow tried and true action plans to get the results I want.

If you are looking for a way to end up feeling 100 days from now that your house is more organized, I really do think that the 100 Day Home Organization Program is the solution for you. We would love to have you join us.

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/222

Direct download: Org365-222.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

This week’s podcast episode is about the 100 Day Home Organization Program which is now open for registration!

Many of you listen to my podcast for a solid six months or more before you believe that you can become organized.

Eventually you try the Sunday Basket® and attend a Sunday Basket® Workshop. After 6-8 weeks of using the Sunday Basket®, you wonder why you waited so long.

Then, the intrigue sets in – would the 100 Day Home Organization Program work for me?

Yes, IF you aknowledge these two things...

First, it will take you a full calendar year, three times through the 100 Day Home Organization Program, to become fully organized… you can do it… and it works!

Second, you have to be willing to make an investment. An investment of your time, money and motivation. A big part of the transformation starts with the transaction. What you pay for, you value and you take it more seriously.

I Liken The Program To Montessori Learning

On the podcast, I share an email that I received from Marcy who likened my methods to the classical model for education (the grammar, dialectic and rhetoric stage). Marcy made so many great points and this intrigued me as it’s not something I was aware I was doing.

This got me thinking about Montessori teaching methods, something that I’m very familiar with having worked as a Montessori teacher.

In a Montessori classroom, students are grouped by three year age groupings and not by grade. Over the course of three years in the same classroom, children interact with students 3 years older and 3 years younger than themselves. All teachers in the classroom teach all age groups. You get a real depth of education because you are with different age groups throughout your education. You learn how to be mentored and how to be a mentor.

Another key aspect of Montessori is it repeats the curriculum over and over at a different level. The same presentations are delivered to children, but expectations are different based on their age. Kids move at their own pace, as long as the work gets done. They can deep dive into the topics they love the most and there is no limit – peers do not hold individuals back.

When I worked as a middle school Montessori teacher, I always made sure that I incorporated what was going on in the real world into the classroom.

This is very similar to how I teach in the podcast. I am very thoughtful about what I teach and when. I want to meet you where you are.

I teach three steps to getting organized.

  1. Declutter
  2. Organize
  3. Increase productivity

Click on the links above to listen to my popular podcast episodes on each.

By repeating the 100 Day Home Organization Program over and over agian, the amount of time you spend on each stage will change.

The first time you do the program, you’ll spend most of your time decluttering. Give yourself grace. You must take pressure off yourself. The expectation is that you’re going to start taking some action. You may not get through the full 100 days your first time (not many people do!).

If you start the program now, your second time through will begin in September. The organizing energy in September is really strong! You will spend more time on organizing from September to December the second time you go through the 100 Day Home Organization Program.

Newsflash, you will not believe what you didn’t get rid of the first time! You can never get rid of as much as you need to because your mind won’t let you.

But when you get to the point where you have empty space, this will rock your world!

Empty spaces can feel strange. In round two, you will learn to start living with a few empty spaces.

January 1, 2019, you’ll start your third time through the program – this is when you’ll be doing 50% organizing and 50% productivity. People LOVE productivity. But in order to get productive, you have to declutter and organize first.

Join The 100 Day Home Organization Program!

Registration for the 100 Day Home Organization Program is open now until April 3rd.

I can't wait to help you GET organized!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/221

Direct download: Org365-221.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Hold on tight folks – it’s about to get emotional!

This week on the podcast, I talk about how to manage items related to your hopes, dreams, and memories that are still in storage.

The Hot Mess Room Challenge

As my podcast episodes related to the Hot Mess Room Challenge series draws to a conclusion, I’m still in the middle of organizing all of my crafts! Organize 365 is my passion now so I no longer need to keep all of my crafts. It is time for them to go.

If you’re in the Hot Mess Room Challenge, you’ve already been watching a lot of videos in my storage room. If you’re not and you would like to be, click here. It’s a free 28-day program with printables, an ebook, and all of the videos.

In an ideal world, I would love for my storage room to look like it should at the end of the Hot Mess Room Challenge. Guess what, though? It doesn’t look great yet and it probably won’t look like that ...ever.

The reason? It’s often because it takes us up to 3 times or more to go through a space to get it to a point where you’d want to share the finished result with anyone, let alone announce it on Pinterest!

Tackling Difficult Memories

Our storage room is full of memories.

There are many items in my storage room that remind me of the future that I thought I’d be living.

They represent an unusual kind of loss because the items aren’t attached to the loss of people or money. Instead, they represent a future that I thought I would have, but haven’t yet, or that I know will never happen.

We all have hopes, dreams, ambitions, and pictures of our future that don’t materialize in the ways we thought they would. It doesn’t make it bad. It doesn’t make it good. It is just the reality of our current situation.

Are there items in your storage that remind you of…

  • The mom or woman you thought you’d be?
  • The person you thought you’d marry?
  • The lifestyle you thought you’d have?
  • The career you thought you’d have?
  • The free time you thought you’d have?

These are difficult, but important questions.

Often, we’re not holding onto things for financial reasons. Instead, we feel that if we keep them, then one day that dream or ambition may come true.

Flip Your Mindset

Instead of focusing on what may have been, focus on what you have. For me, I never thought I’d have a dog, but here I am with Hunter and I couldn’t imagine a world without him.

What do you have that you didn’t think you would?

I never imagined that I could talk to people from my bedroom and inspire others to change their life based on their goals, hopes, and dreams to get organized.

I’m teaching and using my gifts in ways that I never imagined I would. However, it was extremely hard to get rid of all my teaching supplies. Giving up on my dream of owning a day-care center was a process. It took me years to let my teaching license lapse and let my supplies go.

A Yard Sale, Charity Event & Party All In One!

It’s wonderful to receive your emails and see the successes that you’re achieving when you’re getting your homes in order.

On the podcast this week, I had to share Lynn’s story because I LOVE it! She was debating over what to do with all of the things that she no longer needed and she finally settled on a yard sale in her basement.

Everything was free, but people were asked to make donations to charity. She was partying with her friends in the kitchen while people were taking things away and at the same time donating to help others. After 2 hours, most of the items were gone and she’d made over $800 to donate to a local charity. She told me how good it felt on all levels.

Supply & Demand

Steph emailed me to share that smaller families may be the reason why people don’t want to inherit so much stuff anymore. With parents tending to have fewer children these days, we often don’t battle with siblings for nostalgic mementos like we may have done in the past.

Mind blown! She’s absolutely right. It’s certainly true for when my sister and I were going through the family home as there was so many things and only the two of us to sort and acquire them.

Take A Deep Breath & Start

I really want you to look at the things you are storing and ask yourself whether you really need it... BUT at the same time, give yourself more grace if required. Maybe it’s time to get rid of things, but equally, maybe it’s not. It could be that you just needed to hear the words this time and then the next time we talk about it, that’ll be the time to take action.

We know that intellectually we need to get rid of things, but it’s the physical and emotional ties that hold us back from getting rid of things until the third or fourth time.

Previous Podcast Episodes

The main podcast episodes that I recommend you listen to, where I talk about my own childhood memories and how to deal with items when someone passes away, are:

Next week, I am sharing how the 100 Day Home Organization Program is like Montessori Education.

Which is appropriate as I am here in Texas this weekend at the Home School Convention. Education is on my mind. :)

I will also be stopping by the Hotel for the Organize 365 National Convention on June 7-9, 2018. All the party plans are humming along.

AND... I'm visiting the 1000+ Sunday Baskets that just arrived this week. I have to go see all my basket babies! Thanks so much for following along on my journey and supporting the new Organize 365 Store!

 

You may have noticed that I’m not on Facebook as much these days. It’s become so complicated! While I still have a business page and a personal account, please know that everything that I record goes into the Organize 365 Facebook Group - it’s a great free resource. If you’re not in this group, why not?! Head on over and sign up.

What I really enjoy about the Facebook Group is the shared conversations you all have with each other.

It’s great when you post questions and success stories as the whole Organize 365 team LOVE's to see what you’re doing and share it with our wonderful community.

I really like Instagram and, in particular, I love Instastories! Click here to follow me on Instagram.

You’ll often see me posting quick snippets of my life and they’re only available for 24 hours.

If Instagram isn't your thing, you can also see my Instastories on Facebook Stories, as well.

Speaking of Sunday Basket®s, if you love the system and are looking for a way to make a little money on the side, or to drive clients to your existing professional organizing business, please consider coming alongside the already 50 strong team of Sunday Basket® Workshop Organizers! Why now?

You can join between now and April 1, 2018 for a $500 one time fee and a yearly renewal of $250.

Starting April 1, the one time fee goes up to $745, so get in now and save!

50% of the professional organizers on the Organize 365 Sunday Basket® Workshop Organizer Team say they have received a new professional organizing client at their FIRST WORKSHOP. You can learn more about becoming a Sunday Basket® Workshop Organizer and/or sign up here: https://organize365.com/become-licensed-sunday-basket-workshop-provider/

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/220

Direct download: Org365-220-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Does your home ever feel like a craft store?! This week on the podcast, I talk all about how to get your crafts in order so you can create space and have more time to enjoy doing the things you love.

One of the reasons I’ve not tackled the hot mess room on the podcast so far is precisely because it’s a hot mess room and it’s overwhelming!

When there’s so much in there, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and not really know where to begin, especially when you’re listening to my podcast episodes but then can’t physically see the things you should be sorting. Because of this, I’m here to try and teleport myself into your space and give us the chance to tackle this together in the most logical way possible.

Start With The End In Mind

Imagine for a moment that we could stop time and you could have seven full days to dedicate solely to working on your craft. Obviously, it’s not practical in the real world, but it’s a great starting point to look at all of your crafts and work out exactly what you could and would want to use in that time. This will form the basis for everything we do to organize your crafts.

It’s most likely that you’ll have enough crafts to keep you going for seven years rather than seven days. Therefore, it’s going to take you more than seven days just to organize it, let alone start enjoying it! You need to have this reality check. Otherwise, you’re setting up for unrealistic expectations – and we all know I’m the queen of those!

My Scrapbook Downsizing

I have always loved scrapbooking and making photo albums. As a result, I’ve accumulated LOTS of supplies over many years. I came the realize that I didn’t need all of those supplies anymore. I simply don’t scrapbook as much as I used to.

It this week’s podcast episode, I explain how I managed to reduce my craft supplies from taking up two very large closets in the basement to one armoire in the loft.

Why am I telling you this? It’s so you can clearly see how I went from having supplies for a full-time business to supplies that will support me making one or two albums a year.

Letting Go Of The Stamping & Counted Cross Stitch

Similar to my scrapbooking supplies, I used to have A LOT of stamping supplies which I have now condensed to hardly any at all (just a small shoe box versus the whole bookcase that I used to have).

My mother is an artist and makes wonderful rubber stamp cards. Because mom did it, I bought hundreds of rubber stamps and ALL the associated supplies. I was decluttering last summer when I realized that I hadn’t stamped in 15 years. I was only keeping them because:

  1. I’d spent a lot of money on them
  2. The looked super cute
  3. They sat on the gorgeous piece of furniture that my late grandfather had made

I did two things. First, I chose 20 stamps to keep for future projects and I sent the rest to my mom to use and give to others. Second, I took the stamp holder off the wall and offered it to my sister. She was delighted to accept it as she now got something that grandpa had made and she had a use for it.

I did the same with counted cross stitch. I used to LOVE counted cross stitch, but I came to realize that I haven’t done a project in 17 years. I can’t imagine a time when I’m going to do one again any time soon, but I CAN see a time in the distant future when I will pick this hobby back up. So I’ve kept a couple of hoops and all my flosses are in order for when this time comes, but it’s in a small box that’s easy to store.

Allow Yourself To Let Go

Scrapbooking , stamping, and counted cross stitch are examples of crafts that I used to be really into, but am less so now. Similar to what I did, ask yourself if you’re still really into something and if not, adjust the amount of supplies that you hold onto.

As you’re looking at your craft and reliving the memories of the interest in that craft, ask yourself:

  1. What is your current need, desire, and excitement for this craft?
  2. What is your future need, excitement, and desire for this craft?

Only keep the things you really need and give 90% away! It may not be exactly 90%, but I guarantee you it will be around that amount. You do not need to keep a lot.

Sometimes an advancement in technology makes your craft redundant. My stamps are a great example of this. They’re wooden, but modern ones are clear and much easier to use. If you want to revisit a hobby later, invest a bit of money in new things. Don’t be held back by the old things that you’re storing. Just because you’ve held onto them doesn’t mean you have to use them forever.

Speaking of projects...

OH MY GOODNESS! We have so many new products and opportunities coming out THIS WEEKEND I can't even stand it!!

If you are following me on Instagram or Facebook be ready for LOTS of videos. :)

I can't even decide what I am the most excited about!!

First, I am so happy to announce that the BINDERS ARE IN!

That's right! They are finally ready!

There are five binders currently available - Financial, Medical, Household Reference, Household Operations, and Kids School Memories.

You are going to LOVE THEM!

and... the Official Sunday Baskets® are IN!

I can't even believe my dream is coming true!

If you have already participated in the Sunday Basket® Workshop, you will want to get your Official Organize 365 Sunday Basket® to accompany your slash pockets!

If you haven't yet, we are now offering a special Sunday Basket® Kit for only $97 which includes the virtual Sunday Basket® Bundle 1.0 & 2.0 AND your very own Sunday Basket®!

SHOP HERE

As always, thank you for all you do as the heartbeat of Organize 365.

I love hearing from all of you and am always cheering you on from the sidelines as you take control of your life - one room, one pile of paper at a time.

Happy Organizing!

 

... Still reading?!

Then you are a SUPER fan!

Have you signed up to join me in Dallas, Texas for the Organize 365 National Convention? I can’t wait to meet you and give you a BIG hug!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/219

Direct download: Org365-219-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Welcome to the Hot Mess Room Series - Week 2!

It’s time to sort through all of those items that you’ve been hanging onto without ever knowing where they’re likely to eventually end up.

Storage is essential, but it can quickly get out of control. It’s time to ask yourself two simple questions…

  1. Will I use this item 1-4 times a year?
  2. Is this item saved for a specific person, for a specific date in the future?

If you can answer yes, the item can stay. If it’s a no, it’s time for it to go. Storing things that you need is fine, and the more organized you get, the more you’ll appreciate a well-functioning storage room.

My free 28-day organizational program on this topic goes into much more detail. Listen to my previous podcast for more information and you can sign up for it here.

The number one goal for storage is to ask yourself if an item is something that you’re ever going to use. This applies to your items and the items that you are storing for others.

I covered so many different things in this podcast including gifts, wrapping, furniture, home repair items, sports & entertainment equipment, cleaning supplies, kitchen supplies, toys, home decor, children's storage, making money, and clothing.

You can read all about it in the blog post here.

The Series

I know that organizing a hot mess room doesn’t happen overnight so I’m creating this 4-episode podcast series to tackle things. This is Part Two. Last week, we laid the foundation and over the next two weeks we will cover:

  • Craft organization
  • Sorting memories and dreams for the future

If you’re not already doing the 28-day challenge, then WHY NOT?! It’s a completely free program and you can start at any time.

Sign up to start your journey here.

Join me in Dallas, Texas for the Organize 365 National Convention on June 7-9, 2018! I can’t wait to meet you and give you a BIG hug!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/218

Direct download: Org365-218-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Take a deep breath – it’s time to get your hot mess room in order!

This is one of the most requested podcast topics fro me to cover. If it helps, it was equally overwhelming for me to think about how I was going to inspire and motivate you to sort it out.

What I finally realized was, you needed a 28 day course. And I didn't want money to be the reason you didn't tackle this already overwhelming space. So I created a FULL 28 day course complete with a 25 page eBook, 9 full color printables, and 28 daily emails with actionable tasks and daily videos or podcasts to keep you going.You can get the WHOLE course FREE here.

Over the next 4 podcasts, I’m going to tackle your out of control storage area head on. Buckle up and get ready for the ride!

Whether it’s the storage room, garage, spare bedroom, or even your entire house, there’s always going to be things that you just don’t know what to do with.

As things build up in one space, they become a jigsaw puzzle. It’s your job to try and work out what items should go where. To move forward, you need to realize what’s actually in there and then once you’ve achieved that, you can sort it out.

