As we get ready to celebrate February as Black History Month in the United States, I want to share some of the history I have learned about the differences between Black and White Americans owning houses in the US. I am doing my best to use preferred terms and inclusive language, so I am asking for grace as you listen. I am always open to learning new things, but I also want to use this platform to share information about the US history with people who may not have learned these things in school and who have not yet added this topic to their learning journey. 

During the Summer of 2020, I dove into reading and learning about the historical differences between the experiences of Black and White Americans. I am a lifelong learner. I love history. I love to learn about different cultures. I love to learn about all people all over the world. I am learning about myself, my home, and broadening my horizons by learning about the experiences of others in the world. 

As a White woman celebrating Black History month, I want to be respectful, and I want to share information that would be relevant to my primary topic of organizing your home. I also want to acknowledge that my experience is different than that of African Americans, and I thought back to all the things I have been reading and learning about home ownership. I believe that the more we understand the differences that shape our lives, the better we are together and the more empathetic we are towards one another. 

In my history studies last summer, I began to learn how many White people were able to gain college educations and grow their wealth because of home ownership. I was initially shocked to learn about some of the differences I describe on the podcast. My family of origin had very different experiences, and by learning about the history of US housing, my eyes were opened to the reality of the differences in the US. I want to share some of the fascinating, eye-opening information I researched last summer. Links to several of these resources are below:

Black Wall Street - Podcast

The Color of Law - book by Richard Rothstein

NPR interview with The Color of Law author Richard Rothstein 

The Banker - Movie 

In the podcast, I share some of my own learning, insights, and a raising awareness of my own biases and assumptions. I offer you some resources to do your own research and learning. Knowing each other’s stories will bring us better understanding, and better conversations. I want all of us to leave more educated. What unites us is far greater than what divides us.

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally get to talk with members of the Organize 365 community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps, and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

This week, I share my conversation with Zetty M. She lives with her husband and three daughters (9, 11, and 14). They have been a nomadic sailing family for the last five years, but are now settled down in Wisconsin for the next nine years while the kids finish school. She shares how she has transformed her home and life along her organizing journey. And, she started her own business! I hope you find this conversation as inspiring as I do! You can find Zetty at https://zippypt.com 

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

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!

This is a special Coffee Chat episode, available only in your podcast player. Coffee Chats are time sensitive, so this episode will disappear once the content is no longer relevant.

Listen in for all of the new Organize 365 products available in our brand new Merch Store!

As we head into 2021, I want to talk with you about moving from a reactive life to a proactive one by resetting your daily routines. In 2020, many of us picked up some bad habits and time wasting activities that snuck into our schedules. I am working on recapturing my time for purposeful activity, and I want to share my thoughts and strategies with you. 

My evening routine is the shortest of all of my routines, and it is my least consistent routine. I like to use this time to focus on my hygiene and care of my body. I take a hot bath, do some skin care, and take my vitamins. Before the pandemic, I used to do something productive before doing these getting ready for bed activities. During the pandemic, I spent that time on my phone - on social media, reading about news events, reading hundreds of emails, and following different internet rabbit holes that were not particularly productive. 

For the next 120 days, I am focusing on incorporating habits of planning my outfits for the week on Sundays. I want to plan my food for the next day in advance. I also want to get back to reading physical books. Projects from my updated slash pockets are also things I may include in this time. I am focusing on writing out my notecard with the next day’s schedule and plan each evening. 

Think about what would make the biggest impact for you in the next 120 days. You cannot do it all. But, when you pick what you want to do, you can focus on doing those things with excellence. Do not take on too much - pick small easy things. Find ways to remind yourself about these changes, and see how it goes.

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally get to talk with members of the Organize 365 community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps, and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

This week, I share my conversation with Anna D. She lives with her husband of 25 years and shares two dogs with her adult daughter. She found Lisa from the ADDitude webcast. Anna began her transformational journey during some major unexpected life events. She settled her sister’s estate, remodeled her mom’s house, and was dealing with her own ADD. She shares her story of learning to thrive despite chaos. I hope you find this conversation as inspiring as I do! 