There’s two reasons why you have a hot mess room…

  1. You have a lack of time (and decision-making capabilities)
  2. You have a lack of space

Lack Of Time

There’s always something that will be more important to distract you from addressing the hot mess room.

The reason that things are in there in the first place is because you don’t know what you want to do with them. They’re all there because you don’t want to deal with them. If you did want to deal with them, you would have!

Lack Of Space

Your goal is to have a functioning and organized storage area. The logistics of this will depend on your individual situation.

If you have a garage and basement and lots of available space to fill, you may need to make tough decisions to reduce the amount of possessions you are storing.

If you live in a smaller space, the reason that you may have a hot mess room is because you literally don’t have a storage area at all.

When we pick houses, we often don’t make our purchasing decisions based on storage even though it’s something that we all need.

Storage is a natural by-product of life. We all need a certain amount of stuff and that is absolutely fine.

Depending on your circumstances, you may need an off-site storage facility. There’s nothing wrong with this.

Here are 3 good examples of when this may be necessary…

  1. When two families blend together, especially if children are involved
  2. When you downsize, but the kids are still using the house as a storage facility
  3. If you move to an area where you don’t have a garage or basement

Make Storage Work For You

Since I started offering physical products, I’ve really had to think about the organizational logistics for myself and the wider team. Initially, we used the Home Depot shelving in the garage to store everything and this very quickly expanded to include an off-site storage facility.

This worked, but it wasn’t ideal. As it got colder, we realized that a physical office with a door would be more appropriate for our needs.

In all of these spaces, we used the Home Depot shelving – there were lots of trips to the store!

The key to organization is to ensure that it works for your needs. If it doesn’t, change it, find a better solution, and move on.

The System

Whatever your system, start from an empty space for the optimum organization. The more uniform, the better. Your shelving and storage need to be neat, tidy, and clearly accessible.

I personally use the HDX ventilated 24” deep shelving from Home Depot. I love that it is heavy duty yet very flexible and lightweight. (How to set up your storage room and the exact products I use are in the the WHOLE course FREE here.)

It works for basements, storage facilities, garages, and even attics because it is so adaptable in height. It’s the system I LOVE for setting up a storage room.

If space is limited, you can place folding tables on the top of the shelving to make a countertop to work on. It’s a great money-saving tip.

The beauty of this system is that you can find anything at any time. Color-coded bins will hold your items and the contents will all be indexed in a home reference binder. You will keep this in the house for when you need to use it.

Sign Up!

I’m offering you the opportunity to enroll in a special 28-day program just for the hot mess room. It’s completely FREE! I’m super, super excited about how much this will help you.

Sign up for this 28 day daily organizational challenge and you’ll get…

  • Daily actionable work that will yield real results
  • A 2-minute video each day
  • An eBook and a comprehensive shopping list of how to set up a storage room
  • 9 colorful printables to track what you have stored in your storage area

Imagine getting organized in just 28 days! It’s a reality and it’s my FREE gift to you!

Click here to start your 28-day organizational hot mess room journey.

Hey, have you signed up to join me in Dallas, Texas for the Organize 365 National Convention? I can't wait to meet you and give you a BIG hug!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/217

Direct download: Org365-217-2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

It’s the big one guys!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been super excited to introduce you to some of the people that have really helped shape who I am over the last decade. So I couldn’t think of a better way to finish the series than by inviting my very own sister, Emily Kelly, onto the podcast!

Emily takes you on the journey of some of our life experiences and shows you how I’ve become the person and businesswoman I am today... and to dish the dirt on everything about me that only a sister can know! We’re very lucky to be in such a special relationship.

I’m also super excited to let you know that Emily is now part of the Organize 365 Team. She is running the Sunday Basket® Workshop Organizer Certification Program.

 

Entrepreneurship Runs In Our Family

We grew up in a 100% entrepreneurial family so the idea of working for someone else was just never entertained. For us, we were taught that you either owned the company or you started one from scratch.

On the podcast, Emily takes us back to when she was 3 years old to the story of her first friend whose mom owned a home goods shop in the valley and our Mom who was running her business from our basement.

Every day, they’d play "shops" with the little guest checks or receipts lying around from both homes. It was that or trading stickers. It’s all we’d ever known. Everywhere we went, we were pretending we were in business. It was so much fun!

By contrast, since I was 4 years older, I was often out babysitting and dreaming of the day I’d become a mom!

To picture the scene, we grew up in a neighborhood in Akron with no traffic (or sidewalks!) and there were very few children. It meant that we had to make our own fun. I’ll never forget the day Emily and her friend set up a lemonade stand outside the house.

Entrepreneurism was everywhere for us, but it’s lovely to reflect on the fact that we learned business from different perspectives because of our ages.

Our Mom’s Business

Emily loves that we’re both true to form with the women on mom’s side of the family when it comes to business minds. We have inherited the attitude of "I have an idea and it’s going to sell."

Our grandma mailed fabric all over the world so people could make their own clothes. Grandma Green had a flower shop, and our mom’s idea grew while working for a clothing business.

Emily and I have such fun recalling the stories of mom and grandma taking clothes for a huge end-of-season event to Cleveland to maximize sales in the 1970’s/80’s. Everyone helped with it.

Mom saw potential right away. Many people were being successful with the trunk parties, but no one had the undergarments. Cue mom! She literally got on a plane to New York, went to a show, and started buying lingerie.

She had slips coming out of her ears! It was an old-school direct sales business that she’d created on her own. Emily says that just blows her away!

It reminds me of when I got on the plane to Dallas and asked the manufacturer to produce my Sunday Basket® for me.

Mom grew the business to where she had women working for her in 26 states when she sold it just a few years later. It was an amazing achievement with lots of reinvestment. We are both so similar in the way we approach business today because of how she was.

White Gloves, Party Manners & Favorite Games

Emily and I recall how when we were young, we took etiquette classes to learn all about silverware and to get our slips out for formal dinners (slips feature heavily in our childhood!). We also learned how to get out of a car in a skirt. I often wondered, would any of this help me see the royal family? We’re both BIG royals. I would have put being Queen on my list of jobs to be when I grew up if I could. I can’t wait for the royal wedding and new royal baby this year!

We did love to play lots and lots of games when we were growing up, too. We came up with all sorts of games. By far, our favorite was one we made up called "big friend." Visit the blog post here to view a short video of Emily and I sharing our memories of the game.

Entrepreneurism Ran In Our Dad’s Family, Too

Our dad was no exception to entrepreneurism. Sales was his strength and Dad’s company had over 100 employees. His father and grandfather had a coffee company. Our father’s company in Akron that he eventually became co-owner of was called Alcon Tool. Dad’s enthusiasm for manufacturing made us fall in love with the industry.

Dad’s ethos on work is something that stays with us both today. It doesn’t matter what role you play in the team, everyone is equally important. That’s what I’m trying to grow at Organize 365.

Dad’s Passing

Our father passed away 10 years ago just before he was 61.

On the podcast episode, Emily and I reflect on this most upsetting time in our lives. We talk about how it was kind to put us both as executors, but not practical. We found our own roles and formed a strong team at a difficult time.

Growing Independently

It’s true that we had a privileged upbringing in both education and financial support, but in every single generation, the businesses that our families grew started from scratch. There was no inheritance, but just a great idea and the determination to succeed. Dad started life as a salesman and left as a partner.

When I reflect back, my best advice would be to take a look at what you have and not what everyone else has. I’m successful and I’m very blessed, but I work really hard. I want to give back as much as possible, but I create zero excuses for myself.

Having my husband Greg working allowed me to start Organize 365, but Emily is a very successful single woman. So it’s not your spouse that makes or breaks you.

Think about the "something" you were uniquely created to do and give it to the world. Every reason why you’re not pursuing it is an excuse. Take what’s in your way and get rid of excuses to move forward.

This podcast is about our family highlights because it’s all about encouraging and inspiring you. When you focus on the positives, opportunities become bigger and brighter and you can chase them.

If you focus on what could have been, things look darker and it’s harder to chase your goals.

Creative Memories

The time when Emily and I worked for Creative Memories was a super exciting time in both our lives.

Replacing my teaching salary with direct sales so I could stay at home with my family was my dream and I was going to do everything I could to get there.

My dad helped me decide on Creative Memories. We both felt it had a big reach... it turns out we were right! As Emily says, I joined and went straight to the top! Emily was one of my great customers and after turning me down initially, I finally managed to get her to sign up, too. She went straight to the top as well!

We built teams and were in the top 6% performers of the company.

We take a lot of what we learned in those days with us now to run a fun community workshop feel.

Emily & I As A Team Again

This brings us to today and where Emily and I find ourselves in the organizational realm. Although it’s not the most profitable, I’m staying with the home and paper organization, as it’s the area where I feel I can recreate the community buzz of Creative Memories.

I’m constantly pivoting and moving forward to create this feeling in your house and at our workshops. It’s awesome to have Emily on board to run the Sunday Basket® Workshop Organizer Certification Program. Prices go up on April 1st so get in touch with Emily to talk about the next steps as soon as you can. We’d love to have you on the team!

Emily and I see the vision of bringing people together all over the world. It’s a space where you can share experiences and move forward from them. No one should feel alone and that’s why the workshop model works so well.

Emily is so excited to be on board and she feels just like she did when we worked together at Creative Memories. For her, we’ve never been better than then as a team.

I love Emily and so will you, I am sure!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/216

Direct download: Org365-216-2018.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I am so excited to introduce you to Melanie Moore on this week’s Organize 365 podcast! As many of you know, I’m running a series of the top 5 people who have helped shape and define me over the last decade and Melanie definitely qualifies.

Melanie is the Director of Training & Development at CinchShare, a social media scheduling software that helps entrepreneurs, business owners, and anyone using social media to spend more time doing what they love rather than being tied to a computer.

We use CinchShare at Organize 365 and I’m delighted that CinchShare is sponsoring the Organize 365 National Convention on June 7-9, 2018 in Texas. Melanie is going to be the Master of Ceremonies!

How I Met Melanie

The first time we spoke, I was in Walmart when my cell phone rang. The lady on the end of the phone sounded so enthusiastic that I pretended to know exactly who she was (even though at that stage I didn’t!).

At the time, Melanie organized events where companies would come together, share ideas, and take them back to their own teams to grow their businesses. She asked if I would be a speaker and I couldn’t wait to jump in and say yes. I’d always wanted to be a national direct sales speaker and this was the perfect opportunity to learn and develop. She couldn’t pay me, but asked if I had a book I’d like to sell at the end. I said, "Yes." The speaking opportunity was in 2 weeks so I had 2 weeks to write a book... which, of course, I did!! :)

Be An Action Taker

After several meet-ups, we realized that we were both action takers.

Being an action taker is a lot of fun. It opens up time to spend on things you enjoy rather than deliberating over things that don’t hold so much significance. For example, when something breaks, I’ll buy a new one right away. I won’t take hours pondering it. If the new one doesn’t work out, we’ll try again.

Why Melanie Is An Inspiration To Me

Melanie’s enthusiasm and expertise is infectious. And we both talk as fast as each other! I love that we both see the bigger picture in life. We’re able to both draw on our direct sales experience and see what’s working and what isn’t. The opportunities for both of us that arise from this are just super exciting.

Organize 365 National Convention in Dallas

Tickets are available NOW! 

Describing this convention is something I am having a hard time articulating. It’s a convention that meets a retreat with a splash of the group activities you did on school field trips.

Think of it as a chance to meet and hug me (I’m a big hugger!).

It’s all about getting like-minded people in a room together and learning so much from each other.

Prepare to meet new friends, enjoy new experiences, and open your mind to a world of possibilities that you never thought possible. Give yourself the time to take a step out of the real world and purposefully plan your next year. I promise you, you’ll walk out of the convention as a new person.

As Melanie says, “You’ll be a new person on a new mission. You’ll see clarity like you’ve never experienced. Clarity alone will bring you back every single year.”

Rise – YOU Are Enough

I want you to leave the conference believing in YOU. The convention will give you the resources you need to continue on your organizational journey and open up time in your calendar and space in your life for the future you want to happen. The more organized you are, the better your personal and professional life can be.

I have a burning desire to see people thriving and living a relaxed life where they can live out their free time. The Organize 365 community is super awesome. We all learn from each other, including me! For example, thanks to a suggestion from someone in the group (thank you!), I now peg my jeans instead of hanging them so I have a designated space for each TYPE of jeans I wear. The peg is a brilliant idea!

Supporting each other also brings us to synergy and the idea that 1 + 1 = 3 (or for me and Melanie, 8 million!). It’s important to get off technology and see people face-to-face. Melanie is such a wonderful example of this and I’m so happy that our paths crossed. There’s so much value in speaking to people.

If you dream it and believe it, you can achieve it. As Melanie says, she can’t wait to see my dream of running a national convention actually come to fruition… and neither can I!

We’re super excited to meet you all. There are only 160 tickets available. Once they’re gone, they’re GONE! Join us for some big surprises, be ready to be inspired, and take action. Come to Dallas and rise with us. 

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/215

Direct download: Org365-215-2018.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I’m super excited to introduce Laura Vanderkam to the podcast. I’m a HUGE fan and I’ve wanted to get her on the show since I started out. Laura is the talented author of several time management and productivity books – I’ve read them all! She is here to guide us through life by saying, "Hey! It can be tough, but there’s so many different ways to manage our time and make things easier."

I feel like I already know so much about Laura from her inspirational podcast, "The Best of Both Worlds." I’m always searching for podcasts about successful women and how they do it (aren’t we all?) and this is where I discovered Laura. The podcast is all about loving our families and our jobs as one, a concept that’s often presented as oppositional, but this one aims to prove it doesn’t have to be that way.

Laura and her co-host Sarah Hart-Unger have taught me so much, not only about organizing my life for the better, but also giving me the confidence to speak up and stand my ground on the things that are important to me.

Can You Have It All?

Well, according to Laura – yes, you can. Not only that, she tells you how to hit it out of the park. My personal light bulb moment was coming across, "What Most Successful Women Do Before Breakfast," one of Laura’s books. To me, the content really makes sense. It’s about loving harmonizing your family and career, helping out, being flexible, and organizing your time to allow you to feel fulfilled in every part of your life.

Grab Those Goalposts

Use goals to manage your time. I’m a big believer that you can pretty much do whatever you want if you pick a goal and set steps to make it work. I definitely look at my time differently now thanks to Laura.

Unfortunately, good things don’t just appear like magic. You need to think about how you’re realistically going to get to where you want to be. Set manageable targets within achievable timeframes and the goal setting process will start to flow. The book "I Know How She Does It" is really good for this.

Prioritizing Family Time – Anytime

Talking about looking at time differently, I love the concept of shaking things up. A simple change can affect your life dramatically. For example, if you feel like you’re missing out on quality time with your family, why not try making your meal time together at the beginning of the day. There’s so much pressure for family meals to be in the evening, but this can happen at any other time. How about breakfast?

Breakfast food is fun and often people, especially children, are in a better mood in the morning. So it really can be a great option for busy families to have that time to sit together. Work out what works best for you and your family and shake it up.

Looking At Your Time Differently

Who knew the middle of the week was Thursday evening? I know, right?! This is a game changer. Laura explains that if you start from Monday morning, the midpoint of the week is really Thursday evening, even though it feels like the end of the week.

For Laura, managing time is about balance. What does balance mean to you and how can you achieve it? Don’t be leisurely about your leisure time. It’s not about scheduling things you have to do – it’s about scheduling things you WANT to do! While she doesn’t suggest planning every part of your life, sometimes we do need to schedule our free time. If you want to go for a run, factor in that 20 minutes somewhere.

Laura also says it’s important not to blame anyone else. You are in control. Don’t use the kids as an excuse for not being able to do things. I pick 1-3 things I want to accomplish and look at how that fits in with the family – at least then I’m in the equation. We need to think about ourselves.

The Great Sleep Debate – Are We Getting Enough?

I was inspired by Laura tracking her sleep over a couple of years and had every intention of tracking my sleep for 2 weeks – I ended up doing 2 nights! I’ve always said I need 6/7 hours, but the issue is I love sleeping in on the weekends. The purpose of Laura’s study was to see, in actual numbers, what the life of a professional woman looks like. It turns out, we have a lot more free time than we think. It’s how we use that time that’s key.

Outsource The Things That Actually Take Up Your Time

We need to ask ourselves, where are we actually spending most of our time? It’s likely to be picking up laundry or doing the daily house chores, but we definitely need to look beyond the obvious if we want to save time.

Many of you know that I used to organize people professionally. I’d get constant calls from women asking me why they suddenly felt overwhelmed by the housework, despite work not changing and their kids being older. The reason was mostly because they’d gotten rid of the nanny who had been looking after the kids AND the housework. Often, they’d just need a part-time housekeeper to fill the gap and they’d be back on track. Laura points out that those little jobs we often multitask are actually taking up tons of valuable hours that we could be spending elsewhere. She says to set aside a time and, if it’s not done in that time, it’s probably not that important.

We definitely underestimate the hours it takes to sort the home, but give yourself credit for doing that activity, whether you outsource it or not.

Putting You In Control

If something’s not done, I feel like it’s my problem. I know that I often put that on myself. I’m sure many of you can relate, but Laura says there’s always a choice and I think that is so important to remember. Sometimes you are doing this to yourself and you can take back control.

Balancing family, free time, and chores can be overwhelming. What I LOVE about Laura is that not only does she have great ideas for managing your time effectively, she’s able to make me see that I can’t do it all. I’m WORKING And best of all – that’s ok!

Looking Forward

The next book from Laura is called "Off The Clock" and it comes out on May 29th. It’s a time study about tracking time and how people look at their lives. How do people spend their time differently? Laura found that people who felt like they had a lot of time had done something different or memorable. They felt like they had more time because they were doing something with their time that they actually remembered. The conclusion was that when you do this, your time actually expands. I LOVE it! The date is already on my calendar to get it.

To find out more about Laura Vanderkam, click here.

Follow me on Facebook and on Instagram – I’m currently addicted to Instagram Stories!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/213

Direct download: Org365-213-2018.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I have mentioned on the podcast many times before that there is one blog that I read every single day... it is Andrea Dekker's. There is so much great material on her blog andreadekker.com.

Andrea has four children under the age of six and she explains how she manages all their very different requirements, and her own, with a simple "be prepared" mantra. She also shares with us some great advice on selling your unwanted items on Craigslist, something she does often with success.

How We Both Got Started

Both Andrea and I started out with very different blogs. For me, I remember I was going to be this "guru" to help when your kids had food allergies and other things. But then I realized that dealing with that and dealing with everything my kids needed me to do was just too much! That is when in 2012, I launched Organize365.com. Though for Andrea, it was a little different.

Andrea explains on the podcast that she just fell into doing what she does. After finishing college, starting work, and getting married, she realized she hated her job. Her father gave her some great advice when he told her to find out what she enjoyed doing and figure out a way to get paid for doing it. In doing that, she would be successful even if she didn't make a lot of money.

So, a job she really disliked ended up being the springboard to starting her own organizing business, which was essentially her dream job. This was back in 2006. She didn't even have internet in her own house. But eventually she began to write her own blog, and she took some work as a virtual assistant.

One of many things I love about Andrea's blog is her level of consistency. She would post every day at 8am and, just like reading a newspaper, I would sit down to read her blog every morning. I even copied this routine when I started blogging. My posts went up at 8am because Andrea's posts did!

Andrea is good at routine. She takes the normal, everyday tasks and makes them more efficient and functional. She explains during the episode that she doesn't have creative, cool things to share. She just focuses on functionality and frugal solutions.

If It Doesn't Work, Change It

I was delighted that Andrea was willing to share a couple tips for my Organize 365 listeners. And I can certainly relate to the first tip about constantly evaluating what works and what doesn't work. Take the kids' toys for example... if the toys no longer fit in their space, then something has to go. Don't continue to just accumulate without purging as you go along.

I am a self-confessed consumer, but the kids' toys change as they get older. I find that spreading them out into different rooms, or making them responsible for their own toys in their own space, makes it less overwhelming for you to clean them up again afterwards.

Making the house work for you and your children is key. Andrea makes her house work for her. It’s almost like a preschool room... the kids can help themselves.

I remember when my children were born, I kept the socks upstairs because that's where you keep socks, right? But we always put socks and shoes on in the family room. So when I moved the socks downstairs, it was like the heavens opened and the angels started singing because I didn't have to go searching for socks anymore. Make your house function for you and your family. It works until it doesn't work. And then when it doesn't work, change it.

How To Sell On Craigslist

The thing about purging and reorganizing is that you end up with a bunch of stuff that I tell you to load in the car, take to Goodwill, drop it all off, and move on. This is where Andrea gives us some great advice as she is so good at selling on Craigslist.

On her website, she has some great articles on this topic where she goes into great detail about how to write the advertisement and what things are most important when selling via Craigslist. Click here to see her "Craigslist 101" posts. And she even has one on how she sold her house on Craigslist – click here to see it. She really is that good at this!

Her best piece of advice is to be honest with yourself. Is it worth your time to take pictures, post the ad, respond to emails, and to sell the item? If not – donate it! If you are going to sell, make sure you take high-quality pictures and list the measurements. The more information you can give, the fewer emails you will get with questions about your item.

Also with pricing, Andrea gives a great tip... Take a look at similar items in your area and price your item a little bit less. Even at just a couple dollars less, people will subconsciously be drawn to your item.

This is where I am so different from Andrea. I have literally given things away that are worth hundreds of dollars just to have them out of the house. In fact, I did that with my daughter's guinea pigs. I gave them away and paid my daughter one hundred dollars before she changed her mind. I'm just not good at selling things. ;) - No guilt here if you too are in the survival phase of life and just want the clutter gone!

Lighten Your Load

Having been fully through the accumulation stage, (20s and 30s) I am working my way through survival (40-55). I am so pleased to direct those of you struggling with young children and mountains of toys over to Andrea's blog to see how she is thriving during the accumultaion years with 4 children under 6. In this week's blog post, I have lots of links to my favorite posts on Andrea's blog.

If you want to see the crazy antics I am up to, follow me on Instagram and watch my daily Instagram Stories to see a peek into my life.

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/212

Direct download: Org365-212-2018.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

You are probably confused right now. Lisa Woodruff, muscles? Well, the muscles I'm talking about are your organizational muscles!

Are you ready to build your organizational muscles?

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not very good at physical exertion at all. In fact, I think sweating is a sin! I prefer to exercise my mental and organizational skills. Really, I am pathetic when it comes to exercise. I can literally go days when my step counter on my phone reads less than a thousand.

There was a time a few years ago when I was able to walk 10,000 steps, but I just don't have the time now. And I don't want to make the time to do it, but I am making an effort. My goal this year is 5,000 steps and so far I'm doing pretty good. Bear in mind, this is my whole exercise program. I'm just trying to move more. I'm not trying to lose weight, just maintain it.

Organization is similar to exercise in that regard. You have to match your organizational goals to the organizational outcome you want. Only compete with yourself!

Hitting A Roadblock

A lot of you will hit a roadblock this week.

Isn't it freaky how I know that. Well, here's what happens...

Over the Christmas break, you had time off and decluttered like a mad woman. The first step to getting organized is to declutter so you can see what you have left to organize. You got rid of everything that didn't move. Even the dog and children were afraid to sit too still in your house!

You followed my advice and bought the bookshelves and bins from Home Depot. You've taken down Christmas and your holiday decoration area looks amazing. You feel like a boss, you're on a roll.

You go from room to room, decluttering, taking out the trash, making donations. It looks better, but it doesn't feel organized and you don't know what to do next.

Maybe I haven't recorded a podcast for that particular room and you're stuck, but decided not to buy the 100 Day Home Organization Program. You're saving money and it's expensive. Maybe you'll buy it later.

And you're right, it is a little expensive and it should be. It was designed by a professional organizer and it works!

It's OK, you don't need to buy the 100 Day Home Organization Program. I'm going to tell you how to grow your organizational muscles on your own.

I am going to show you step-by-step how to tackle two areas in your home, the master bathroom and your linen closet.

Organizing The Master Bathroom

In just 15 minutes a day, you can organize the bathroom that you use every day to get ready to the point you feel like I came in and did it for you.

Day One - Take a look at your towels. Do you need all of them? Remove the ones you don't need. Wash the ones you need out on display and freshen them up. Then, you're done with towels.

Day Two – Make-up. Get rid of old samples and colors you don't wear and perfume that gives you migraines. Consolidate them into one space. It might help to take a look at the blog I wrote about Organizing Make-Up. You could also add in some organizational tools like the Make-up Manager I use like this one on Amazon (affiliate link).

Over the next few days, assess your nail polish, your jewelry, your underwear and socks (yes, I keep all of these in my bathroom). Then look around you at the walls, do you like what you see?

Continue until you have organized every single cabinet, drawer, and shelf, and then do it again.

This is how you get organized, by spending 15 minutes a day in the same space every single day until you can go into that space for two 15 minute sessions in a row and there is literally nothing to do. It takes repetitive action, but your master bathroom will be amazing.

Organizing Your Linen Closet

Back in 2006, it took me about 4 months to organize my laundry room. Every 2 or 3 days, I would spend half an hour trying different things until I was happy... new shelving, new cabinets, new countertops. I had a blast doing it.

Nobody cared. No one goes in there, no one messed it up. I could do what I wanted. I would run the washer and dryer at the same time. It was like white noise. I couldn't hear the rest of the family. It was amazing!

But in the podcast, I focus on the linen closet. First of all, you need to empty it all over the floor and check out the bulky items (towels, blankets, comforters).

Be honest with yourself here as these take up space. Do you need so many? Why do you still have towels from the 1980's? It is a cycle... we buy new and store the old ones in the linen closet. It's the same with bedding, get rid of them.

If you think you don't have this stuff, just wait until you empty everything onto the floor. You'll see that I'm right. I had four sets of 20 year-old flannel sheets that I loved as a child, but my children didn't want them on their beds!

Get rid of old towels and donate others that don't match your color scheme anymore to a homeless shelter along with any old single sheets. Be ruthless, what's the worst that could happen?

That is how you organize your linen closet. But if you're thinking, "Wait, wait. There's still more stuff in here." I know you'll figure it out. And if you don't know how to take the next step, then you need a professional organizer to guide you.

The Beauty of the 100 Day Home Organization Program

You can organize your house like we did in these two scenarios, going back in day after day. But, if like me, it takes you 4 months to organize your laundry room, you can see how long it would take to do your whole house this way.

You will get the same result room by room, but with the 100 Day Home Organization Program we go through the entire house in 100 days, take a break, and then do it again. Each time, your whole house is more organized, not perfect, but better.

But in addition to the 15 minute daily actionable tasks, the real beauty of the 100 Day Home Organization Program is that it comes with a lifetime membership. There are no renewal fees. Once you're in, you're in.

Am I Too Late To Join?

I launched the 100 Day Home Organization Program in December in order to capitalize on the momentum of January 1st. You're all fired up and ready to go as we hit the kitchen.

Perhaps you didn't sign up because you just didn't have the money at the time. Or you had done the kitchen a couple of times already and didn't want to do it again. Or maybe you thought you could just do it on your own.

Maybe now you're starting to realize how beneficial it would be to have a professional organizer, one that has organized 100's of homes, just to tell you what to do each day and you can go do it.

Well, if like those that have emailed me asking when the 100 Day Home Organization Program opens again, you thought you'd missed out... surprise!

I am opening the doors again this weekend only. If you join between now and Monday, you can start the program on January 22nd when everyone who started on the 1st is done with the kitchen and moving onto the master suite (bedroom, bathroom and closet). Don't try to go back to day one, jump in with everyone else in the master bedroom!

You can join us mid-stream, not have to do your kitchen, and get both the Winter and Summer 2018 planners at no extra cost.

To find out more and sign-up, just click here.

I am SO excited to be able to offer you this opportunity and I hope you will join us as I know this program works.

It looks like it's going to be a long winter. You're going to be inside a lot, so let's get organized while we're there. Join us!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/211

Direct download: Org365-211.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In 2018, I want you to start valuing and looking at your time differently. Who you spend your time with, what you spend you time on, and how you want to spend your time in the future.

In today's podcast, I am answering the question, "How did I purposefully create the Organize 365 business and organized life that I am living right now?"

It is true. I am fulfilled, satisfied, and debt free, but it hasn't always been like this. It has been a journey. For me, the change came when I hit 40. I think milestone birthdays are like a window of opportunity to think about how we spend our time and money, and to make shifts to propel us through the next decade.

In this podcast, I share a few key transitions in my thought process, and how I spent my time and money in the last 6 years that really were the catalyst for this change.

  1. I shifted my focus from thinking about our income needs to how I wanted to spend my time.
  2. I focused on hiring help both at home and in my business.
  3. I expanded my thoughts beyond how to be a great professional organizer to how to change the organization industry.

Finally, this past fall I reflected on all of these changes and created the... 

Organize 365 Mission, Vision & Values

Mission: To inspire, motivate, and teach busy women to take back their home and paper with practical and doable organizing systems and programs that work.

Vision: Through research, targeted surveys, and data analysis, Organize 365 will bring to light the organizational needs of the homeowner to shape and develop the discussion about the "stuff" in American homes through podcast conversation and book-thought leadership.

As a trusted leader in home and paper organization, Organize 365 will be the "go-to" resource for busy women, future professional organizers and home-organizational brands, and the media.

Organize 365 will help the homeowner finally get organized with home and paper organization courses, products that combine teaching and application of practical organization principles.

Values: We value the power of positivity. Our words, mindset, and actions shape our reality. Organize 365 uses empowering words to shape personal change. We build community. In community, everyone can learn to be organized, action is easier and happens exponentially.

Organize 365 believes organization is a learnable skill. We live life in abundance. Resources are not limited, but limitless. Through collaboration, Organize 365 connects the right people and resources for maximum benefit and sustainability.

We believe in transformational freedom. 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 increased productivity.

I hope you have enjoyed learning a little about the roots of Organize 365!

Ask yourself this... If I could do, be, and have anything in the world and I didn’t have to worry about all the things that I’m worrying about, what would that look like?

 

Follow me on Facebook and on Instagram – I’m currently addicted to Instagram Stories!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/210

Direct download: Org365-210.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Have you ever played Candy Crush? It is so ridiculously simple and mindless… but addictive. In this week’s podcast episode, I compare organizing your house to playing this fun, addictive, and ultimately endless game of Candy Crush.

It was around three summers ago that I played this game obsessively. I would find any excuse to play Candy Crush. I would even make extra time to play it, and play it for way too long trying to get through a level. Finally, I had to take it completely off my phone because I just have no will power. A couple of years later, I put it back on my phone and found I wasn't quite so addicted as I was the first time.

A word of warning – if you have never played Candy Crush, don't take this podcast as permission to go and download it! When I first started playing it, I thought you could "win," that you could finish the game, but there are literally millions of levels. You can never win. I don’t recommend wasting your time on it!

What does Candy Crush have to do with home organization?

As the new year approaches, we all start to set goals to get organized, lose weight, and put our finances in order, all at the same time. These are the top three New Year's resolutions that we all want to achieve. On January 1st, when people ask you what you're going to do, you say, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds, I'm going to get out of debt, and I'm going to get organized," because that is what everybody plans to do every single January!

When it comes to home organization, at the end of the year you may say, "I'm going to get my house in order." What you mean is you're going to declutter, donate, sell, and basically get rid of things. That's what you mean by getting organized in the last week of the year.

That's like the first 20 levels of Candy Crush. You go in, you play it, you go to the next level. Or, when organizing your home, you go in the room, you fill a trash bag, you take it out to the car, or you donate it and you continue like this… donating, trash, donating, trash. You feel good and you're also getting a bit of exercise while doing it!

Another example – you're clearing the house, taking down decorations, and you feel like you're doing a great job, then suddenly you return to a room you have already done, checking for any other clutter, and you get a little stuck. You start to look for more help to make decisions about what you need or don't need. It's not as easy to get through the room.

This is like Candy Crush – often they don't let you through the level on the first shot so you have to play it again until you finally get through it.

What happens when you get stuck?

Let’s say you make great progress until you realize there are no more "quick wins." So where do we go from there?