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

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

As we head into 2021, I want to talk with you about moving from a reactive life to a proactive one by resetting your daily routines. In 2020, many of us picked up some bad habits and time wasting activities that snuck into our schedules. I am working on recapturing my time for purposeful activity, and I want to share my thoughts and strategies with you.

When I consider daily routines, I look at the morning, afternoon, and evening time periods. I am going to discuss each of these and share what I was doing pre-pandemic, how 2020 dramatically changed these times of day, and what I want these routines to look like in 2021. 

I actually think afternoon routines are one of the most important and often overlooked transition periods, especially for women. I first introduced my 2017 afternoon routine in Podcast Episode 193. You can listen to that if you want more information about my morning routine before the pandemic of 2020.

As you adjust and adapt your routines, I really recommend small changes. Small changes over time are more successful and create more lasting change than big sweeping changes that are difficult to sustain. Afternoon routines are the transition from work or school back to home and family time. It is the bridge from your daytime activity to the dinner hour. The afternoon routine is one you have to be conscious about setting up, especially if you want to be deliberate about what you do during this time. 

Depending on your phase of life, the afternoon routine can include dinner preparation, cleaning up the house, checking kids homework, and sometimes driving to and from activities. But, it is the change over from work to house life. 

For many years, I did not actually stop working at a typical time, so my afternoon routine was a pause to just get my family on track. However, as Organize 365 has grown, I worked to develop the habit of stopping work at a reasonable time to give my family my full attention. I delighted in my habit of spending time with Greg every day. 

During the Pandemic, Greg and I both began to work later everyday. We both worked a lot more and did not end at our normal times anymore. I did run to Culvers almost every day to give myself a commute and some alone time. Over the summer, I began to spend more time at the warehouse and continued to work more than my basic 40 hours a week. In the Fall, I began to work more at the warehouse and office. I still need a transition from work to home and some private, quiet, alone time for my thoughts. I want to keep the transition, but I no longer enjoy eating all this fast food. 

Updating my pink slash pockets has already given me more motivation and desire to work on my own projects after my work hours. This is a more desirable way to use my time than driving to get fast food. And, we are spending more time sharing meals together as a family.

Of the three routines, this one is the most nebulous for me, and the one that is still in process. I am not fully sure how I am going to achieve these changes to my routine, but I am giving myself grace as I figure this out. 

So, as you figure out what you want to adjust in your afternoon routine, be patient and observe what is working and not working right now. Do you want to spend time with family? Is this a helpful time to tackle your 100 Day Home Organization Program task of the day? Do you need to focus on your food and nutrition? Do you have hobbies or personal projects you will focus on? 

I would love if you can share your afternoon routine ideas in the Facebook group or on Instagram and tag me!

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally get to talk with members of the Organize 365 community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps, and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

This week, I share my conversation with Melinda K. She lives with her retired husband, college age step-daughter, and 2 dogs. In our conversation, Melinda shares how she was inspired to clean up her office (and how she started her 100 Day Home Organization Program doing double time and following her energy. She’s also a bit of rebel, so she can encourage others who don’t want to be told what to do, even by me! I hope you find this conversation as inspiring as I do! 

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

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!

As we head into 2021, I want to talk with you about moving from a reactive life to a proactive one by resetting your daily routines. In 2020, many of us picked up some bad habits and time wasting activities that snuck into our schedules. I am working on recapturing my time for purposeful activity, and I want to share my thoughts and strategies with you.

When I consider daily routines, I look at the morning, afternoon, and evening time periods. I am going to discuss each of these and share what I was doing pre-pandemic, how 2020 dramatically changed these times of day, and what I want these routines to look like in 2021. 