Maybe you buy some little containers and organize some drawers, maybe tweaking and maintaining things you've done before. By about the middle of January, there is still 80% that has not been organized successfully and you don't know where to start to resolving this. You wonder if there are organizers you can buy. This usually doesn't work, it costs a lot of money, and there aren't organizers you can buy for the space you need to organize... don't you hate that?

This is because 99% of organization has nothing to do with the cute containers.

It’s like you are stuck on Candy Crush level 56 and you're asking yourself, what do I have to do to get through this level?!

There are two things you can do when playing Candy Crush when you get stuck:

  1. Pay for help

You can pay for more moves when you run out of your lives, plus other pay options.

  1. Head online – I go to YouTube

Just search for “how to beat level 57 in Candy Crush” and watch a video of some genius who knows how to beat that level.

Either you go spend the time watching someone who knows how to do it or you pay the money to take you to the next level.

Guess what, it's the same with organizing. You start to get wins and you are flying through your house. You will want to spend more time organizing your house because you are having such success.

Equally, when you get frustrated and your laundry room is driving you bananas, you are going to start figuring out how to beat that laundry room. Someone has to win the battle and you want it to be you. You get so determined that once it is complete, you have a sense of satisfaction and can give yourself permission to go and do something else with your time.

When you're in the middle of January and you’re going to tackle the front hall closet or the laundry room, for example, just like in Candy Crush, you have two choices:

  1. Go online

You can go online and find many resources and people that can help you. For example, on Pinterest or YouTube, you can see spaces that have been organized by others and watch how they do it.

  1. Hire help

You can get a professional organizer or you could do my 100 Day Home Organization Program.

How I can help you?

To help you get organized, I have two things to offer you that I am so excited about.

  1. The Sunday Basket® Podcast

I’m so excited to let you know that on Sunday, December 31st, I’m launching the Sunday Basket® Podcast.

It is available now on iTunes. Please go check it out and subscribe.

Starting tomorrow, on the Organize 365 podcast I will be posting a podcast to listen to EVERY DAY through December 31st. I am calling this the Organize 365 BINGE.

These are previous podcasts that I have pulled out and put in the exact order I would have you listen to them if you were brand new to Organize 365. They will help you with the mental mindset you are going to need going forward. So whether you are new to Organize 365 (welcome!) or you are a regular, take a moment to subscribe, listen, and share this podcast with your friends and family. Help lighten the load for everyone!

Then from December 31st to January 7th, I will have 8 brand new episodes on the SundayBasket® Podcast. You have to subscribe to The Sunday Basket® Podcast, though, so be sure to do that so you get my daily tips and motivation!

  1. The 100 Day Home Organization Program

Registration to my 100 Day Home Organization Program is now open – click here to join.

The program gives you 100 actionable, 15 minute a day activities starting on Monday, January 1st. Every day by email, you will receive a 15-minute activity with a short video, an actionable step, and any links to material that I talk about in the email or video.

It is designed to systematically organize your entire house in 100 days. Don't worry, it comes with a lifetime membership so you don't have to commit to do all 100 days IN 100 days. You can skip days and go back to them and do this over and over again. We do the program 3 times a year.

Also with the 100 Day Home Organization Program, you get my amazing planner!

On January 1st, I will go live in the private Facebook Group and take you through the first part of this planner to set your goals and productivity.

I also do a weekly live Q&A in the group which I also post online. So even if you aren’t on Facebook, you won't miss out.

This is the game changer from waking up on January 1st, 2018 saying, "I'm going to lose some weight, get out of debt, and get organized" to waking up on January 1st, 2019 saying, "I got organized."

My goal is to help increase your productivity to allow you to do whatever you were uniquely created to do. We as women are being taken out by the everyday and this is stopping us from being the unique individuals we are meant to be.

I really want to be your coach, motivate you, and help you reduce the time spent on everyday tasks, to become more organized, purposeful, and productive through 2018. If you would like to join the 100 Day Home Organization Program, just click here. I hope to see you on the inside!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/208

Direct download: Org365-208.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

On the podcast this week, I ask you the question – who is in your top five?

Let me explain!

A few years ago, a cell phone company had a benefit for their customers where you could select the top five people that you talk to the most on the phone and those calls would be free. They would run advertisements where they talked about you having a "top five." My husband, Greg, and I used to find the whole "top five" thing amusing, and I recall it was often the source of jokes with comedians!

Then I heard a quote and it really had an impact on me.

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” by the late Jim Rohn.

You’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with in terms of income, positivity, taking action, etc.

The five people you spend the most time with are who you’ll be the most like.

I remember when I first heard this quote, it really caused me to think about who the five people are that I spend the most time with.

At the time, I was thinking how true the quote was. My income was the average of the five people I spent the most time with. My gossip level was the average of the five people I spent the most time with! (I don’t gossip anymore, but I used to gossip a lot!).

I changed how I spend my time

It was a conscious decision that I made to change how I spend my time. Hearing that quote over and over again and thinking, well, who do I want to be like?

  • What income do I want to have?
  • What kind of free time do I want to have?
  • How do I want to spend my free time?
  • What do I want to talk about in conversations?

I don’t listen to the news anymore, but at the time I was watching CNBC every day and I was freaking about the stock market… our money… every day.

I lived in a very moment-to-moment life. Now I live a much more peaceful, purposeful, proactive, cultivated life. I have cultivated the life that I am living. I let the media and the people in that I want and I don’t let in the rest.

My life is not directed based on what comes across my desk or comes across my TV. Even in my free time, I am choosing not to be marketed to through commercials, and I’m choosing not to get my news fed to me through a regular network news program.

Who are your five top people?

Now when you hear this, you may think about the five people you spend the most time with. They may all be under three feet tall! You’re not going to change that. You’re not going to change your spouse, your kids, your parents, your parish, your church, your whatever.

The people you spend the most time with are somewhat static and somewhat flexible. So, who you spend the most physical time with may not be as easy to change as who you spend your intellectual time with.

Ask yourself, who do I want to learn from? Who do I want to be like? If I could hang out with them tomorrow, and we lived in the same city, who would I hang out with?

I changed my top 5 through podcasts. I picked two or three podcasters I really liked at the time and I listened to every one of their episodes. And I would sometimes listen to their episodes over and over again so I would mentally be with them all the time.

When I find someone I like, I listen to their podcasts and (virtually) I become their "best friend" and get to know a lot about them.

You probably know a lot about me. You may listen to me every day. You may be interacting with me in social media. I like to think that I might be one of the top five people that you spend the most time with!

Great characteristics of your top five people

I want you to think about the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and who are the five people you most want to spend 2018 with?

Listen to the podcast to hear about four characteristics of people that I think would be most helpful for you to have in your top five going forward in 2018.

Change your mindset

A year from now at the end of 2018, what do you want your life to look like? Who do you want to be associating with? How much money do you want to be making? Who are those people that are living the life you want to be living 12 months from now?

Your top five don’t have to be the physical people you see every day.

So really, consciously, think about who is going to be in your top five going into 2018.

Then follow me on Facebook or on Instagram. I would love to be in your top 5 in 2018... and beyond!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/207

Direct download: Org365-207.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

It’s the beginning of December, the time of year when we reflect back on the past 11 months. We set goals to accomplish the things we said we were going to get done this year before the clock strikes midnight on December 31st.

This is a podcast that has been brewing in my mind for a while. I’ve often said “progress over perfection” and “done is better than perfect.”   But perfection is a good thing, not a bad thing, right?

Should we strive for perfection?

I don’t think perfection is something to be idolized. I’m very goal orientated but I’m not a perfectionist, although I have lots of goals that I want to accomplish.

I first realized I wasn’t a perfectionist in 8th Grade. I couldn’t get to that ideal of straight A’s.

I always had a floating C on my report card. I remember failing a test because I wasn’t getting the information clearly. I was seeing it differently. Later, I found out I had dyslexia which made a lot of sense!

We all see the world in a different way. There is no one exactly like you. When we strive for perfection, what is the outside marker that deems we are doing a good job?  Who is the judge of what perfection is? Perfect to one person may not be perfect to another.

I want to change our vocabulary from perfectionism to excellence

I’m definitely a woman of excellence. I try to be excellent in everything I do, but I don’t strive for perfection.

  • The definition of perfection is “the condition, state or quality of being free or as free as possible of all flaws or defects” or “the action or process of improving something until it is faultless or as faultless as possible.”
  • The definition of excellence is “the quality of being outstanding or extremely good” and “an outstanding feature or quality.”

They sound pretty similar and, in some cases, the words can be used interchangeably. The difference is the intent behind the words and the way they make you feel.

When you are going for the perfect room, the perfect picture, the perfect goal weight, you are fixated on what the outcome is going to look like. Is it your level of perfect or someone else’s level of perfect?

Expectations of others

In the past, when I’ve thought I could get something perfect, the problem was that it never was.

My husband has perfectionistic tendencies. When we were newly married and I would paint a room or complete an organizing project, my husband would come in, inspect it, and find the flaws... which I can tell you, I was not very happy about!

I’m a good enough painter. I saved us a lot of money painting the rooms. They’re not perfect, but they’re beautiful. I did the best that I could with the resources I had and I finished the job. I did it with excellence.

But when I tried to meet the expectations of other people, I felt judged. Am I ever going to be good enough?

When you strive for perfection, the definition alone tells you “the condition, state or quality of being free or as free as possible of all flaws or defects.”

Free of all flaws and defects? Are you kidding? We’re in a fallen world. We can’t be free of flaws because we’re human.

Excellence IS achievable

I am so much happier now that I’m striving for excellence. But I was 30 years old before I decided to be a woman of excellence.

For example, I spent years watching my best friend do everything... parenting, being hospitable, and being a friend... with excellence. One day, I just started doing what she did. I used to spend a lot of time bemoaning the fact that I had chores to do, or waiting until the chores filled up a block of time, or resenting that I had to do the chores.

Now, if I’m walking by and I see something that needs doing... laundry to put away, something to pick up... I do it right away.

I’ve become a person of action and excellence.

How does this relate to you?

When you are looking to get your house organized or become a more productive person, there is a tendency for us to dream about what it’s going to be like when everything is perfectly organized. It’s not going to happen.

I want to change your mindset here. If you’re striving for perfection, your days are going to end in frustration and defeat. You are not going to get there.

The thing I found out when striving for excellence is that “done is better than perfect.”

Excellence in action

So, this is how excellence plays out for me.

Everyday, I set out to do one to three big tasks, things I want to knock off my to-do list. Often, I’ve done most of them by noon and I add more. And everyday I am amazed at what I get done, but I don’t set myself up for failure trying to be perfect at things.

Excellence is taking the next step. It’s not about having a perfect outcome. It’s just looking at the next step that needs to be done, taking the action, then figuring out what the next step is.

There’s none of the inner dialogue. Whenever I am trying to do something to be perfect, I spend so much time thinking about it, talking to myself about it, and preparing to do it instead of just doing it.

When I act as a person of excellence, I just want to have this house well-run and everyone have what they need.

How do you feel about excellence?

There’s no real action to take, but I just want you to start thinking about the different feelings you have when acting in a perfect way or acting in excellence.

How much time do you spend internally dialoguing with yourself over your own expectations?

  • How your house looks
  • How organized different spaces are
  • How perfectly you do something
  • How much of your time is wasted on the thinking and not the doing

Sometimes in the doing, in the action, the perfect answer will come to you. A more excellent way will be revealed.

If you have a couple of things on your list that you want to get done in the morning, just go ahead and attack those things with excellence, doing the next thing you know how to do. You will get so much more done than if you try to do one thing perfectly everyday.

I would love to hear your feedback on this. You can talk to me on Facebook or on Instagram (I'm having lots of fun on Instagram Stories right now!)

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/206

Direct download: Org365-206.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

'Tis the season to get overwhelmed with stress and give yourself a migraine and cold sweats just thinking about decorating your house for the holidays!

We all love how our house looks when it is all decorated, but the task itself seems like climbing Mount Everest. We can get ourselves so worked up about how arduous the task appears. I know it feels like the biggest task of my life at times.

How can we change our mindset on this?

Recently, I held a "Holiday Blitz" challenge on Facebook Live, a free 5-day "get ready guide" for the holidays. To those of you who took part, I hope you found it super useful. The printables are available here and the videos are still on Facebook.

During the challenge, I discussed how women have many roles that they play, and how we have different things to do all the time that leave us feeling like we are always working. The holidays are a time where there is a lot of pressure on the female head of the home. She needs to produce great food, decorations, and gift ideas, and be the host for guests, just to name a few.

When it comes to decorating, we tend to put up every decoration we have because everybody loves them, right? Well, yes, but would they even notice if we didn’t use EVERY decoration? Well, most likely, they wouldn't!

Where to start?

It was around 10 years ago that decorating my house took on this momentous feeling. I used to love it, but so many things led to a change for me.

I've tried various approaches over the years to get back into the swing and take joy from festive decorating, and the approach that has worked best is a giant purge. We all have that box of decorations sitting in the basement that we no longer use.

You collect all these decorations and wish you had a space, but really they are just guilt in boxes and it is okay to get rid of them. Yes, go ahead and donate them. You will not need them in the future. And you will not miss them either!

That doesn’t mean you can't ever add new things, just as long as they make sense to you. We bought a Christmas tree (ours have to be fake as I am allergic to real trees) around 10 years ago and, at the time, I loved it. Then Christmas tree technology really moved on and I got pre-lit tree envy, but for years couldn’t justify the cost. This year though – I bought it! Or rather, them. I got a few… but they were a great addition for us, as I’ll explain shortly.

What next?

This year, I decorated my entire house in 3-1/2 hours and I’m going to share my secrets with you. I break it down into 4 steps.

Clean

I always decorate on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The kids are on holiday and I’m off work, but my husband isn’t. So he gets the gift of leaving the house looking normal and returning to it fully decorated. This year, it fell perfectly that our housecleaner was coming that same day, too.

Block out time

I started optimistically by blocking out the whole day, but life happened and I couldn’t get started until 12:30 pm, rather than 10 am as I had originally planned. I already knew I had to be done by 6:30 pm. We had family coming in from out of state, and it was likely that my husband would finish work early. I was a little stressed at losing a couple of hours in the morning, but knew that I had to get it all squeezed in somehow.

Start with the hardest part

For me, the hardest part was always setting up the old tree. So I started with the smallest of the new trees. It took me no time! I was amazed. Then, I moved onto the bigger tree and assumed that would be simple, too. I shifted the furniture around and "ta-da," in 20 minutes I was done and had a beautiful big tree. Getting the new tree(s) saved me so much time and so much stress. It will alleviate so much worry for me next year.

Keep going until you’re done

At 2-1/2 hours into it, and with the Fall decorations down, nativity scenes set up, wreaths hanging, and baby Jesus in his wooden manger, I was done. But I wasn’t done. Those tree ornaments weren’t going to hang themselves! I made excuses. I even hid the ornaments on the other side of the room. I so desperately wanted it to be over already.

But I didn’t quit. Our ornaments are separated into boxes by which tree they go on. I put the living room tree ornaments on and it was so fast and easy. By this point, I realized I had been so close to giving up and had been moaning about something so simple. I looked at what I had left and made a plan. I changed some things up and put things in new locations. Yes, I gave myself permission to change my own rule! We get so locked into tradition sometimes that we lose the sense of things.

By the end, I was exhausted. So I had a coffee and took a nap in the time that I had to spare. My husband was thrilled when he got home and I was so pleased with myself that I actually got it done.

Remember…

You are in control. You can ask family which are their favorite decorations (do this before you put anything up so you know they actually remember it) and you can take away the pressure of having to put up all the other things that they don’t mention and won’t notice aren’t there anyway. Ease the pressure on yourself where you can and bring back the joy of holiday decorating.

To see more about my holiday decorating and whatever else I'm up to, follow me on Instagram. Happy Holidays!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/205

Direct download: Org365-205.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I am delighted to welcome Dr. Carmen Landrau to this week's podcast episode. Carmen is a cardiologist, a professional speaker, a mom of 3 kids, and is from Puerto Rico. How Carmen balances work and home life is fascinating and her method of getting help to those in need in Puerto Rico is amazing. Those of you who listen regularly will know that I become obsessed when there is a natural disaster so I was thrilled to have Carmen on the show.

Carmen and I met in California at a conference for entrepreneurs. With the help of her coach, she has developed a keynote speech helping professional women get to the next step in their careers and life. Women are multi-everything. We are busy being wives, mothers, daughters, friends, and career women. We all have the same problem and, if we want to have it all, we need to figure out how to do that. Our way of thinking is different to men and the expectations are different. Carmen helps women figure it out.

The link to Puerto Rico

I brought up my desperation about Puerto Rico to Carmen when we met in California. It was then that I learned Carmen’s family lives in Puerto Rico and that she has given to the cause in a very tangible way. I just knew I wanted to share her story with you.

Carmen and I agree that nobody will save you in life. As women, we need to get more bold with our solutions and not wait to be asked to fix something.

Carmen’s mom, sister, and extended family are still in Puerto Rico. They are one of the lucky few that have power, water, and food while 90% or so of the island still does not, nearly two months since the hurricane.

I was incredibly naive and ignorant about Puerto Rico. I thought it was tiny like St. John Island and figured we could just move the people off the island. It is a significant population (they would have 5 electoral college votes if they were a state) and they don’t want to leave. At the time we recorded the podcast episode, the official death toll was 50. However, the true statistic is more like 500 as people are dying from "natural causes" brought on by the lack of resources.

Carmen is part of an amazing movement helping the people of Puerto Rico

Carmen worked around the system and got medical supplies there. It all started on a Facebook group set up by a doctor in Florida who is also from Puerto Rico. Initially, it was set up for female Puerto Rican doctors to see how they could help. It has evolved to include both sexes and other professions who want to help. Word of mouth from those within the group meant that a day or so later the Baton Rouge Emergency Aid Coalition (BREAC) got in touch. They are a group of volunteer medical professionals who have stocks of medication that they have collected from other shelters used in previous natural disasters. The equipment and medication can be used elsewhere, as long as they are obtained by licensed professionals in order to maintain chain of custody.

But how to get them to Puerto Rico? Amazingly, through word of mouth and social media, people offered their planes to transport it, including United Airlines. Nine planes have gone out from Houston, 20 or 30 more nationwide. All of this happened because of volunteers and people making donations. It is almost too simple... doctors in Puerto Rico send out requests to doctors in Houston, then they source it and send it. Doctors in Puerto Rico then meet the plane and distribute it to those in need. No politics or red tape makes for a smooth and efficient system.

The aftermath and legacy

Carmen believes that when you find yourself in the aftermath of something like a natural disaster, or something else unexpected, you need to act and get over it or your whole life goes downhill. She acknowledges that people are still trying to figure out what happened and how to cope, but that’s why she is doing this. She is from Puerto Rico so she has a clear motive, but she is amazed by how many others want to help. When she asks why they do it, nobody has a specific answer. It is just the genuine goodness of their heart. That brings with it so much meaning and it is more appreciated than anything.

Carmen knows it will take years to mend the damage done in Puerto Rico, but hang in there. Puerto Ricans know what they are doing and can fix this with you. They have survived this and the sky is the limit, keep moving forward. See this as an opportunity to re-invent yourself and try to make the best of it.

There are many obstacles to helping in Puerto Rico, not least that it is an island nation. When the power goes out in Florida, there are trucks flooding in from other states to get things up and running. That cannot be done in this case. It is commendable that if you put a woman at the helm, things happen. When somebody is hurting, we go in there and fix it.

The impact of this will be around for years, just as it will be in Texas and California and all those other sites of recent disasters. We are getting so used to the tragedy. It almost becomes a recurring news item with the lead up to it being more fully covered than the devastation and the impact itself. That is when they need us most and we need to know that they need us. Thank goodness for social media... it can be really useful. People affected can ask for exactly what they require.

There is an opportunity for business owners to help

There is an opportunity for business owners to help each other here. If only the effort big business put into the Olympics in Rio was put into helping Puerto Rico, right? They don’t apply that to charity and they most likely won’t, but smaller businesses can step up. We can also use newer technologies and update the island. We do not need to try to rebuild exactly what was there. It can be seen as a blank canvas, full of opportunities for those who seek them and take advantage of this situation to improve lives.

Big business should pause for thought, too. They spend so much of their money on advertising, but the world is evolving and we don’t watch TV anymore. When will they realize they would do better to find a problem, like the situation in Puerto Rico, and solve it? We, as the public, would see and appreciate that. Surely there can be no better form of advertising.

So, what can you do?

Get out there and ask the questions. Figure out what people need and provide it if you can. Look at your resources and connect differently. Use that to help people.

It is the day after Thanksgiving here in the United States and that significance is not lost on Carmen. There is always a reason behind what happens in our lives and perhaps the reason she and I met was so I could offer this help. What goes around, comes around. So if you can help, you should. It may be you one day.

Related to this, I plan to set up an initiative for 2018. As we are decluttering, think about what makes us uniquely us and how we can impact the community around us. When we did the fundraiser for Houston, it was fun and we were able to surprise people. That feels good. (We are over $8,000 – THANK YOU so much to all who have contributed!)

On the podcast, Carmen encourages everyone to go to the website www.BREAC225.org. There are ways that you can donate to fundraisers and so many links to stories like Carmen’s. They also have a cool way of doing things so you don’t have to wonder how to help – they have an Amazon Wishlist!

If you would like to find out more about Carmen, click here.

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/204

Direct download: Org365-204.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Direct download: Org365-203MealPlanning-TiffanyKing.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:00pm EDT

In this week’s podcast episode, I talk to you about organizational energy.

At the beginning of 2017, I recorded three podcast episodes in a row after I had come to the conclusion that there is a cycle to getting organized.

The first step is decluttering. The second step is organization. The third step is increased productivity.

I want to take some time to "unpack" what each of these steps are and understand the energy behind decluttering, getting organized, and becoming more productive.

What do you tend to focus on?

If you’re a homeowner, you most likely tend to focus on one of these five: decluttering, organizing, being productive, cleaning, or decorating. And you’ll likely subscribe to and follow people (podcasters, bloggers, authors, etc.) who have the same focus as you.

For example, I’m focused primarily on organization and on having a home that is organized in a functional way. To become organized, you first need to declutter. When you have worked on organization, you then tend to start working on productivity. I focus on all three steps as I see them as interconnected, but you’ll rarely hear me talk about cleaning or decorating!

Let’s look at what I mean by these steps…

Decluttering

Decluttering is the act of reviewing a space and removing what no longer needs to be there.

Quite often, decluttering needs to be completed as a group/family activity. At the very least, you need input from your family members when it comes to deciding what to do with their items.

Decluttering is 70-90% physical and 10-30% mental. It becomes more of a mental exercise when you are dealing with items that are of emotional significance.

Organization

Organization is 50% physical and 50% mental.

The mental aspect of getting started. Then the physical emptying out the space. Then comes the mental decision making on what to do with items. Back to physically buying and filling containers to use. And ending in mentally evaluating and reevaluating if the organization methods you chose is the BEST for you.

Back and forth between mental and physical at a rate of 50/50.

Increase Productivity

Productivity is 10% physical and 90% mental. Being productive is largely a decision-making activity.

For example, if you decided that you wanted a new capsule wardrobe, you would spend 90% of your time working out the when, what, and how of it all. Then, the actual act of going out and buying what you want, after all the decisions have been made, would take just 10% of the overall time.

Cleaning

Cleaning is 100% physical. There is very little thought process involved. You know what needs to be cleaned and you, or someone else, needs to take action. The only mental aspect is often us trying to justify or avoid doing a task that just needs to be done! That is why it is the easiest item to delegate!

Decorating is something that I have so little experience with, I’m not even going to attempt to explain that one!

How this relates to energy cycles

In today's podcast and post, I explain how energy cycles throughout the year ebb and flow and how they relate to home organization. (This post is a long one and this email is long enough! Read the whole post here.)

but I will post the energy you are feeling right now...

October - December

At this time of year, we start planning for the holidays.

Thanks to those of you who took part in my holiday blitz this past week!

Your focus is back to cleaning again. You want to clean before Thanksgiving and before you start putting those Christmas decorations up.

The energy that is coming in the last 6-7 weeks of the year will come in waves.

The energy will not be constant. The waves will come and you should ride them and not push them off. It’s harder to resist than to actually go and do what you want to do.

For example, you’ll get an urge to go clean a room, declutter the kids’ rooms, decorate, etc. Whatever it may be, you will find you have these urges. I recommend just acting on them.

December 22nd

It seems funny for me to be so specific with a date, but on December 22nd my blog traffic will double (like it has done for the past few years)!

I’ve realized that most of us start organizing on December 22nd. It’s when the kids are home for the holidays. Extended family start to arrive, if you are at home on the holidays. You are done with your holiday shopping, wrapping, etc. Most of the cleaning is done. You have time off work (with most jobs). It’s winter so you don’t want to be spending too much time outside. You will start to think about a home organization project that you could undertake. Family are around to help with decluttering. The focus is more decluttering than organizing at this time.

From December 22nd to January 1st, the decluttering energy turns into an organizational energy.

The 100 Day Home Organization Program

I open enrollment for my 100 Day Home Organization Program at certain times of the year for a reason. The timing is well thought through and I base it on the cycles and energies that I’ve discussed in this week’s podcast episode.

I’m pleased to let you know that the 100 Day Home Organization Program has just opened again (November 10-14). Click here to register. If you join now, you’ll start receiving the daily emails right away and you'll get the new and improved planner.

Remember, the 100 Day Home Organization Program is not just for Christmas, it’s a lifetime membership!

You can do the program again and again until your life has transformed. My goal is for you to live an organized life so you can spend your time doing what you love and pursuing your life purpose. What a great gift that would be, at Christmas or any time of year!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/202

Direct download: Org365-202.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

This week’s podcast episode is number 200.

200 episodes. Can you believe it?!

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, last week the Organize 365 podcast surpassed 2 million downloads!

Thanks to each and every one of you who have listened to my podcast and who have supported me with Organize 365.

I thought a lot about what to cover on my 200th episode and decided that I wanted to talk about paper, one of my favorite topics.

Also, this week I have a few special announcements to make… all of them related to paper!

I’m launching a second podcast – The Sunday Basket® Podcast

In January 2018, I’m going to launch a second podcast called The Sunday Basket® Podcast.

Recently, I’ve been wanting to talk more and more about paper organizing, but I know that not everyone wants to hear about it. So I decided to create a separate podcast where I can talk about paper organizing to my heart’s content for anyone who wants to listen.

By having a separate podcast all about paper organization, I can focus the Organize 365 Podcast on my philosophy for home organization, mindset, other fun organizational predicaments, and productivity.

Every generation handles paper differently

Every generation looks at organization differently, and as such, they handle their paper differently.

When we understand our generation, we develop an understanding of how we handle paper.

Here’s an example of how we handle paper differently. The majority of people today do not use checkbooks anymore. However, I spend 30-40 minutes a week balancing my checkbook and reconciling our household transactions. I can’t comprehend how other people don’t do this! As a Gen X person, I was brought up with paper.

On the other hand, Millennials will tell me that they do not have any paper. It is not a "thing" for them at all. What is a checkbook?!

The paper tsunami is coming

The majority of paper is with the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers.

These generations set up filing cabinets. They did not have computers so paper ruled.

Today, we tend to continue with the filing cabinets, but our habits have changed... rather, our filing cabinets have become a habit and not a resource.

We have all sorts of paper that we file away, but if we want to look something up, we don’t go to our paper files, we look things up online!

Realistically, 80% of the paper in our filing cabinets right now should be recycled or shredded.

The issue is that none of us want to shred all of that paper. But neither do Baby Boomers or the Silent Generation.

One of these days someone is going to have to go through all of this paper. Even if you don’t do this with your own files, you may end up doing it for your parents and your grandparents.

All of these files need to be sorted through, because while 80% of it most likely can be shredded, the other 20% is very important. For example, it could be an important part of your family history, or even lead to cold, hard cash. I have found both when sorting through my family paperwork!

I helped a client with her paperwork when her husband passed away and there were multiple 6-figure investments hidden in the piles of paperwork that, thankfully, we discovered. This happens more than you can imagine.

Almost always, when circumstances lead to you having to sell your parents’ home, paper is the one thing that gets boxed up to deal with "later." Your parents' generation has likely lived in their home for decades, and therefore, there is SO much to sort through. Paper always seems to be the thing that can be boxed up. The issue is that "later" can become decades. This can result in generations of paperwork boxed up in people’s basements. After all, who has time to sort through it all?

I’m writing a new book about paper organization!

I’m so excited to share with you that I’m writing a book on paper organization.

My book will help you handle the paper tsunami that is is coming – the tsunami consists of your own paperwork, plus your parents’ paperwork, and your grandparents’ paperwork.

We don’t need filing cabinets anymore. I call files little paper graveyards!

We need all of our information digital and scanned. My book will take you from the Sunday Basket® to online digital scanning.

My goal is to provide the road map that people need to help them tackle their paper and NOT keep it out of sight and out of mind in the basement anymore!

With all the natural disasters that have been happening lately, I am more inspired than ever to help people get their paper digitalized so that it’s always available to them.

There is a paper tsunami coming… and we need to be ready!

Please take the household paper survey

I would like to find out more about the paper in your house. I would love it if you would take my household paper survey. It will only take you 5 minutes to complete. The link to it is on the Organize365.com homepage.

Sunday Basket® Workshops

If you want to get started with sorting your paper, please consider signing up for a virtual SundayBasket® Workshop with me. I love delivering the virtual workshops. They are so much fun and I guarantee you will find it really helpful. Learn more here.

Or maybe you would prefer an in-person Sunday Basket® Workshop delivered by a SundayBasket® Workshop Licensee. That would be amazing! Click here to find your nearest in-person workshop provider.

Or maybe you’re interested in becoming a Sunday Basket® Workshop Licensed Provider! Registration is always open. Click here to learn more.

Creating a Schedule Printable

Finally, for the past couple of months, I have focused on productivity, looking at goal setting and routines. Many of you downloaded my Creating A Schedule printables. I hope you found them useful. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, what are you waiting for?!

One final note... In the podcast, you'll hear me mention adding a new front page to the printable that lists the 5 podcasts related to it... why you need a morning routineafternoon and evening routinehow to plan your week, and how to set goals. Well, I didn't do that after all so I've just linked to them here. Now that's productive!

Have a great week, and don't forget to take the paper organizing survey!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/200

Direct download: Org365-200.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Did you know that I have a condo?

In this podcast episode, I share all about how I have preserved my sanity in my teenage years, 20s, 30s, and 40s by having my own condo.

Putting yourself first

I hope that by sharing how I use my condo, and how it’s evolved over time, will help give you the permission that you need to put yourself first.

I tend to talk about productivity in the fall because it’s a naturally productive time. It’s often a time when people set their goals and intentions for the next 12 months – certainly, I do.

Many people have been in touch with me regarding my recent podcast episodes on time management and productivity, and they have told me that they struggle with applying many of the concepts themselves because they are people pleasers (and with this, I can’t help but feel a little like that must mean that I appear not to be).

The funny thing is, I’ve ALWAYS been a people pleaser. It’s something that has been with me my whole life. It's only in recent years that I’ve started to learn how to put myself first. It has been really hard to do and has taken a lot of careful thought and proactivity on my behalf.

I have often thought that if I put myself first and share this with people, they will think that I am selfish, that I don’t care about others, or that I’m spoiled. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this.

A little history about my condo

When I was young, I lived in a neighborhood without many children to play with my own age. I was not athletic so that ruled me out of pretty much all extra-curricular activities. So I spent my time playing "teacher" with my younger sister and "training" how to be a babysitter. I also helped my mom with her business, a direct sales clothing company.

I created a game to play with my sister called "Big Friend." My sister and I pretended to be 16, our bikes were cars, our kitchen was a café, and our bedrooms were our apartments. I LOVED my bedroom! When I got punished by my parents, I’d get sent to my room – which was never a punishment in my eyes! I would spend lots of time in there, and would love to reorganize and redecorate it.

My love of the private space and sanctuary of my bedroom continued into college in my dorm room, then on to when I lived in a shared house.