I first shared my thoughts about a morning routine back in Episode 192. You can listen to that if you want more information about my morning routine before the pandemic of 2020. 

We are going to start with the morning routine, because that is when our day first starts. Traditionally, morning routine strategies are written by men without children who take over an hour to get their day started - even without showering, hair or makeup. My reality is that my mornings have almost always been dictated by what my family needs. 

My basic morning routine takes me about 45 minutes just to get prepared to leave the house and start my day. When I get up, I get ready for the day and then leave my bedroom. I do not lounge around the house in the morning. I get ready for the most dressy event of the day and stay dressed all day long. I do not ever go back and change my clothes. 

With the pandemic, my morning routine faced several disruptions. I had all this content that I felt like I had to consume before I could get out of bed and start my day. My spouse and whole family were home too, which changed how I was working. Around this time, my mental mindset was changing and the podcasts I listened to completely changed. We had to quarantine several times as a family due to COVID exposures (everyone was thankfully safe and negative). Joey totaled his car, which meant he needed more rides. Honestly, I just abdicated my morning routine in so many ways, and became reactive to the changes happening in my life. 

As you build your morning routine for 2021, ask yourself: What do you want?

• When do you want to get up?
• When do you want to start your work day or tasks?
• What things do you want in your morning routine?
• What do you want done early in the day?
• Do you want to change what media you are consuming in the morning?

Please feel free to share your morning routine ideas in the Organize 365 Facebook Group!

There's a new Organize 365 pop up podcast! I'll be doing some Coffee Chat episodes on Tuesdays - but they'll only be available in your favorite podcast player. These are time sensitive episodes about products, events, or specific information. And, they will self-destruct (disappear) when they are no longer relevant. So, make sure you are subscribed to the podcast and you will never miss an episode!

Happy New Year 2021! We did it! We made it through 2020! When I look back on 2020, there is of course the pandemic, and all of the things that were unexpected, not desirable, and even terrible. But, there were also great things that happened in 2020.

In 2020, we did a lot of pivoting, adjusting, and adapting. Organize 365 moved to a bigger warehouse and hired more full time staff members. As a family, we had family members home at different times, and came out ok.

As I look forward to 2021, it feels really hard to plan and set goals. The first quarter of 2021, is not going to be the best time of (most) of our lives. But, once we are safe at home, we are mostly in control of what happens inside of our home, our mindset, and our planning for that. When I reflect on 2020, my core personality and gifts did not change, but my habits changed drastically. 

When the pandemic first arrived, I filled my days with work. As the year went on, I was able to return to the rhythm of working mostly during work hours, but I filled my free time with habits that were not serving me. Those habits were wasting two to four hours of my day (and I’ll tell you all about them in the next three podcasts). But, you need a proactive plan when removing less useful habits from your life. My Pink slash pockets remind me to make time for hobbies and relationships that are important to me. 

When I looked at my Pink slash pockets in my Sunday Basket® the other day, I realized I had not changed them at all during the pandemic. I had pockets for travel and restaurant dates with Greg. I did not want the pandemic to interfere with these dreams and goals, so I kept them throughout all of 2020. 

As I look at the next 120 days (the first of my 3 new years in a calendar year), I will likely not be traveling or eating in a restaurant. My heart goes out to those industries and the very hard season they are still experiencing. 

I was resistant to changing my pink slash pockets, and that meant that I limited my own hobbies and interests to just jigsaw puzzles. I definitely enjoyed doing lots of puzzles, and do not plan to stop enjoying them in 2021. But, I do want to incorporate new pink slash pockets for myself.

I am saving my former Pink slash pockets for now, but I am starting some new projects in the next 120 days. Listen in and I will share my new possibilities for my free time and self improvement projects for January through April of 2021. 

What do you want your first 120 days of 2021 to look like? Start to dream about the different ways you can possibly use your time, and when the time presents itself, you can jump into one of your possible projects!

Mentioned in the episode: Launch Bundle with Binder