Even when Greg and I moved to the spacious house that we still live in today, I’ve always spent most of my time in one part of the house.

When my children developed separation anxiety at night, I stayed upstairs because they wanted me on the same floor as them.

Since I’m always looking at ways to be productive, I worked in my bedroom until they fell asleep. Because of this, I had started spending the whole evening upstairs – especially when Tivo was invented!

So when the kids go to bed, I stay upstairs, hang out in my bedroom, watch TV, take a bath…. I just spend a lot of time in there. It’s cozy and warm.

I have a TV, my office, and food in my bedroom. I break all of the bedroom rules. In fact, I have a fully functioning office in my bedroom – it's the Organize 365 headquarters!

Even though my kids are teenagers now, one of them still prefers that we’re on the same level in the house. Therefore, I still spend most of my evenings upstairs in my bedroom.

It’s nice to have a private space just for you

The whole point of getting organized is to help you find the time to do the things in life that you want to do.

When you do the 100 Day Home Organization Program, you will find that there is a clear method to the organizational approach that you’re taken through. It starts in the kitchen, which is where the majority of people spend their time in the home. The kitchen is most important for your family.

Next is the master bedroom and closet. They are most important for your soul! This is where you get dressed, where you sleep, where you regenerate yourself. It’s all about you (and a little about your spouse, of course!).

The rest of the house is for your family, but the bedroom is about you. It’s your condo!

My house is an apartment building

I like that our house is like our own apartment building.

Downstairs, the kitchen is like the café which is where we socialize and catch up. Upstairs, we all have the privacy of our own apartments. Our apartments are decorated to our own taste and style.

So in the same way that I encourage my kids to think of their bedroom as a mini-apartment, I treat my bedroom just the same.

The key is to have a space that is all yours

I know your bedroom isn’t all yours, but honestly, 99% of the time your spouse really doesn’t care what you do with the bedroom (if your spouse is anything like mine).

If they do, focus on your half of the bedroom! Use an imaginary piece of tape to divide it, if need be.

Do you put yourself first?

If you are feeling like you have to take care of your kids, your job, your spouse, your house, and you are at the end of the list... I want you to move yourself up to the top of the list. I’m not suggesting you do this all the time or even every day. But how about for just an hour a week?

I would love for you to pencil in an hour that is just for you on your calendar.

In addition, why not do an organizational task this week just on your stuff, on your area and no one else’s.

When you get yourself organized, your family follows suit. There is an energy that comes from that positive place.

For me, when I want to have "me time," I take great comfort hanging out in my condo!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/199

Direct download: Org365-199.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

On the podcast this week, I talk about goal setting.

Goal setting is one of my favorite things. I may even like it more than organizing!

The kind of goals that I love to set are BHAG – which stands for big, hairy, audacious goals.

To put this into context, when I was 16 my goals were: to be a stay-at-home mom, home-school my kids, and grow all my own food, own a business AND be the President of the United States!

I have always had really high expectations for myself and others around me.

When I was graduating from college, I was told I had "unrealistic expectations."

I think it’s fair to say that I do often have unrealistic expectations.

I usually don’t achieve my goals in the time frame that I originally set. But that is because they are so big that they require extra time, resources, and personal development in order to achieve them. But I DO achieve them!

Examples Of Big Goals That I Have Achieved

In summer 2016, one of my big goals was to create an Amazon number 1 bestseller by the fall… and I did! (The Mindset of Organization).

Then in the spring, I published my second book, How ADHD Affects Home Organization within 90 days. It also became an Amazon number 1 bestseller, sold over 5,000 copies and is currently featured as an Amazon book of the month.

I exceeded my own big, hairy, audacious goal!

I remember when I announced in May 2016 that I wanted to get published by August 2016, some concerned Organized 365 readers thought that I was setting myself up for a fall. I received emails saying “Do you think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew?,” and “Are you sure you can publish a quality book that fast?”

The fact is, we’re not used to people setting and achieving really, really big goals.

Entrepreneurs are well known for chasing the elusive goal. And as soon as they get close to the goal, they extend it and make it bigger. I sure can relate to that!

Introducing Good, Better, And Best Goals

I was listening to James Wedmore’s podcast recently and he discussed this idea of good, better, and best goals.

The basic idea is that the goal you want to achieve has 3 levels – a good goal, a better goal, and a best goal.

Good, Better, And Best Goals In Home Organization

I think this concept of good, better, and best goals relates to home organization as well.

I’m a functional organizer and not a "picture-perfect, Pinterest home" organizer.

What I’ll be teaching you is to set expectations that reach a good and better goal, but not necessarily a best goal. Let me explain.

You could say that to declutter a space would be a good goal.

A better goal is to functionally organize that space after it is decluttered.

The best goal would be for the room to be really well designed, have been designed by an interior designer, and have brand new containers that all match!

A laundry example would be as follows – Good... clean laundry. Better... clean and put away. Best... clean, put away, and organized.

In my 100 Day Home Organization Program, I have often said that it takes 3 times going through a space to really get it organized. Really, what we are doing there is getting to good, to better, then to best.

I talk through some more examples of good, better, and best goals on the podcast, ranging from organizing paper, to setting weight goals, to how far you got with creating a plan from last week’s podcast episode.

Don’t Get Too Attached To The Outcome Of Goals

Sometimes when we set goals, we get very attached to what an outcome will look like. This may be based on what has happened in the past, the results of others, or just an ideal that we carry around.

I would urge you not to get too attached to exactly what the outcome will look like. Because it may well be that you achieve a goal without even really realizing it.

I would love for you to consider the following in goal setting:

1. When you are setting a goal, think of what would be a good, better, or best goal.

Good means this has to happen. If this doesn't happen, then I didn’t meet this goal.

Better is what I really want to happen, what I’m striving for.

Best is if the sun, moon, and stars aligned and all your big goals are met!

2. Do not get attached to the outcome of the goal.

Sometimes, our goals can be achieved in ways that we didn’t envision.

Good luck at setting your good, better, and best goals! I’d love to hear how far you get with them over in my Facebook Group. If you’d like to join, click here.

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/198

Direct download: Org365-198.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

On the podcast this week, I talk about time management and productivity.

I’ve finally figured out what is missing for women on this topic!

Everyone needs a schedule. You need a plan and you need to proactively tell yourself what you should be doing. Because if you don’t, you will just end up sidetracked and distracted.

I haven’t talked about time management and productivity very much in the past. That is because I think that you need to get physically organized first before you can get mentally organized.

This is a little different from what you’re used to hearing me say. I do think that change happens in your mind first and then in your physical reality – as far as getting physically organized and decluttered.

But when it comes to productivity and time management, we’re at a whole new level. Now we are visualizing what change will look like and mentally making the changes.

That is why I want to make this physical for you. I have created some AMAZING printables that I’m so happy to share with you. You can download them here and they go with this week’s podcast episode and next week’s episode as well.

They also go with episodes 192 and 193 on routines.

Making changes to our time management and how we manage our schedule does not happen overnight.

I have devised 4 steps for creating a plan for time management.

Steps 1 & 2: Morning and Afternoon & Evening Routines

I recently created two podcast episodes on my morning routine and my afternoon and evening routines.

Thank you for all the feedback that I’ve received on these episodes – I loved recording them and they’ve been really well received.

Many people talk about morning and evening routines, but for me my afternoon routine is my most important routine right now (between 2-5pm – after my productive work) .

In this week’s podcast episode, I talk you through exactly what I want you to do to creat your routines and my worksheet will help you formulate one – just add ONE new thing into your morning, afternoon and evening routine.

Step 3: Work out all of the roles that you are responsible for in the household

This step is going to overwhelm you!

I take you through the task of working out how many roles you are responsible for when it comes to running your household.

There are A LOT of roles and you will be surprised how many relate to you. For example, healthcare coordinator, taxi driver, vacation planner, etc.

On the worksheet, you are then asked to work out all of your ‘to-dos’ for each role. You may find this difficult, but give it your best shot!

To put this into context – a couple years ago, I completed a time study for me and Greg. We discovered we were spending 36 hours a week on household and childcare related tasks.

Step 4: Planning your time and creating a schedule

In this final step on my worksheet, you actually plan your time. You create a schedule.

The focus is on being PRODUCTIVE. When you plan your time in advance (right down to the minutes), you will find that you have more minutes. Yes, you get more time back in your day!

I can work with you on this task, if you'd like. I love helping people plan their schedules in order to be more productive. Just click here to book a coaching call with me.

You NEED a schedule – especially if you work from home.

Whether you are an entrepreneur, a work-from-home employee, a stay-at-home mom, or you have any other role that requires you to work from home, you NEED to have a schedule.

I consider "work" as your life purpose. That is how I define work. This could be paid or unpaid (i.e., stay-at-home mom). Whatever your work is, it’s your life purpose.

Time is so valuable and you can never get it back so you need to work out a schedule that ensures you do not fritter away your time.

Share your new schedules in the Organize 365 Facebook Group!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/197

Direct download: Org365-197.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

On the podcast this week, I introduce you to a rule that I impose upon myself that I call the “24 Hour Rule."

The 24 Hour Rule is going to free you up from all the things that you might do, should do, could do, or want to do someday. Instead, it’ll teach you to focus on today.

Warning: Please listen to the full podcast episode! You may think at first that the 24 hour rule is a little crazy, but by the end I hope I’ve convinced you to give it a try.

A Bit Of Background

The 24 Hour Rule is something that I developed for myself after I’d been doing the SundayBasket™ for a few years.

Why? Well, I found that a couple of items in my Sunday Basket™ stayed every week!

This goes against the rule of the Sunday Basket™, that you empty the Sunday Basket™ completely on Sunday. Then you hold up every single item – every piece of paper, mail, slash pocket – and you ask yourself, “Can this wait until next Sunday?”

If it can, then it goes right back into the Sunday Basket™. At the end of your time working on your Sunday Basket™, you have identified the items that need to be acted on before next Sunday. All the rest can wait.

I Started To Drown In My WOW Ideas

I’m an ideas person. Ideas come to me all the time and I get so excited. I’m a WOW person and not a HOW person – I usually leave the details to someone else.

I love to write down my ideas or print them off and then put them in my Sunday Basket™. I realized that all of these WOW ideas were the items in my Sunday Basket™ that were staying each week. I was just accumulating a lot of ideas, but not necessarily implementing them.

In other words, I was drowning in my own ideas and becoming overwhelmed. I had to stop stockpiling all of my should/could/someday ideas in a physical location because it was wasting my time instead of inspiring me.

To overcome this problem, I created the 24 Hour Rule.

The 24 Hour Rule Explained

My 24-hour rule is pretty simple.

When I find a great idea, I ask myself, “Can I do this within 24 hours?”

Now, of course, there are many things that you can’t implement fully in 24 hours, but here’s another way to look at this…

We all have times when we come up with a juicy idea that we dive right into and end up spending 2 hours (sometimes even more!) on the internet researching our idea. Do you agree?

Most likely, you didn’t have those 2 hours when you first got your idea, but you made time within 24 hours to flesh it out. Then you decided if it was worth pursuing now, later, or not at all.

My point is that, if an idea is that good and it moves you that much, then you will take immediate action on it.

All of the other someday ideas can be disregarded right now. Don’t write them down or print them off. Just let them be.

As soon as I adapted the 24 Hour Rule, I found that if I really wanted to do something awesome for my business, my home, or my family, I could almost always start to take action within 24 hours.

A Recent Example Where I Applied The 24 Hour Rule

A recent example of my coming up with an idea and applying it within 24 hours is the fundraising appeal that I am currently running for Avondale House in Houston, Texas.

I was completely glued to the news on Hurricane Harvey – reading and watching everything about it on my phone. I felt so bad for those affected that I thought there must something I can do to help.

That’s when I came up with the idea of fundraising for Avondale House. You can read all about it and contribute here. Great news, we’ve raised over $2,000 at the time of recording this podcast! Thank you so much to everyone for contributing.

Now you see that the idea of helping out with Hurricane Harvey relief was so important to me that if I had waited, I would never have taken action.

Your To-Do List Is Never-Ending

The reality is that as soon as you knock things off your to-do list, other things come onto it. That is why it’s a to-do list, and not a to-done list – it’s never going to end!

As soon as you come to terms with your to-do list, it will give you greater perspective on organizing your to-dos, prioritizing, and a more realistic view of life.

There is only so much you can do in your day and I really, really want you to be able to use some of your free time for whatever you want to do.

This is why a key piece of advice that I have for you is to only have 3 big things – or what I callrocks – that you want to accomplish each day. Keep things realistic and don’t constantly chase the impossible.

I’m going to cover this concept in more detail in future podcast episodes so stay tuned.

The Sunday Basket™

Most things come back to the Sunday Basket™ because I truly love the Sunday Basket™.

The Sunday Basket™ takes time to set up and get used to using. But when you’ve been implementing the Sunday Basket™ for 2 months, I’m going to bet that you find you have a lot more time back in your week. That time comes from no longer looking for paper items and trying to remember things, and from being more organized.

It’s amazing how much time you spend just with switching tasks. Did you know you can spend up to 20 minutes switching tasks and recovering from getting distracted? That’s a lot of time!

And that’s why, I always encourage you to put your big ideas in your Sunday Basket™.

But let’s take it a step further and always apply the 24 Hour Rule to each and every one of those ideas. I suggest that when you review your ideas every week, you should assess whether you will act on it in 24 hours. If not, throw it away or review it again in 100 days.

I challenge you today…

What is something that you have on your someday list that you can eliminate?

I challenge you to get rid of it – go ahead and lighten your load!

Now, is that big idea you have right now actionable within 24 hours?

Then, I encourage you to start pursuing it now!

Are you interested in knowing more about the Sunday Basket™?

You can join attend a virtual class here or join the Sunday Basket™ Workshop Licensing Program by clicking here!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/196

Direct download: Org365-196.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

On the podcast this week, I’m thrilled to introduce you to Wendy Zanders.

Wendy is a successful professional organizer and her story fascinates me. She has done things in almost the exact opposite order to how I’d normally recommend, but it has worked well and I couldn’t be happier for her. Her story just goes to show that there are many different routes to success and we must all follow the path that feels right for us.

Wendy discovered me when she was suffering from depression

Wendy found me and the Organize 365 blog and podcast during the most depressing time of her life. Her family had suffered the loss of a dear family member and she was really struggling. She actually connected with me when she heard me share my depression story, as her experiences felt so similar to mine.

Wendy shares on the podcast how she joined my Jumpstart Professional Organizer Program (a one-time offering this past summer). The program was for people wanting to start a professional organizer business. She then joined my Sunday Basket™ Workshop Licensing Program, and later she joined my 100 Day Home Organization Program. This is pretty much the exact opposite order that you would expect!

A little more about Wendy

Wendy is 35, lives in Frederick, Maryland, and she has a husband, a 4 year old daughter, a 10 year old son, and a new business. She is in between the accumulation and survival phases of life. Her life is pretty busy, with non-stop family commitments, business commitments, and church commitments. Wendy and her husband both work full-time, and they very much divide and conquer when it comes to running the family and household.

Earlier this year, Wendy decided that she wanted to get a part-time job on the weekend to help build up the family emergency fund. She was given the advice to find something she loves to do and then do it as a business. Like me, Wendy LOVES being organized and helping others get organized. Becoming a professional organizer seemed like the perfect choice!

Wendy and I first spoke in May of this year. After asking me plenty of great questions, she decided to join my Jumpstart Professional Organizer Program. Thankfully, her husband was behind her 100%, something that is always a huge help for the women who take my program.

Wendy is also a member of my Professional Organizers Think Tank Facebook Group. She explains on the podcast how being a member of the group really took things to another level for her, being able to connect with other like-minded professional organizers on the same journey as her has been invaluable.

She works on her professional organization business on Friday nights and Saturday. Wendy had a goal to earn back the program fee within 7 months and she did so within 3 months!

Becoming a professional organizer despite having ADD

Wendy shares on the podcast that she has attention deficit disorder, something that you wouldn’t always associate with a professional organizer.

Wendy was not diagnosed with ADD until later in life. It was actually the point at which her son was being tested for ADHD that she realized she had many of the symptoms herself.

Wendy becoming a successful professional organizer... with ADD... really does mean that if you have a passion to do something, then go out there and do it!

Marketing can be the biggest challenge

One of Wendy’s key strengths is marketing her business.

Being a professional organizer means meeting and connecting with many people. Therefore, marketing efforts that lead to the most results are often those conducted in person.

Wendy is a superstar when it comes to marketing her business and on the podcast she shares the many ways that she’s doing this.

Become a Sunday Basket™ Workshop Licensed Provider

Would you like to become a Sunday Basket™ Workshop licensee like Wendy? Would you like to help people in your local area get their paperwork organized? This is a first step before joining my mentoring program for professional organizers.

My Sunday Basket™ Workshop Licensing Program is now open and I’d love for you to join. Registration closes next Tuesday, September 26th. Please click here to find out more.

If you want to join the licensing program, but it’s not right for you at this time, you can put yourself on the (no obligation) wait list for next time.

Finally (because I’m so excited about it!), I want to share that Wendy and I are both going toBizChix Live in October which is going to be AMAZING. If you want to learn more about the event please, click here.

Happy Paper Organizing!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/195

Direct download: Org365-195.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

There is nothing more frustrating than nervously watching a tragedy unfold before your eyes and feel like there is nothing you can do to help. The hours I have spent the last month reading articles, watching video clips, and following friends on social media who are going through natural disasters is mind blowing.

This nervous energy eats me alive. I want to DO something.

Ironically in Cincinnati, Ohio, we have very few natural disasters. A stray tornado or big snow storm, but nothing like the fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes I 've watched in the last month.

Even so, emergencies in general are a guarantee in life. Someday you will need to have your medical and financial ducks in a row to facilitate your care or the care of a loved one.

This week in the podcast, Betsy shares her Houston Hurricane story, and I share how you can organize your important documents and help the autistic community at the Avondale House School in Houston, Texas.

The Avondale House is a resource for the special needs community in Houston and a school for children with autism.

For the rest of 2017, when you purchase the medical and financial organizers through this link, 100% of the sale will go to the Avondale House School.

The financial and medical organizers are editable PDFs so you can store your information digitally or they can be printed and put in a binder – it's your choice!

These organizers collect all your important information so you don't have to hunt through your filing cabinet or wish you could take the whole thing with you if you have to evacuate. This will really help you in an emergency situation, whatever that situation may be.

100% of the proceeds from sales of my medical and financial planners will go to Avondale House. This is a "win-win" situation as you get these two great organizers AND you get to donate to such a great cause.

If you would prefer to not purchase the planners, but would rather donate directly to Avondale House, you can do so here.

One thing you will never hear me say is, "It 's just stuff." I know better.

Physical items can be replaced, but it does not minimize the pain and inconvenience of doing so. I hope you are reading this in a house with running water, a working sewage system, and electricity

Like I said in the podcast, my own medical and financial organizers were not filled out, but I am doing it now.

I don't want to, and I don 't "have the time," but I know... one day I will be glad I did.

Prayers to everyone in the path of these natural disasters.

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/194

Direct download: Org365-194.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

When is the last time you took a hard look at your afternoon and evening routines?

We hear A LOT of people talk about their morning routines. (I shared details about my morning routine last week.)

It’s also quite common to hear about evening routines. But, I’ve hardly ever heard anyone talk about afternoon routines. For me, my afternoon routine... or rather, my after-school/after-work routine... is really key to my productivity.

In this week’s podcast, I dive into my afternoon and my evening routine.

Afternoon Routine

When I talk about an afternoon routine, I am referring to the time of day when we are transitioning from work responsibilities back to our family responsibilities.

Personally, my afternoon routine is currently going through changes as my children are getting older and are no longer relying on me for rides home from school and to their various activities. As such, I find myself with more time to work in the afternoon.

For quite some time, my work day ended at 2pm when I left to pick up the kids. If I’d done my work for the day by 2pm, that was a good day. Any work that I got completed after 2pm was what I called "bonus" work!

As the kids have gotten older and more self-reliant, I have been able to carry on with work, if needed, from 3:15pm (when I get home from picking them up) until 5:30pm. Yes, I do work a lot! If I don’t have work to do at this time, I sometimes take a nap.

This year, I have help with my kids' school pick up and my son will be driving, which means my work day will be 8am to 5pm.

Whether your work day ends at 2pm, at 5pm, or whenever, here is one daily routine I recommend you follow during the last 20 minutes of your work day:

  • Tidy Up – Take a few minutes to organize your work space. Coming in the next day to a tidy area will get you into the right mindset.
  • Calendar – Look at your calendar for the next day and get an idea of what you currently have scheduled.
  • To-Do List – Go over the list of goals you have set for the week and figure out which items need to be completed the next day.
  • Write It Down – On either an index card or a legal pad, write down your tasks for the next day in the order you need to complete them. Remember to always TRUST the schedule you made the day before! The impromptu coffee run sounds good in the moment, but your rational mind says otherwise.

Following this afternoon routine today will set you up for a successful tomorrow.

Then, 5:30pm to 7:30pm is the time I have set aside to spend with my husband and kids, but I also have time set aside to do other important things for myself.

Here are some of the things that I like to do as part of my afternoon routine after I've spent valuable time with my family:

  • Clean the Kitchen – I like to ensure everything is clean and put away in the kitchen. (This is a new addition for me this year.)
  • Plan Dinners – Take a few minutes and decide what to make for dinner the next day. This saves you from scrambling to figure it out the next afternoon.
  • Pack the Car – Look at the schedule you made for the next day and place anything you need for tomorrow in the car. For example, dry cleaning that needs to be dropped off.

That is my afternoon routine and I think it’s the key to my productivity.

Evening Routine

From 7:30pm to 9pm, everyone in my family likes to enjoy some alone time.

I tend to head upstairs to my office and continue working. But, the work that I do at this time is work that I really enjoy doing and nothing too heavy.

At 9pm, I start my bath and pick my clothes out for the next day. I try to keep my wardrobe pretty simple. Capsule wardrobes really interest me and I’m going to dive deeper into that idea in the fall.

Around 9:30pm, Greg and I watch a TV show. (You’ll need to listen to the podcast if you want to hear me run through my favorite programs right now!)

No matter which small tasks you add to your evening routine to help the next day run smoother, make sure to take time to RELAX.

Remember, at the end of the day, it isn’t about what you didn’t accomplish that day, it’s about what you DID accomplish and how you impacted the people around you.

It’s all in the routine!

Don't miss Lisa and Joey's bear, rope, and toaster Walmart trip in this episode!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/podcast/routines 

Direct download: Org365-193.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this week’s podcast episode, I talk all about productivity and morning routines.

You’ll discover why my morning routine is different than everyone else’s and why I make no apologies for that!

Two years ago, I recorded a podcast episode where I talked all about my morning and evening routines at that time. If you would like to hear it, click here.

In that episode, I focused on decision fatigue and how setting up routines that you can run on auto-pilot will minimize the number of decisions you need to make. It's amazing the difference a well-planned morning routine can make!

This week’s episode continues to build on that topic with a focus on productivity.

I love productivity.

I’m a productivity nut. If there is any way that I can save 5 seconds a day, I’ll figure it out and I’ll save those 5 seconds, whether I put them to good use or not!

Wasting time is one of my biggest pet peeves. So, I love to study how to be more productive.

However, just recently I noticed that the majority of the productivity gurus that I have been following – those with podcasts, books, blogs, etc. on productivity – are all men.

I’ve tried to change this and seek out female leaders in the productivity field, but they are hard to find.

Even though I am a very productive person, it’s hard not to feel like I’m not as productive as I could be when comparing myself to someone so different than me. There are many differences between the productivity schedule of a man and a woman. There are also key differences between the schedule of a Gen X and Gen Y person. There are HUGE differences between the productivity schedule of people with and without kids!

Many of the male gurus I have been listening to want you to get up early (before 5am), have an ice cold shower, exercise, meditate… this is not for me. I've tried aspects of it. I even found myself in the gym at 6am…it DID NOT work out well for me!

I realized, I was comparing myself to people with such different lives, goals, and challenges than mine.

We all strive for balance.

As women, we are always trying to seek balance in our lives. But you know what… balance is boring!

We can’t perfectly balance everything and if we do – if there is complete balance and not one single thing that gets more of you because you’re so passionate about it – where is the fun in that?!

Think of it like a cookie. First, we all like/need different ingredients in our cookies. The base ingredients are often similar, but the rest varies, whether that’s chocolate, raisins, gluten free, soy free, etc., just like we all have different things going on in our life.

Second, whatever those ingredients are, they are not required in equal proportions. That would not make for a good cookie!

Third, there is no perfect cookie for all. We are all different and unique!

You need to know WHO you are taking productivity and morning routine advice from.

The productivity routine of the modern woman covers 7 items:

  1. Household
  2. Cleaning
  3. Shopping
  4. Work - paid or unpaid
  5. Self Care
  6. Spouse (optional)
  7. Kids (optional)

They may not all be applicable to everyone. For example, I know not everyone has a spouse or kids. Personally, I opted out of number 2 and have a housekeeper!

My point is that you need to know who you are, what phase of life you’re in, when you like to wake up, what your expectations are for yourself and work. When you are clear on all of that, you can work out the best morning routine for you.

My morning routine.

I define my morning routine as from the time I wake up until when I start the productive part of my day. For me that is a 5:45-6am wake-up until around 9-10am when I get to work.

I wake up with enough time to get up, get ready, and get in the car to take my kids to school. I’m on auto-pilot with my routine so much so that I don’t need to think about it. Refer to this episode and also this one to learn about my make-up caddy.

It’s almost impossible for me to forget anything with the way that I’ve organized this. In this week’s episode, I talk you through in detail exactly what I do, what I eat, etc.

There are 4 steps to establishing a morning routine.

  • Step 1 – Habitualize your regular daily morning routine for getting up/ready
  • Step 2 – Determine your best work time for doing your household tasks and work
  • Step 3 – Create a flex day – this is a day where you don’t have any big work demands and can blitz smaller tasks and be responsive to new things that come up
  • Step 4 – Create a focus for each day – this doesn’t mean you can’t do other things, but always have a focus/priority for each day

There is no perfect.

I’ve spent so much time trying to find the perfect morning routine and the perfect way to be productive. I realize now that there is no such thing as perfect.

I would love for you to look at your own morning routine.

Are you a morning person or not?

Do you like to dive into creative work early or not?

Is exercise something that really helps you first thing?

Get to know yourself and build the routine that suits you. What fuels you? How long does it take? How do you work best?

Let me know in my Facebook group.

Next week, I’m going to talk about afternoon and evening routines.

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/192

Direct download: Org365-192.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Every year I tweak my morning & evening routines when summer ends and the kids go back to school.

Here are 5 steps to create your own morning & evening routines.

http://organize365.com/how-to-create-morning-and-evening-routines/

Direct download: Org365-062.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this week’s podcast, I take a look at the cost of clutter and disorganization in our lives.

I think we all know that there is a cost benefit to leading a more organized life, but did you know that it’s not just a financial benefit?

A disorganized and chaotic life can bear many costs… let's look at the different costs that disorganization causes in our lives and the steps that you can take to make a difference.

1. Financial Cost

Buying twice, losing things, items getting ruined, misplacing coupons that eventually expire… I don’t think anyone would argue that there is a not a financial cost benefit to being more organized.

2. Mental Cost

It can be mentally draining trying to remember all of the things that we are responsible for… getting the laundry started, doing the dishes, getting the kids ready for various activities, etc.

We are constantly trying to remember and stay on top of things. The Sunday Basket™ is a HUGE help here. Personally, I like to make notes and jot down ideas all through the week and then go through them all together on a Sunday. I find 50% of the items in my SundayBasket™ are notes to myself.

3. Time Cost

When disorganization creeps into your life, you lose time. You lose time looking for things. You lose time doing things on a whim. You lose time just trying to escape from your cluttered and disorganized situation by watching TV and playing on your phone.

The funny thing is that while you know you are losing time, you don’t have time to figure out where you’re losing it. There is NO TIME! If you had the time, you could do a time study and really get to the bottom of how you can save time, but again… who has time for that?!

I have done a time study twice and it was very depressing seeing the true reality of how much time I spent driving in my car and watching TV.

We have a lot of demands on our time and, if you’re not proactive in how you manage your time, you end up doing things on a whim and putting out fires.

4. Emotional Cost

There was a study that concluded a direct link between families who have more clutter, disorganization, and unfinished projects in their homes with mood and cortisol levels.

Basically, the conclusion is that there are health benefits to being more organized in the household, and the risks of not doing so include depression and a less satisfied marriage.Here is a link to the study.

It’s important to note that there’s no right or wrong when it comes to home organization. Just like there is no perfect weight for a woman, or no perfect way to feed a baby, everyone has a different level of home organization that is right for them and makes them happy.

Irronically, the more progress you make in some areas of organization, the more frustrated you get in other areas. This is completely normal and it just signifies a new level of organization that you expect. You have raised the bar and you now need to stay above that bar for your own peice of mind.

So how do we make the change we want to see? YOU need to take action!

It’s really important to understand that you are in the driver’s seat and the change that you require will not just happen to you, but rather by you. You need to make it happen .

Don’t wait for someone to come rescue you because, believe me (I’ve been there), that will not happen!

There are two things that you need to do to help bring about the change that you want:

1. Change your mindset – Bring about the mental transformation to live a clutter-free, organized life. You are already doing this right now by reading this newsletter and listening to my podcast.

2. Physical change – For this, I have an exercise for you to do!

To do the exercise, you need to listen to the podcast episode and hear me talk you through it.

Trust me. All I will say is listen to the podcast episode when you are at home and have a piece of chalk handy!

 

P.S. Registration is now open for my 100 Day Home Organization Program where I am with you every step of the journey to help you get your home and your life organized.

Every week, I am there to encourage and motivate you, share stories, and help you reach your goals. You will make fast and lasting progress because of the way the program has been organized.

You will also be with a group of like-minded ladies who are all on the same journey as you, taking action at the same time as one another in the same living spaces.

Let me teach you how to expand your mind. I will show you how to be more productive,more proactive, and how to plan.

You will take back your home and have time to live the life that you are supposed to live.

The 100 Day Home Organization Program is an investment, but it’s an investment in yourself. It will make home organization your new priority. You will start to see a reduction in all of the other costs associated with disorganization and clutter.

Register now! Registration ends on August 28th for the next session starting September 4th.

And for those of you already registered... Congratulations! Please pass this on to ONE person you would love to do the 100 Day Home Organization Program with you!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/190

Direct download: Org365-190.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

On last week’s podcast episode, I introduced you to Holly, Monique, and Emily, the virtual organization teachers for my 100 Day Home Organization Program. (<--- Registration is open!)

This week, I thought it would be a great idea to introduce you to one of the 100 Day Home Organization Program members. 

Wait until you meet Dawn! We had so much fun recording the episode and giggling like school girls.

Dawn first noticed me in 2015 when she was searching online for help with keeping her house clean. I would LOVE for you to tell me how YOU met me!

Dawn has been using a Sunday Basket™ for about a year, having participated in the Sunday Basket™ virtual workshops, and she joined the 100 Day Home Organization Program in January, 2017.

With 4 school-age kids with ages ranging from 6 to 15, Dawn is definitely in the survival phase of life. :)

I was embarrassed to admit on air that I thought THAT was enough responsibility - the kids & house - and was SHOCKED when I found out she owned an electrical contracting business which she has been running with her husband for 14 years!!

Dawn is responsible for the business bookkeeping and office staff, but her focus, productivity, and ability to even get to the office was derailed when she had her fourth child and couldn't keep up.

Similar to myself, Dawn spends A LOT of time in her car. During the school year, she spends 3.5 hours per day in her car doing the school run for her 4 kids who are at 4 different schools.

Dawn got my attention in the 100 Day Home Organization Program Facebook group for two reasons.

First, her regular use of smiley face emojis.

Second, she has goats. Lots of goats. I initially thought maybe one or two. Little did I know,she has over 35 goats?!?!

With all this going on in Dawn’s life, is there any wonder she looked for some help with getting her home organized?

Dawn started the 100 Day Home Organization Program in January, 2017.

First time around, Dawn admits she got distracted and didn’t follow along. When she posted about this in the Facebook group, I swiftly moved her to the front of the class and helped her out. For anyone considering joining, know that the 100 Day Home Organization Program is not passive and I WILL make sure you do the work!

Under my guidance and watch, Dawn organized her whole kitchen within 3 days. It went from a disorganized mess to super-organized. She went on to do her master bedroom, making a huge improvement to her house.

The 100 Day Home Organization Program is something that you have access to for life and it is not designed to be done once. No one, myself included, could get through the whole program in one go at it. That is why it’s a lifetime membership.

When Dawn started the 100 day program for the second time, she signed up for the virtual organization package.

In her first call with me, we decided to turn her dining room into her office... and she has never looked back.

Dawn also shares how we worked together to fix her messy breakfast situation in the kitchen and how we sorted out her garage.

If you sign up for the virtual organization package for the upcoming 100 Day Home Organization Program, you will get to work with Monique, Holly, or Emily, who I introduced you to last week.

If you would like to sign up for the 100 Day Home Organization Program, registration for the September 2017 session opened TODAY! Click here.

Check out my Facebook LIVE Friday afternoon to see my new garage shipping station I put together this week to mail out planners to those of you who register!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/189

Direct download: Org365-189.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In this week’s podcast episode, I discuss how best to declutter and organize your closet.

I discuss capsule wardrobes, how you can purge too much, and how you can have a variety in your everyday clothing while loving and wearing everything in your closet!

I started this year with three episodes about the importance of decluttering, organizing, and increasing productivity.

In those episodes, I explained that when you reduce the amount of "stuff" you own and get it all organized, your productivity will increase.  This will give you LOTS of extra time to focus on what you were meant to do in life.

Productivity is a result of living an organized life. 

This week's episode builds upon those topics. So if you missed those episodes and would like to listen to them first, they are #144 – Declutter!#145 – Organize, and #147 – Increase Productivity.

What to buy?

When I was in high school, my mother taught me some important lessons on how and what to buy when it came to clothes.

Here are the tips she shared with me that I still find helpful today:

  • "Cost Per Wearing" Analysis – Evaluate the cost of your clothing by how many times you think you will wear it. A $150 coat is worth the investment if you wear it 100 times, bringing the cost of the coat down to $1.50 per wear.  Compared to a $15 "bargain" top that you only actually wore once, meaning the cost per wear is $15. The $150 coat was a far more economical investment.
  • Buy In Outfits – Focus on purchasing items that are interchangeable. By focusing on a specific color scheme or style in mind, it will save you time and stress because everything will match.

What to keep?

Now that you have some ideas for how to shop for new clothes, what should you do with all of your existing clothes that are sitting in your closet?

It’s time for you to decide what needs to stay and what needs to go.

Just recently, I went through my own closet to decide what to keep and what to get rid of.

Here are the rules that helped me when decluttering my own clothes.

  • Keep clothes that fit you – We all have that one item of clothing we are keeping until we can lose 5 pounds and it will fit once again. It NEEDS to go!  You should only keep clothes that fit you and make you feel great. Don’t keep clothes that make you feel like you should change to be able to wear them.
  • Keep items that match each other – If it doesn’t match anything else in your wardrobe so you have nothing to wear it with, it needs to go. It doesn’t matter how cute or comfortable those shoes are if you are never going to wear them.
  • No extra purses – Most women do the same with purses… we usually stick to one primary purse yet hold onto our old purses, telling ourselves we might one day need them. This ALMOST NEVER happens! Try to keep your everyday purse, as well as a particular favorite, and get rid of the rest. You really DON’T need them all.

Types of wardrobes to consider...

If you’re looking to try something entirely new when it comes to organizing your wardrobe, there are a couple different options out there for minimizing your closet.

  • Capsule wardrobe – This type of wardrobe limits you to a certain number of items per capsule (not including your under garments). You set the number to what you would like and you limit your wardrobe capsule to that number.  Have capsules for work, seasons, or specific occasions, it’s up to you.  You can keep the rest of your clothes, but it takes the stress out of planning your day-to-day outfits.
  • Uniform wardrobe – Many successful executives such as Steve Jobs, Barrack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg have utilized the uniform wardrobe. Clothes in this kind of wardrobe are all similar and interchangeable.  For example, my wardrobe consists of mostly jeans, sweaters, and tops.  Jeans match pretty much everything so it is easy for me to buy a large variety of tops to interchange with them.

As parents, our wardrobes often fall to the wayside as we spend all of our time and money making sure that our kids (who are constantly growing) are getting the clothes that they need.

I’m here to tell you that it’s IMPORTANT to update your wardrobe, too.  Instead of buying the occasional, random item for yourself on a whim, make a point of finding yourself something nice that matches your wardrobe.

It’s essential for you to look and feel good about yourself, too.

Now that I have shared my ideas for decluttering your wardrobe, I challenge ALL of you to walk into your closet and come out with 15 items that you no longer need or want.

This is a great first step towards getting your closet decluttered.

By following my tips and getting your closet organized, you’ll be able to get dressed quicker, feel better, and get on with living your best life.

Now go declutter!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/186

Direct download: Org365-186.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

I’m excited to announce that next week I’m running a Back To School Blitz.

It’s a 5-day challenge designed to help get you ready for a really productive fall and fully prepared for the new school year.

So in this week’s podcast,  I talk all about the Back To School Blitz.

Why run a Back To School Blitz?

For me, the start of the school year signifies the start of my 12-month year.  I discussed this in podcast 134 where I explained that I have 3 different "mini new years" in my year.

It starts in September... the beginning of the school year, then January... the beginning of the calendar year, and finally June... the beginning of summer.

Each has a different set of possibilities, but September has the most possibilities for me. It's when I set the BIG goals for my year ahead.

In my opinion, it doesn’t matter if you’re not going to school, the beginning of the school year is when we should all get everything in order and set our goals for success.

Productivity starts with being prepared.

There are plenty of little things that we could do now to set ourselves up for a productive school year.

So, my 5-day Back To School Blitz is designed to help set everyone up for a productive school year... whether you go to school or not!

I’m more excited about doing it for myself than for my kids.

What is the Back To School Blitz?

It’s a 5-day challenge that you need to sign-up for here.

It’s delivered to you by email. Every day at 5am EST, you will receive checklists via email.

You should print a copy for everyone in your house who is taking part in the blitz.  For example,  I’ll print off three... one for me and one for each of my two children. Since my kids are teenagers, I’ll try and convince them to do the checklist themselves.

Don’t worry, the checklists are not lists of things to buy. In fact, my Back To School Blitz does not involve buying anything at all!

Instead, it’s all about decluttering, culling, and making inventories of what we have in our house so that in August we can go ahead and buy exactly what we need.  This will stop you from over or under buying things.

So here’s what it involves:

  • Monday: Clothing – Going through your closet and figuring out what you need, what needs altered, etc.
  • Tuesday: Set up a command center – A back to school Sunday Basket™ that you will set up next week and continue to use thereafter. It will help you take note of the various things that need to be done before going back to school (i.e., supply lists, school uniform, car pool arrangements, etc.).
  • Wednesday: Supplies – A supply list for your home or your home-based business. It’s the best time of the year to stock up on things like pens, binders, highlighters, etc.
  • Thursday: Personal grooming – Look at what you have and what you need. Schedule manicures, haircuts, other treatments, etc.
  • Friday: What does it take to get this family out the door? – Backpacks, lunches, purses, car, etc.

Since everything is delivered by email, you need to sign up.

In addition, every day I will go live on Facebook at 10:30am EST to provide support and share additional tips and advice.

Together, we are going to get our kids and ourselves ready for a really productive fall and new school year. Are you with me?

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/185

Direct download: Org365-185.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

It’s a rite of passage almost no one will escape: the difficult, emotional journey of downsizing your or your aging parents' home.

Here, nationally syndicated home columnist Marni Jameson sensitively guides readers through the process, from opening that first closet, to sorting through a lifetime's worth of possessions, to selling the homestead itself. Using her own personal journey as a basis, she helps you figure out a strategy and create a mindset to accomplish the task quickly, respectfully, rewardingly—and, in the best of situations, even memorably. Throughout, she combines her been-there experience with insights from national experts—antiques appraisers, garage-sale gurus, professional organizers, and psychologists—to offer practical wisdom and heartwarming advice so you know with certainty what to keep, toss or sell.

Downsizing The Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go

Direct download: ORg365-184.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Doing laundry always seems like it takes a lifetime, doesn’t it?

But how long does it really take?

For this week’s podcast episode, I timed how long it took me to complete ALL of my laundry.

Over the course of a weekend, I used a stopwatch and I timed from when I began a laundry task to when I completed it. By doing this, I was able to get an accurate idea of how long completing all of my household laundry really took.

My Findings

The truth is, the actual tasks involved in doing laundry didn’t take up too much time.

Every time I went into the laundry room to complete a task, I was usually only in there for about 5-8 minutes.  So it really wasn’t taking me very long.

I discovered I was able to do 9 loads of laundry in only 61 minutes.

BUT... and this is a big but... the 61 minutes were spread over 3 days. So I pretty much felt like I spent 3 days in my laundry room!

So what I came to learn is that, while the tasks don’t take very long, laundry can seem so much more time consuming than it really is because it occupies so many of our thoughts as we are doing it.

I found I was always thinking about things like when the current load will be complete, whether I have gathered everything for the next load, where are the hangers, and so on.

My Laundry Tips

Fortunately, there are ways to save yourself both time and stress when it comes to your laundry.

Here are my top tips for making laundry easier:

  • Sort by weight – Instead of separating your laundry into loads by color, try separating them by how much each item weighs. Heavier items take longer to dry and lighter items take less time to dry.  This will save you drying time on those little loads. 
  • Difficult load first – We all have that load of laundry that is just more difficult than the rest. Do your most difficult load of laundry first and this will make the rest of your loads less stressful.
  • Multiple days of laundry – By spreading your laundry time throughout the week and doing some of the easier loads on weekdays (towels for example), you will save yourself time and stress on the weekends.
  • Set a timer – Every time you start a load of laundry, start a timer on your phone. By setting the timer for 45-50 minutes, it will help prevent you from forgetting about the laundry and losing track of time.

Of course, hiring someone else to do the laundry would be the ultimate time saver!  This might not be an option for everyone, but it’s definitely something to consider.

There may be no perfect solution to doing laundry, but I would LOVE to hear your suggestions for making laundry quicker and easier.

Please share your ideas in my Organize 365 Facebook Group.

A special thank you to this week’s podcast sponsor, TidyLiving!

Use the promocode ORGANIZE365 to save 10%

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/183

Direct download: TPHS_183_All_About_Laundry.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

In her latest book, Lisa Woodruff explores the executive functions of the mind that directly affect your ability to organize your home: flexible thinking, working memory, self-monitoring, task initiation, planning, and organization. Along the way, she provides tips and strategies for overcoming obstacles—tools you can use to get the organized house you’ve been dreaming of.

Now available as an Audible Book.

How ADHD Affects Home Organization

Direct download: Org365-178.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

This week’s podcast is about the times when you find yourself in a tough phase of life. It’s about the times when you literally have no time to get organized no matter how much you want to.

It may be that you’re SO busy you struggle to find even 15 minutes a day to get your home organized.

Or you have the time, but what you want/need to do requires money and you literally don’t have a spare $15 right now.

It may be both, you don’t have a spare 15 minutes AND a spare $15!

They’re not phases that we want to find ourselves in, but nonetheless, it can happen to us all and probably will at least once in our life.

I can easily draw upon my own personal experience with this topic. I’d LOVE to say that I was stuck in this phase of life for a week or a month, but it was more like 6 years!

In the episode, I touch on how to get organized if you have a chronic condition (like fibromyalgia or a physical ailment). I’m afraid I have no magic answer ,but my main advice is to get someone to help you, either paid (if you can afford it) or unpaid (friends and family). When you have help in place, you then need to think about how you can incorporate help with home organization as well as physical care. People want to help you, and so, broaden your thinking on how you can use that help.

If you’re a parent, a lot can depend upon the age of your children and what I like to call the "stage of parenting" that you find yourself in. I recorded a whole podcast episode on this very topic: #130 - The Three Stages of Parenting.

  • Age 0-6 is when you’re doing EVERYTHING for your kids. You’re at home a lot. It can be exhausting. And there’s SO much to organize because the rate of change when it comes to clothes, toys, etc. is mind boggling!
  • Age 6-12 is when you do things with your kids. You teach them how to start looking after themselves.
  • 13+ is when they’re becoming a young adult. Then, it’s more about coaching and mentoring.

So what do you do when you’re in the middle of a phase and you don’t have time or money to get your house organized?

My answer is to work on changing your mindset.

A lot goes on in your head before you see it in physical reality. I notice this with my business, my finances, my relationships… the world is more mental than it is physical. Positivity feeds and attracts more positivity, and negativity feeds and attracts more negativity.

I reference in the podcast a documentary series on inventions that I watched and loved. If you’d like to check it out, it’s by National Geographic called American Genius.

If you’re in a hard place and you feel stuck in a tough phase of life, this doesn’t mean that you should give up the desire to have an organized home in the future. If you think about having an organized home and you want it enough, you will manifest it.

Having a Sunday Basket™ will really help you too. The Sunday Basket™ helps bring order, it develops the right skills, and brings about the discipline required for an organized house.

Of course, please continue to listen to my podcast and other podcasts on home organization, too! Continue working on your mindset, even if you’re somewhat limited in the action that you can take right now. You will be amazed at the power of a mindset shift!

View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/176

Direct download: Org365-176.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

This week’s podcast episode is a special one for me as it's all about my new book, How ADHD Affects Home Organization, which launched June 1!

In this week’s podcast episode, I share a lot about why I decided to write the book, what my goals are, and how I truly believe that this book is REALLY going to help people with ADHD feel empowered and able to take control of their home organization!

If you’d told me years ago that I’d one day be the author of a book called How ADHD Affects Home Organization, I’d have found it hard to believe... I don't have a degree or PhD in the subject!

However, it’s a topic that I’ve specialized in for almost 20 years in order to help my children. I’ve worked hard on overcoming every challenge that my children have faced, no matter how many attempts it took. We’ve tried a 100% natural approach with no medication at all, and we’ve tried various medications and alternative therapies, too. I’ve read medical journals, researched like crazy, and over the years I’ve developed an obsession with understanding how the mind works and how we can improve it.

I’ve parented, taught, and professionally organized people who struggle with ADHD. I’ve helped people from all around the world get their homes organized and stay organized.

My podcast series on ADHD last spring was very popular.  SO many people got in touch to say how much it had helped them and how I was able to explain things in a way that no one else had ever managed to before.

Through all of the above, I came to accept that I am an expert and I can and should use my expertise to really help others.  It seemed about time to write a book and so I did... and that’s why I’m launching How ADHD Affects Home Organization.

This book is for people who find themselves overwhelmed, even paralyzed, with home organization. Where you put effort in and don’t make progress, and you spend money on organizing solutions that just don’t work! My book is for people who know what to do, but just can’t get started!

Organization is not easy. And if you have ADHD, it’s a lot harder, but it’s not impossible! It’s all about understanding how your brain works, then working with your brain and not against it. It’s about recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, using them to your advantage, and finding strategies that work for you.

How ADHD Affects Home Organization explores the executive functions of the mind and how they affect your ability to organize your home. In particular, I take 6 executive functions (flexible thinking, working memory, self-monitoring, task initiation, planning, and organization) and explain for each one what it is, why it’s important when organizing your house, and I share solutions to problems that you may face.

The kindle book is free from June 1st - 3rd. Then from June 4th, it’ll be 99 cents for the rest of the month. If you buy the Kindle version, you’ll also receive a discount when downloading the audio version from Audible.

Please get a copy of the book and please, please review it, too. It really helps more people receive the message that they too can get organized!

This book will help the loved ones of those who have ADHD, too. Once you understand how the brain of a loved one with ADHD works, you understand them as a person a little bit more than you did before.

I truly believe it’s going to be a game changer and really help a lot of people. I’m so EXCITED! I want to remove the cloud over people who have ADHD and offer them hope, solutions, and empowerment.

To get your copy, please click here!

Direct download: Org365-174.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT