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The Kitchen Productivity & Profitability Blitz

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2024-03-01
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580 - Ditch the Lists - Do This Instead

This week I want to talk about lists. Why I don?t have to do lists, cleaning lists, work lists, etc. I just all the sudden realized I didn?t have them and had to figure out, where did they go? When did I get rid of them? How long have I been living without lists? Where was my security blanket? It just seems like the more productive you are, don?t you need more lists? Shouldn?t your lists have lists?

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

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

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

EPISODE RESOURCES:

The Friday Workbox®

Kitchen Productivity & Profitability Blitz

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2024-02-23
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Coffee Chat - The State of the Family Economy - NEW Meal Planning Blitz

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

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

?Electricity ?Property Taxes

?Rent ?Healthcare

?Tipping ?Streaming Services/Entertainment

?Service Providers

Wait, I?ve been here before?

In December I realized the hustle was back and I started to feel like something else was ?brewing? but hadn?t quite put my finger on it. Towards the end of January when I didn?t see financial relief at the end of the tunnel, I knew what it was. We are all feeling inflation, and quite honestly, ?shrinkflation.? I have experienced this 4 times in the past.

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

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

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

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

Your home is THE business that powers the American economy!

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

Kitchen Productivity & Profitability Blitz - March 4-8th

-Family surveys (the all skate)

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

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

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

EPISODE RESOURCES:

[email protected]

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2024-02-20
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579 - Your Brain Needs Small Tasks and Large Projects

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

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

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

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

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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2024-02-16
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578 - Saturday Tasks vs Sunday Tasks

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

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

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

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

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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2024-02-09
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Organize 365 Reorganization & Wednesday Podcast Break

First of all?don?t panic! It?s just a small, 6-week break. You know, every once in a while you need to get reorganized and pause something so you have more bandwidth to address another project. That?s all we?re doing! In the meantime, I?d love to record an episode with you about your transformation with Organize 365®! Just go to the website >Podcast >Wednesday Podcast >Apply to be our guest?it?s that simple!

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

Adult Circle Time

Second of all, have I got something big for you! I?ve been mulling over this idea that as adults we need circle time. You know, think about the weather, what?s for lunch, and activities we have coming up?but for adults. I still have that kindergarten teacher brain. And I really think as adults we could all benefit from a little heads up as to the organizing energy of the week/month, golden windows that are coming up so we can be prepared to get a specific project accomplished, plan for holidays so they don?t just pop up on us, and offerings from us here at Organize 365®! I mean if you think about it, the schools do this for us, right? They let us know all the things that are coming up and then you as the parent plan ahead how you want to participate in each activity/event. Do you have time, money, and availability? Then you know what to expect. That?s all this is - a little circle time that will be every Thursday evening so you can make a proactive plan. I hope you?ll join me!

It?ll be everywhere your eyeballs would be

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

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Wednesday Podcast Guest

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2024-02-07
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577 - Jump Start - HOME - Get to 30% Organized in 6 Weeks

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

Our second Jump Start option, you could do in place of personal organizing or do after. You could do these in reverse order; it doesn?t matter. We?ve pulled the lessons from The Productive Home Solution® into a Jump Start Kitchen Organization Program and walk you through how to get your kitchen all the way organized in six weeks or less. Typically, you get surface level organized and then move on, because everything else seems so much more disorganized than the kitchen. These Jump Start programs encourage you to get all the way organized - either in your personal or in your kitchen spaces. And all the way organized is pretty detailed.

When you get all the way organized in your kitchen, you?re going to start with figuring out what your zones should be, and what phase of life you are currently in. I want you to pretend that you are moving into this house for the first time. Think about if you were moving in right now, how you would organize this kitchen without looking at anything that?s in any cabinet. Your kitchen is really like a whole house. It does so many things, and every cabinet is like a tiny room that has a purpose for the phase and stage of life you are in. The size of your kitchen doesn?t matter as much as the functionality. Instead of wishing that you had something that you don?t, take what you have and make it as functional as possible. Then if you ever do move or you have the opportunity to make improvements to your house, you?ll know exactly what you want to put in there.

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

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

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Jump Start Programs

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2024-02-02
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Transformation with Lydia M.

In this episode, I introduce you to Lydia M. who has two daughters, ages 4 and 9 months, is married and living in Florida. She has the capacity to run her business, invest in her family, and partake in her hobbies or simply scroll through Instagram. But it wasn?t always like this. Lydia was getting ready to start her bookkeeping business, DAC Balance, so she searched for podcasts to motivate and educate her. She came across the Professional Organizer Think Tank Podcast in 2006 which still exists!! When Lydia heard me say that there was a regular podcast, Lydia found it and has been a loyal listener every Friday since 2017.

It was fascinating to learn about what Lydia does, the business sizes that she works with, and compared Organize 365®?s business as it pertained to her business. Simply put, she?s the middle man between the data entry person at a business and a CPA. Some businesses do not need a full time ?controller? so they hire Lydia to fill that gap.

Lydia and her husband were fortunate enough to move into her great aunt and uncle?s home after losing her aunt. Since her aunt?s passing was somewhat sudden, all their things were still in the home when they moved in. Lydia?s family was happy to not have to purchase something for this home that was new to them but it also meant estate sales, garage sales, and multiple trips to donation centers over the next 4 years to clear it all out.

In 2019, Lydia found out she was pregnant. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit not too much later. The idea of becoming a mom and the pandemic gave Lydia time to get organized with the 100 Day Program she?d received as a gift for Christmas. Now that the house had been cleared out, it was time to declutter her stuff. This resulted in items being in the correct rooms?but also meant all the stuff needed to be gone through again. I shared a little tip we competitive puzzle solvers use, and it?s that we go through the pieces three times to complete the puzzle. We declutter to be able to organize to be able to get optimized and the result is productivity. This is why we go through The Productive Home Solution® three times.

Lydia went on to describe how she is resetting her home every three months-ish due to her 9 month old growing and developing. With babies, there is a 3-4 monthly cycle in and out of clothes, toys, and safety in your home. Once our children are about 5 that turns into the first half of the school year, the second half, and then summer. This is why we do the home blitzes in that same pattern. Lydia wants to set an example of planning for her girls. I brought up that meme: Choose your hard?Planning is hard and not planning is hard. Lydia wants her girls to know it?s normal to plan for the upcoming week. She wishes someone had taught her that way earlier in life. We talked about the impact on our mental and cognitive load when we use the Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox®.

Speaking of planning and the benefits, you think I rabbit trailed on shipping in the past two episodes? No, we really trailed off getting into what the heck I am doing with my PhD and what my coach and I discussed. Turns out I have had a good chunk of research completed towards putting together a Household Organization/Productivity Theory!

Lydia?s advice is, ?Buy all the things. Do the blitzes to get a sense of how it feels to be organized in a season.?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Jump Start: Personal Organization

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2024-01-31
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576 - Jump Start- YOU - Get 50% Organized in 6 Weeks

The number one reason cited as to why people do not feel like they are more organized or they do not start getting organized is they don't know HOW to start. They don't know WHERE to start. They don't know how long it's going to take...something else always gets in the way. Today's episode is going to help give you the tools to overcome this hurdle.

So when you're at home and you feel like you're disorganized and you have a little bit of time, how do you use it? How do you get started? That's what I've been wrestling with the last 6 months. Looking at customer service emails, listening to things on social media, watching how people are implementing the tools that Organize 365® has to get you more organized, which ultimately give you more time. But - if you don't have any time, how do you get organized?

What does it look like when your closet, bathroom, and bedroom are declared "organized"? Your closet is done when anyone could go in there, choose an outfit, and you'd put it on and walk out the door immediately. Your bathroom is done when you have everything you need for your morning, afternoon, and evening routines. No extras of anything and duplicates of everything you couldn't go a day without. Your bedroom is done when it doesn't look like you're living in your storage room. It should be intentional. When you are organized there is no negative self talk, you wake up and have a more productive day, and you are moving forward faster. You have more mental capacity at your discretion in the morning and the evening to reflect on your day. This allows you to go to bed calmer and with less stress, all small but significant benefits - just from being organized!

Personal organization is a YOU game. You need to get your space organized first, then you will start to live an organized life 50% of the time. If you start February 15th, you will be personally organized by April 1st. How amazing would it feel to be personally organized in 6 weeks and living 50% of your life as an organized person?!

The first Jump Start cycle begins on February 15th, and runs every 6 weeks. You will have dashboard access to the course, and be invited into a private community group in the App. You will also get weekly recordings of The Productive Home Solution® Club. More details can be found at https://organize365.com/jump-start/.

Next week I'll give you all the details on the Kitchen + Meal Planning Jump Start Program!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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2024-01-26
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Transformation with Wendy T.

In this episode, I introduce you to Wendy T. She's married with a 13 year old son, a 10 year old daughter, one cat and one dog. She lives in Southern Australia and owns 2 Air BNB?s. Talking to Wendy gave me a lot of ideas about traveling to Australia, and how to fulfill my wish list. I hope Greg joins me in 2026!

It was interesting to learn that Wendy found Organize 365® through the ADHD Podcast which brought her to the Sunday Basket® Podcast and then to the main podcast. In learning about the Sunday Basket®, she thought this could be the way to gain calm in her home. In 2020, Wendy was in the process of moving. She purchased the old The Productive Home Solution® and found permission to let go of things. Back then it was the IDLE ?process? and we laughed at the placement of the phone book mentioned. She?d experimented with Marie Kondo, but what she found different with Organize 365® were the systems, processes, and schedules. It was more than just decluttering.

Wendy used to have paper piles in each room and she?d throw papers in them thinking, ?Oh yeah, I?ll deal with it later.? When those paper piles started to disappear, that?s when she knew Organize 365® was effective in her life. Our homes don?t have administration offices like work, but Wendy saw her Sunday Basket® as a mini administration space. She could hold things in there until they needed to be dealt with. She loves the ability to think less and follows the tried and true systems of Organize 365®.

We got on a shipping 2.0 conversation (1.0 was the Canadian shipping last episode), this time about Australia. This held Wendy back for a time. We feel selfish spending this money because it seems like it?s for us. The reality is that the family eats better, the Sunday Basket® user is more calm, and the house runs more smoothly. We pay a lot of money for summer camps and soccer, we should spend money to maintain our homes too! After Wendy splurged on the Organize 365® products and shipping them to Australia, she realized it?s like self care. She doesn?t spend money on shoes or handbags; so this is her splurge. Wendy pointed out that because shipping is so high, she appreciates the planning and implementation days to still be part of organizing life with Organize 365®. Planning Day is where she learned about permission for something else?naps!

The planning days brought us to discovering each other's calendars. Australians celebrate different holidays. Their seasons are different from ours. And their school year is different. This got me thinking about America?s natural energy/cadence to organizing and how it matches up, or didn?t in most cases, to Australia?s. Her Golden Window is NOW! We determined Wendy?s weather must be like that of Arizona?s. It?s summer now and can get up to 40 degrees C or 104 degrees F. It?s also one of the busiest times for the Air BNB?s with the gardens. She values her Friday Workbox® even more now with managing people. She?s not doing so much physical work, but she is managing!

Wendy?s advice is, ?Go back to ?Lisa Basics?. Give yourself grace. Done is better than perfect. Keep at it - chip away. Just start! It?s just a habit. If you build the habit, it just gets so much easier!?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2024-01-24
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575 - Organizational Dominos: Step 3 - Don't Quit

Alright, it's time for the last organizational domino - Don't Quit! When you have mastered something, when you have persevered and you have learned something at a new level, you can easily forget what it was like to learn that skill. For many adults, we don't often have to push through any resistance in order to learn something new. When things get rough, we can choose to be comfortable instead of doing something hard or pushing through the resistance.

Quitting is fine. You're allowed to quit. The reason why I didn't quit in 2012 in getting my home organized was because I didn't have any options left. I was turning 40, I started Organize 365®, I was getting our house organized and I had become a Professional Organizer. If I couldn't get my own house organized, how was I going to keep being a Professional Organizer? It was part of my identity of who I was becoming.

The next time I wanted to quit was with growing Organize 365®. There have been a lot of things that have happened in 12 years in business that I didn't know how to do. I don't have a business degree, so I am learning how to be a business owner by being in masterminds, hiring coaches, taking courses, going to seminars and conferences. Being an entrepreneur is a never ending professional development course.

As an adult you want to quit...or you just figure out how to do it. It's not about being afraid of the effort or the work; it's about not knowing how to do it, or what to do next. Go back to your WHY - why do you want to get organized to begin with? When you know your why, then you know your limits, strengths and weaknesses...and realize that you will need resources, help, expertise, advice and so forth in order to get further and grow more.

Organization can be the solution to having a plan and getting your time back. I know you're probably thinking: "it's ridiculous to pay money to Organize 365® to learn how to organize, when I should just know how to do this myself." Why should you know how to do something just because you've always lived in a household?

Everything is taught to us, or modeled for us. If you weren't TAUGHT how to be organized, you have to go to class. When you get stuck - join the community, get in the app, go to the coworking time. Get with people who are like minded. Sign up for a 1:1 session with a Certified Organizer.

Everyone is going to get stuck. I'm not going to let you quit. Keep pushing through, because on the other side is the organized life and unlocked time freedom that you're looking for.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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

2024-01-19
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Transformation with Francie G.

In this episode, I introduce you to Francie G. Francie found herself googling for basement organization podcasts when her mother-in-law decided to downsize from her home of 46 years in November of 2022. She came across the ?arranging your hot mess rooms? episode and was hooked. For her mother-in-law's move, which turned into her move too?she invested in The Productive Home Solution®. She grasped the idea of ?same with same? and ease of access based on frequency of use. She then chose her own organizational adventure.

At the same time, Francie, her husband, and two children, Thomas and Joanne, were living in a condo. Francie and her husband started their lives there 18 years ago, but knew it was not their forever home. Her mother-in-law downsizing meant they would be acquiring some furniture, memorabilia, and other items from this transition. They knew it was more than their condo could hold. They temporarily rented a storage space, but knew that money could instead go towards a mortgage for a house that was plenty big to have all their stuff in their home. This was the perfect time to start the search for their new home.

We got to talking about our children getting older and that means their bodies get bigger too! It?s like 4 adults were living in their home. They were at a point in life where a little more space would be nice. And I don?t think we talk enough about buying your first nice piece of furniture or your first home in your 40?s. We don?t move into our first home and everything is perfect and brand new! Cue the The Paper Solution® Financial Binder. They needed to be more diligent with their money and she wanted peace of mind to know things would be ok.

Francie and her husband have always been intentional with their spending despite esteemed professions. They have never owned a car, stayed in their condo till they felt they needed to move, and hired a nanny that had capabilities to drive. Francie?s first investment actually was the ADHD Bundle, and we might have gone down a rabbit hole about shipping internationally and how things have changed. She also explained that because of the public transportation and the nanny, she was able to work from home with both children attending different schools, uninterrupted. When the children were in school, the nanny would run errands or help with housework. If Francie needed to go anywhere, she could hop on the public transportation.

With all this change for her mother-in-law and their family, Francie started thinking she too may have ADHD. Re-establishing the systems she?s learned, she realized she just has a lot of complexities in her life and no ADHD. Those complexities can suppress executive function. She laughed thinking ?Well, I had gestational diabetes while I was pregnant. So maybe I?ll have ADHD while the kids live at home!? She?s realized that Organize 365® is the cure for that! She?s regaining her work/life balance and knows she can do hard things.

Francie?s advice is, ?the systems, routines, and schedules at home that Organize 365® teaches are the external scaffolding that keeps life organized. ?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

https://organize365.com/newsletteroptin/

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2024-01-17
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Coffee Chat - New Portables and the School Memories Binder is Back!

I just want all my podcast listeners to be in the know. Now in the Shop are the two new Portable Sunday Basket® color options. I really don?t understand the obsession with all black?so I had to throw in a new fun one too!! The School Memory Binder is back, redesigned, and you can choose a color for that too! Food for thought: each one of your children could have different colors.

A gentle reminder that the first Paper Organizing Retreat of 2024 will be here in Cincinnati on March 2nd. You have time?but do you?? Finalize plans and I look forward to seeing you in March!

New Portable Sunday Basket Colors

Basic Black

Black & Pink Stripes

School Memory Binder is Back

Lattice color choice of white, pink, purple, green, or blue

Now can save school memorabilia through 12th grade

Don?t Forget the next Paper Organizing Retreat is March 2nd

Seems like a long time from now, but not really! If you need to plan who you are going with, where you will stay, and gathering all the paper you will want to organize - do that soon!.

This is part of the Certified Organizer certification. So if it has been on your list of things you want to accomplish, then get registered and plan!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Portable Sunday Basket®

School Memory Binder

Paper Organizing Retreat

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

2024-01-16
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574 - Organizational Dominos: Step 2 - Extend Your Timeline

Are you ready for organizational dominos Step 2? Step 1 was getting started - in decluttering and organizing; and understanding that organization is different than housework. It is putting systems in place that will support you and will last for more than a day or a week and give you foundation.

Step 2 is how long will this take? I need you to give me more time. If we could do it in a weekend, I would let you know. If we could do it in a month, I would let you know. Even if it was your full time job, we couldn't do it in that short amount of time...there's just too much to do. It's going to take one to three years. I know you don't like that answer but this is not new information, and this is not a marketing scheme. If anything, it's an anti-marketing scheme.

It takes a MINIMUM of one year to get organized. Part of why it takes a minimum of one year is because you just finished December. If you're starting brand new now in January, do you remember what all you did in the beginning of December? Thanksgiving? Halloween? There are things that you did seasonally that you don't remember right now as you're organizing in January. There is a seasonality to organizing your physical spaces.

Year One

During your first year of organizing, your only job is to do 15 minute tasks every single day. Keep doing those 15 minute tasks every single day in every space until it's completely organized. A completely organized space has only 2 requirements.

1. When you walk into that space, it isn't "talking back" to you. The space isn't demanding your attention.

2. There are no more decisions to be made. There's no more thinking about what you're doing (or need to do) in that space.

Year Two

By the end of your first year, you've been through all the seasons and your house will be pretty much organized. So in year two - you're going to go through your house AGAIN because now you can declutter more, add some organizational systems, make it prettier, etc. You're going to get into the cadence of reflecting on the last 4 months and then planning for the next 4 months. You're going to create better systems, better cadences, start using the Sunday Basket® and The Paper Solution® Binders (if you haven't already).

Year Three

You are living an organized life in your home and in your work, and you identify as an organized person. Unexpected events happen in your life, but they don't become all consuming. You're better able to handle the complexity. You're going to be able to flex with the unexpected events because your house is under control, your work is under control, and you really do have work-life balance. You know the visible and invisible work that needs to be done in both, and you've set up systems in both that are supporting you so that when the unexpected happens - you're the one that can bounce right back and still maintain your goals.

You know where all your time goes, where all your money goes, where all your intention goes, where your energy goes. You know you have capacity to do MORE. Why?

Because YOU. ARE. ORGANIZED.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Organize 365® Kids Program

Podcast episode 463: Learning the Skill of Organizing: Step 3 Increase Productivity

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

2024-01-12
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Organize 365 Cycle of Organizing: Step 3 Increase Productivity

Organizational math.

As a math teacher, I knew that if there were any holes in my student?s learning, they would struggle with future math concepts. Math skills build upon each other? just like organizing skills.

There is a reason that most organizational programs start with decluttering (subtraction): you must reduce your pile before you can move on to step 2? organizing.

Organization adds minutes to your days (addition) and speeds up your pace as you get through the tedium of everyday household tasks.

But, increased productivity is the holy grail we all seek. Once you know how to multiply time, there is no turning back.

The skill of being a productive person starts with decluttering spaces, calendars, commitments, and sometimes people. Adding the weekly cadence of organizing your time, your priorities, and your actionable to-dos leaves you with a manageable action plan.

I used to think productivity = being busy. Now I know that everyone is busy. Ironically, the people who look least busy are usually the most productive.

Next year at this time, do you want to be more productive? More purposeful? More peaceful?

The organizational level you are at today is a reflection of the cumulative minutes you invested in the full organizational cycle this year. Decluttering + organization = increased productivity.

It would be my honor to walk with you through your organizational journey.

Productivity is a fickle friend. It will not spontaneously happen. Productivity must be planned.

It's time to make a plan!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

The Household Operations Binder

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

2024-01-11
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Transformation with Christa G.

In this episode, I introduce you to Christa G. Christa is from a little town not too far from me; but about six years ago moved to Michigan from Georgia. Christa is married and has two children that are almost 12 and 16. Christa ended up hearing one of my interviews on the Boss Mom podcast around 2015/2016. She knew when they got to Michigan that she wanted to start a wedding planning business. She got the Friday Workbox® to keep her on track and organized before they moved. She now runs her wedding planning business full time! She?s known for planning unconventional weddings that reflect the character of the bride and groom.

When Christa first found me, my kids were about her kids' ages. We laughed about having these humans that look like adults in our homes and how they take up more space, have opinions, and different food preferences. Christa has been such a proactive mom that these little adults do their own laundry and can prepare meals for themselves?even if it?s just frosted flakes! We rabbit trailed to what I call ?selfish? laundry. Christa mentioned that she?d like to see her son wash more than just a uniform he needs for his sports team. When Greg says he?s going to do the laundry and I see only his jeans got washed; I give him a hard time saying ?Oh, we?re doing selfish laundry today?? Christa and I agree to just put a full load in the wash instead.

She plans her meals for the week when she processes her Sunday Basket® and then the family sees what she?ll be making and what nights they?ll have to fend for themselves. We kind of have this going on at my house except we all have cars and we all have money. So we are all shopping and not all of the food is getting eaten. I remember my mom doing the ?refrigerator review? which meant she?d heat up all the leftovers the night before garbage day. Whatever didn?t get eaten, she?d toss. This was one more attempt at that food getting eaten instead of wasted. The Woodruff?s are a work in progress in this area!

Christa managed to get her home life running pretty smooth and then she focused on her business. She has learned to become a person of excellence in one area and then build on her skill set. Weddings look so different for each couple. I shared that Greg and I were married 6 months after Greg finally proposed, it took him three years. Christa shared that she eloped. She normally hears ?you made this process so much more calm than I expected it to be.? Wedding planners are there to have your back. They will read through all the contracts, search for options for flowers or other items you need, and pivot when needed. This way the bride doesn?t get lost in the weeds of the details. She offered some wedding planning advice:

Get help planning your wedding. Ideally a wedding planner, but if not rely on your wedding party to help.

Your budget will depend on the number of guests you have attending. So to stay within your budget you may consider a smaller invite list.

Find a venue that fits your vision to prevent additional spending in order to transform the space.

Hot button alert!! You wanna hear a good story about a good venue and contracts? I shared what happened to Organize 365® with the Savannah Center. You will not see me doing business with them! Christa shared how she had to fight for a couple when at the last minute a venue decided to have their ballroom renovated leaving them to deal with a less than ideal wedding. You bet Christa got that money back!! That?s the blessing of a wedding planner.

Christa?s advice is, ?learn to be flexible, readjust when needed and not be so rigid in what you want to happen. But feel out what is supposed to happen and what feels right.?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2024-01-10
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573 - Organizational Dominos: Step 1 - Start

Happy New Year!

Today, I'm kicking off a three-part series called Organizational Dominos. We're starting with Step 1: Start. Next week will be Step 2: Extend Your Timeline, and then comes Step 3: Don't Quit!

We all want to quit at some point, but we're going to push through and we are NOT going to quit. But let's talk about getting started first. Getting started is the hardest part when you're trying something new, doing something different, or not really sure where you're going...or confident that you know how to get there.

We've been doing Thursday Throwback episodes of the most popular podcast series we've ever had called The Stages of Organization. Step 1 of that cycle is decluttering. Decluttering leads to organization, and organization leads to increased productivity. Decluttering is easy. It gives you the big "WOW" result when you're done. You can do that for a couple of weeks and feel lighter. However, there are problems with decluttering. One is that you don't declutter enough, and the second is if you've already decluttered but what is left isn't organized - then you need to move on to step 2. Over decluttering is a thing! We tend to do this if we don't know how to get organized, and think instead that we just need to get rid of more things. Set a timer for 15 minutes, grab a black trash bag, and fill it up. Even if you just start with trash or broken items, do that. Then go back through and collect anything that you can donate.

Stop by the donation place of your choice every single week until you can't fill the car anymore. Declutter 15 minutes a day, and whatever is going to be donated - put it straight in your car.

Getting started - declutter. Throw out all the trash and broken items, decide to sell or not sell, establish a donation cadence. Time to move on to organizing.

15 minutes a day. If you use that 15 minutes a day for housework instead of organizing, you're not going to get organized - EVER. What's the difference between housework and organizing? That's what I'm focusing on in my PhD. No joke - in the American Time Use Study, working on a boat is considered housework! Emptying ashtrays, shoveling coal, waiting for your electric car to charge - all housework. Mind blown!

Housework is anything you do weekly that is basically undone by the time you finish it. Dishes, laundry, grocery shopping, planning meals, cleaning the refrigerator, you get it. So the 15 minutes a day you are spending on ORGANIZING (not housework!) should be for something that will last at least a month. There isn't enough information out in the world about how to actually get organized. There is for decluttering and productivity - but not organizing. So when you're looking this year to follow someone to inspire you to get organized, look for these things:

Someone who has the plan and the results that you want

Does their lifestyle match yours?

Their rigidity - Do they have lots of checklists? Do their checklists have checklists?

How they pivot during unexpected events: Do they pivot the way that you would?

I might not be your person. I may not be enough organization for you. And that's ok.

Are you ready to get organized in 2024? I want to encourage you that it is literally impossible to be behind when you are organizing. All you have to do is START!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day Prep

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2024-01-05
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Coffee Chat - Planning X 3

Ok, I?m letting you in on some of the behind the scenes stuff I do to prepare for planning days. Yes, I plan for prep for planning days. And I implement after. I think it?s high time I show you live how I do it! Here are the next two additional opportunities you don?t want to miss.

The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day Prep Event

I normally spend three days at the end of the year just planning. I know it?s crazy, right? And now all my secrets will be revealed. I will be using my real life Sunday Baskets® and my real life slash pockets. This is not in place of the Sunday Basket® Club co-working time. This is a deep dive day! We are going to the next level! I will show you how I go through each slash pocket and update my binders. I will go through all my 2.0 slash pockets and decide on projects. I will take all of my Holiday Blitz papers and place them into the Home Operations Binder for next year?s holidays. We will transform that Sunday Basket® into the Taxes Basket. You?ll look at last year and the new year baskets and consolidate into one Sunday Basket®. I will also go through both the workbook for The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day and The Productive Home Solution® Playbook.

Friday Workbox® Planning Day Implementation Event

?Do I need this information for the next 12 weeks?? This is the big question for this day. This will happen on the 13th Friday of each quarter. We do the planning day. We get clear on your goals. Then you usually need to meet with your team OR meet with yourself. After discussing the goals and how to reach them, you may scale down or change how you initially thought you would accomplish those goals. People are in place to get these goals accomplished. Then comes Implementation Day! I will expose all 6 of my Workboxes and will go through them live. You will see me go through my slash pockets and relabel them. This will freshen up all your systems and get the ball rolling on your new goals you put in your purple slash pockets. Ooooh, I just love planning!

Two New Opportunities:

Planning Day Prep Dec 28th (the last Thursday of the year)

2 hour live webinar

Replay through Jan 8, 2024

Prep Workbook/Playbook

Update Binders

Weed through 2.0 Slash Pockets

If you did the Holiday Blitz, you?ll consolidate and repurpose those Sunday Baskets®

No Prerequisite

Friday Workbox® Planning Day Implementation Dec 29th (last Friday of the year)

Replay through Jan 8, 2024

About three weeks after Friday Workbox® Planning Day

2 hour live webinar

Will always be the 13th Friday of each quarter going forward

Weed through 2.0 Slash Pockets and relabel them

No Prerequisite

All aboard?let?s get both trains (home and work) running efficiently to create the impact we all deeply desire.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Workbox Planning Day Implementation

Shop the Planning Category

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

2024-01-04
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Organize 365 Cycle of Organizing: Step 2 Organizing

Last week we went over the first step to the cycle of getting organized; decluttering. I shared that decluttering leads to organization. I defined organization as lasting change in your home - not like housework that needs to be done daily or weekly. In this episode, I take that definition one layer deeper. Your rooms should not be talking to you?what does that mean?

There IS seasonality to our homes; our choice of shoes, meals we cook, our diets, activities we enjoy. Naturally, we need different items for each season. This is why here at Organize 365® we have divided the year into trimesters; 4 month segments to plan for the next phase of seasonality your home and life will be facing. Now that we are done with the holidays, when is the next time you?ll be making a turkey? Likely in 11 months. So you could put that turkey pan and the lifters in your storage...but you can?t because your storage area is a hot mess like every other storage area I?ve seen ever. THIS is why it?s nice to be organized. You can tailor your spaces with the seasonality and have an appropriate organized storage area to do that! Each planning day helps you to anticipate these seasons and the ?unexpected? events that come our way with each season.

Did you know that this year Easter is in March?? Yes! Our last planning day we talked about that, which will change spring break for many of us. How do you ?Spring Break?? You may need to make hotel reservations or talk to people you travel to for Easter. It?s inevitable that after Easter our brains switch to summer - but the reality is that we have a lot of weeks left in school until summer. I also brought awareness to taxes. Yes, they are coming!! It?s funny how these ?unexpected? events come out of nowhere and can throw everything off track. This is why we have the planning days. For this reason, you get the first planning day included when you get The Productive Home Solution®. We want to give you all the support we can to get you organized and stay that way even if an unexpected or routine ?unexpected? event comes your way.

Year One

After a year of going through all your spaces (15 minutes at a time) decluttering and organizing, you will no longer have rooms talking to you. No room is reminding you to change the light bulb, order a backup of a product you use daily, or a repair that is needed. You have backup of products you use and systems in place to resupply. You are no longer using your decision making allowance on what you are going to wear, what is for breakfast, or other simple decisions throughout your day. This process of decluttering will result in organization. This will not look like everything is labeled and ?pretty.? This kind of organization will look like more time and more free thinking space in your brain. You can start to mentally prepare for your day as you get ready or drive to work. You can focus on accomplishing your goals. You may not be organized now, but you could be a year from now. So where do you start?

I always advise starting in your personal spaces and storage, and then you get to choose your own adventure. You can choose your paper, family spaces, or kids spaces. I will note that kids' spaces need to be done in the summer; so consider where you are in the year when you choose where you will organize next. Once you get to fall, you need to do the spaces you didn?t do in summer. This will take you about a year. If you think about how much time you spent on just your bathroom, you can expect your full home to take about a year!

Year Two

Now that your spaces aren?t talking to you, it?s time to refine. You get life long access to The Productive Home Solution® and can really go through it as many times as you?d like. This time you will go through all of your spaces again?but during this round you will get rid of some things you didn?t last time. You may have set up your Sunday Basket®, but you may find that you are not really making everything wait until Sunday. This year, you will start to understand the importance of waiting until Sunday to free up decision making and time. You will also start to better utilize The Paper Solution® Binders. You will find yourself going through the free blitzes at a deeper level. You are a productive planner. This is the year most people will add the Friday Workbox® too. You have seen the impact of the Sunday Basket® at home and you desire that same level of organization at work, too.

Year Three

THIS is the year you recognize ?I am an organized person.? You finally feel it. No rooms are talking to you. You know the visible and invisible work that needs to get done and you have systems in place to support you in work and life. Work is in control. Life is in control. You can flux when unexpected life events come your way. Your home and work will not fall apart. Now you can gather all the time from both areas and think about whatever you want to all the time. You can now start to do what you are uniquely created to do! I?m not going to lie?you are going to want to quit sometime in these three years. So make sure to catch next week?s episode on what to do when you get the urge to quit.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

The Household Operations Binder

Friday Workbox® 80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

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

2024-01-04
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Emily Kelly

You all love when Emily comes on the podcast! Here?s the update?

Pretty safe to say the two of us like to plan. And there?s a cadence or a cycle to organizing. We dream, make it real, complete the idea, and then we get to start dreaming again. Emily shared that she looks at these areas of her life the last week of the year or the first week of the new year: financial, spiritual, relational, emotional, mental, and vocational. She decides the next steps she wants to take to improve those areas and then strives towards the next step over the next six weeks which takes her to her birthday. She can audition new ideas and keep what works and what needs to be revamped.

"Forcing things never prosper.? Emily and I agree I have a pretty high awareness of my intuition. I have always been more focused on the destination rather than how I get there. I asked Emily when she decided to start trusting her intuition. She acknowledged that she used to force things and go against her gut. And it was no surprise that things haven?t worked out with this strategy. At Quality IP, she was tired of forcing square pegs into round holes. Once she relinquished control, she felt God putting things into place to keep her afloat as she started down her entrepreneurial journey. She has hustled.

And let me tell you, in general, the hustle is back. The pandemic is over and we are back to the hustle and bustle of life. She has found a couple of marketing clients and she?s done some odd jobs to supplement. She?s always been a fantastic networker and those relationships are paying off. There?s no forcing anything and she?s listening to her intuition. She knows she?s not in control. She reminded us all that we are only in charge of our thoughts, attitude, and our efforts.

Emily pointed out not to count eggs that have not hatched. She shared that she had calls lined up that ended up canceling. But Emily didn?t sweat it because she?d taken advantage of all opportunities that had come her way. Don?t say no to a money making opportunity today because you may have money coming in a week or two. A Friday Workbox® can really help a person to keep track of odd jobs while organizing your main stream of income.

Emily has found herself to be more productive when she starts the day with a list of priorities from the end of yesterday?s work day. She made her list at the end of the day what was most important to complete the next day while it was fresh.

Emily took advantage of her good credit score before she was let go to get a bank loan as a safety net. Keep your credit score in good standings.

Things are moving faster since Covid. I remember many years ago learning about the Singularity Theory from Ray Kurzweil, that at some point everyone would know everything. I had the hardest time wrapping my brain around this concept. This has been made possible mostly due to the internet. The rate at which we learn new information is exponentially faster than 10 years ago. There?s not the lag of relaying of the information that there used to be. And now?

Visit organize365.com/EmilyKelly to read more.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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

2024-01-03
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572 - The GOLDEN Week - Reflect on 2023 & Jump Into 2024

You did it! You made it to the end of 2023. What lies before us are all the hopes, dreams, and possibilities of 2024.

This is what I like to call the Golden Week. The week after Christmas and before New Years where you're culminating the end of a year and getting ready for the beginning of a new year. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, the last week of December is magical for everyone. For some of us, we're like "Bye bye 2023! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!"

What's the cost of not being organized? What's the cost of not making a choice about not making a resolution to get organized? The cost is usually time and money. Everything costs you time and everything costs you money.

The first and easiest way that you can save money is by planning your food and meals. You use the Sunday Basket® System to help you meal plan. Use this Golden Week to reflect, make changes or pivots. Take 15 or 20 minutes a week and really start to think about your grocery shopping and meal planning.

How can we get a handle on our time? For me, I've always captured every single second of my time to try to get as much out of that time as possible; to be as productive as possible. Now my goal is to get more of my time back so that I can do NOTHING. Yes, you heard that right! I really want to see if I can stop working by 8 pm every night. I know what needs to be moved into daytime hours or completely eliminated. Very few people know where their time goes. Not me. I keep track of everything - every minute spent at work, on school, with Grayson, Greg, Joey, Abby...all of it.

So when you look at your 2024, is there one way in which you want to focus on your money? One way in which you want to focus on your time? One way in which you want to focus on your wellness? How can you take the first step to do that? The Sunday Basket® helps you get through as many tasks as possible and plan for the upcoming week of what you anticipate to happen. You can go to organize365.com to try the free week of the Sunday Basket®.

What do you want out of your 2024? Where do you need to improve your organization so that you can have more time and money?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Free 5-Day Mini Course

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

2023-12-29
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Organize 365 Cycle of Organizing: Step 1 Declutter

Throw-back time?We are going to revisit a 3 part series that includes our most listened to episodes. I?m going to revisit what each step looks like and how to complete them. It?s a domino effect - decluttering leads to organization which leads to productivity! There is so much information about decluttering and productivity but where is the handbook to organization? The middle step is missing. It?s a common thought that housework is organization. I am here to set the record straight. Housework is those daily or weekly chores that never seem to be completed, and organization is the lasting result. Decluttering the utensil drawer and making it more functional for your home is organization. Putting things into the drawer from the dishwasher is housework. Vacuuming and laundry is housework. Once you organize something it usually stays that way for a while unless it's a family space and the results don?t last as long. You know!

Declutter ? Organization ? Productivity

Step one is decluttering. All you have to do is set a 15 minute timer. Now to complete a housework task. Go to your bathroom or closet and declutter for 15 minutes. At the end of that 15 minutes decide where the items you no longer want will go. Will you toss them? Recycle them? Sell them? Donate them?

In my book ?Organization Is a Learnable Skill,? I took 4 months to declutter. Then I decided to sell a few things. For those four months, I placed items in one room. Then I held a garage sale. I wasn?t in a position to work and I wanted to contribute to the family so this was a way I could. You can sell online or however is most convenient for you. BUT I have three rules.

In my opinion, sell the items that will bring in $25 or more. It will take you time to set up a garage sale or post and monitor online so make sure it?s worth your time. Then set a deadline to have the items sold. If you haven't sold them by the deadline, then it?s time to trash or donate. You could spend a lot of time trying to re-post or sell elsewhere. Call a spade a spade and move on. Decide before you sell specifically what you are going to use that money for. Like I mentioned, this was my way to contribute to my family. You could go on vacation, buy something for the house, remodel something, buy a new piece of furniture, The Productive Home Solution®?lol, just sayin?.

If you have decided to donate?just relocate the items immediately to your car trunk. I encourage you to get a routine down daily or weekly. Maybe every Thursday after work, you stop by your donation center and drop off your items. Maybe you want to get through as much as you can in one week. Before you start the next 15 minute decluttering session the next day, you go drop off your items. Head home and complete as many 15 minute sessions as you have energy for.

You CAN spend too long decluttering?

Once you are happy with what is in your home, stop decluttering. It?s possible that you keep decluttering things you actually want in search of that sense of control. Or you want to feel like the heavens have parted and are shining down on your hard work. Not yet. The idea is just to get rid of your broken or no longer used items so you can organize the things you do want in your home. I want you to know where they are and have your home functional for you. The next step of organization is where you will feel more confident and in control of your home.

Look into my crystal ball

These 15 minutes of decluttering sessions are sustainable for about 2 months on your own. And that brings us to the end of February. At that point you are going to think ?I love the spaces I have decluttered and organized. I?d really like support to keep going on with the rest of my home. I?d like to try something more with Organize 365®? OR you will think ?I did it! I organized the few spaces I spend time in and I?m at peace with that.? I don?t really have a crystal ball but I have observed clients and the Organize 365® community and have seen this play out time and time again. I?d love to be the one to help you get organized in 2024!

Who are you gonna follow?

Are you ready to get organized in 2024? I am not everyone?s cup of tea and I am ok with that. I am a functional organizer. I strive for excellence not perfection. Greg grew up in a minimalist setting so he gives me grief over the house not being organized. He would not follow me! I am extremely organized, but I am not a minimalist. I like books and memorabilia. I like my things, and the things I have are organized. I hope you do see the value that I am offering. I hope you see how I pivoted during Covid and it seemed approachable for you. I hope you saw me take the challenge of Greg?s shoulder surgery last week and see how the holiday was still successful. It just looked different this year. Whoever you decide to guide you down the road of organization - do you like their lifestyle, daily accomplishments, rigidity? Choose a person that tackles life events and organization in a way that feels good to you. You want results, right?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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

2023-12-28
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Thoughts on Visiting the Kid's Program School Pilot Program

I just love sharing this journey with this community! I love that while processing my thoughts auditorily, I get to connect with you and pick your brains. Just like you all do in the online community! I shared with you about the Teacher Pilot and now I want to fill you in on the Kids Program Pilot.

?How did you come up with the Kids Program??

I should have expected this question. Of course, they didn?t have many organizational questions because they had just completed the after school program their parents signed them up for - The Kids Pilot. And there should have been no surprise that it was predominantly boys. Mom wanted little Johnny to pick up after himself better, I guess! We had 14 children participate.

They wanted to know how I came up with the Kids Program.

First Thing?s First

First things first, what is the Kids Program? In my years of professional home organizing, I developed some rules for organizing the kids' rooms.

First, no parents. I wanted the child to feel comfortable to say yes or no to items or clothes they didn?t want in their room. And let me tell you, you can force your child, guilt your child into keeping something in their room, but it isn?t getting played with or worn! Speaking of stuffed animals, and you can apply this to other ?collections,? there's a process of elimination I explained. Our brains can get all mixed up when the things we definitely want to keep are mixed up with the things we are ok to let go.

Also, if the child has a rock collection you don?t want them to have, come up with a compromise. It?s like their passion project and you are completely dismissing it. So instead allow them a certain amount of space or number of items that they can keep. It?s their little passion project, their treasures. You can have an organized room with passion projects in them.

And clothes are a whole other battle. When dealing with smaller children, the only real question they are considering is how do these clothes make me feel? They don?t care about the occasion they may need it for. They never knew how you dressed as a child or how you envision your child dressing. They wanna be able to play in comfort. I always found in boys it was jeans vs. ?swishy? pants. You can buy them all the jeans you want but if they like swishy pants, swishy pants are the only thing getting worn. I want to save the child from the battle with the parent over what they want to wear. And I want the parent to spend wisely on clothing their children will actually wear. I talk to the child in my only Lisa voice and help them to respectfully articulate to their parents their preferences and why. I know we all want an organized child and an organized child is much more likely to be confident. Organization breeds confidence.

There are about 14 steps between ?You know how? and ?Do it like this?

There is no system in place of how we ?hand down? how to #adult. This applies to baby steps like helping our children to organize their mini apartments, to our emerging adults to their independent living spaces. That is why we offer the Kids Program and Launch Program for ages 16-25. We go out on our own and overnight gain a ton of responsibility.

Did you know that one out of three children are born with organizational skills? So it isn?t any wonder that 87% of adults don?t feel organized. So if we don?t learn organization in school or college, I mean, where are we to learn these skills? It?s not like we wake up adults one day with the skill of organization! The Launch Binder is a great way to comprehensively hand down the skills and systems we have learned along the way for an organized lifestyle. How do we all learn grocery shopping, a cleaning schedule, managing prescriptions, health insurance, buying a car, routine things like oil changes and getting new tires? As parents we just figured it out with each new stage of life. And oh my gosh, throw a kid in the mix and now it just got a lot more complex! Now you are managing a house instead of an apartment, managing other people?s messes and your emotions about those messes, and you are balancing work and home life - not just school and the other stuff mom and dad take care of. Kids don?t know what they don?t know and I believe we all want to better inform our children to reduce their stress and boost their confidence.

How do we get this into the educational system?

So again I want to ask you, my community?how can we get this into all educational systems? At what age? Senior in high school? At the college level? We NEED to be teaching the skill of organization! Did you know that children who aren?t organized also have increased negative self talk? And as we get older and gain more responsibilities to juggle, do you think the self-talk improves? If we can teach these students how to get organized and maintain it, we?ll have mentally healthier confident children with skills that transfer into the rest of their lives. That will result in them moving through their goals faster and making an impact. Please let me know what you are thinking as I am sharing this information.

This is the last frontier AI will approach. And I?m not confident it?ll ever be able to manage the administration of life! So we?ve got to figure this out and teach them how to help themselves in whatever phase of life they are in.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

The Kids Program

Launch Program

Organization is a Learnable Skill Book Club Event

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2023-12-27
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Coffee Chat - Organization is a Learnable Skill Book Club January 12

Happy Boxing Day! Oh my goodness! This is another holiday that I now celebrate that other people may not celebrate. I've basically curated for myself a year full of fake holidays! I don't know any woman that wakes up on the 26th that doesn't want to declutter everything in their house. It's after the holidays, it's at the end of the year, you're getting ready for a new year, new you. This year on Boxing Day, I wanted to let you know that we are going to have a book club on January 12th, going through the book Organization is a Learnable Skill. I self-published this book in 2021 and did a book tour as well. This is the story of getting myself organized in 2012, the year I turned 40 and the same year I started Organize 365®. I wanted to publish this book for a long time because I like to follow someone's story through the highs and lows about how something happens.

So often when we are trying to do something new, all we see are the courses, communities, lessons...the whole long list of everything there is to do in order to end up organized at the end of the year. But what happens all the time, during that year? What are the milestones where you start to feel organized? When are the milestones where other people start to notice? What trips you up as you move along through organization?

You don't need to re-buy the book to attend the book club. The ticket to attend the live event is $12. Don't worry if you can't attend live, there will be a replay after the event that's available to watch for 25 days. If you need the book and the book club we have that option, too. If you like listening to books - the book is also on Audible! You can submit questions in advance and I'll answer as many as I can. You will also receive a downloadable Journal Prompt booklet in the email with the replay link.

So as you're looking to 2024 and want to start getting organized or continue on your organizing journey, these journal prompts walk you through each month of Organization is a Learnable Skill. This book is written almost like a monthly diary, what I did in January, what I did in February...how I felt about that and the progress that I made from being the least organized I've ever been in my entire life.

Good luck decluttering everything. Try not to declutter anything with a heartbeat! Make sure the cats, dogs, and children are out of the way as you are frantically decluttering your house getting ready for an amazing, amazing 2024!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Organization is a Learnable Skill Book Club + Organization is a Learnable Skill Book

Organization is a Learnable Skill (book only)

Audible Version

Friday Workbox® Planning Day Monthly Subscription

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

2023-12-26
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571 - Creating a WORK Organizing Train

How do we move from being a productive person who can get a lot done in a day to someone who can really set and achieve bigger goals that are going to make a marked difference in the world? The way to become more impactful doesn't come from productivity, it doesn't come from apps, and it doesn't come from digitizing things. It comes from increasing your organization.

In order to build the tracks for your work train, you have to establish work systems, processes and habits. In Workbox Planning Day, we talk about having a beginning of the day routine, a midday routine, and an end of the day routine. Then you can add in Friday Workbox® coworking time each Friday, and Planning Day every quarter. Now there will be the new Workbox Planning Day Implementation event that will kick off next week, and will continually happen every quarter. You have to build these tracks first so that you can move forward faster. Having these three routines each day gives you guardrails and allows you to task stack different things at different times of the day so that you have more capacity and more time to work on your purple projects and move new initiatives forward through the company.

Now you're moving faster because these habits and routines have reduced your decision making fatigue. You've task stacked as many of your green tasks into these bucketed times each day and week so that you have more free time to work on the other colors - pink, purple and blue. Now it's time to build the train cars. How you build your work train cars is very customized. What your train looks like throughout your career is also very customized. Interestingly, you can get your work train up and running faster than your home train. Typically it only takes a year - if you're an employee. If you're a business owner, it's a lifetime pursuit. You're never going to be done because you're always reorganizing the train tracks, moving around the cars or adding and subtracting them. It's basically one big game.

The first work train car will be the Business Friday Workbox®. This will teach you there are four different kinds of work; four different roles you play in your job. Everyone has four: pink, purple, blue and green. Once you figure out what those are, we're going to optimize those four kinds of work over the course of one year. The second train car are the Workbox Planning Days. Until you learn how to plan, how to use your Friday Workbox®, it's really just a pretty way of organizing your to do list. Until you learn to plan the work that's within the workbox, it's very reactive. You might speed up a little, but you will not have the impact that you want to have. How do you take the green work (administrative) and task stack it in as small amount of time as possible at regular intervals throughout the day so that you can increase the capacity you have for the pink, purple and blue work?

Once you start going through the Planning Days, you start to proactively and purposefully plan out what your initiatives are going to be in the next 90 days. You start doing less, but getting more in depth. You delete or delegate projects, you streamline your goals and stop overcommitting. You realize how cyclical work is and how much it's related to home.

There are other things that are going to slow down your train - like losing a team member, adding a team member, a new product, losing a product, and so on. Every time you pull into the station, you will go through every single train car. Every 90 days, every quarter. I would love for you to join me for the Workbox Planning Day Implementation event next week. It will be the 13th week of every quarter from now on, so you can add this into your coaching package in order to keep your train running. My job is to get you more productive and profitable so that you can avail yourself of all of those great coaches thereafter.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Business Friday Workbox®

Workbox Planning Day

Workbox Implementation Day

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

2023-12-22
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Thoughts on the Teacher Pilot Final Session

I wish you guys could understand the opportunity Jayme gave me when she offered up her school as a pilot school. Jayme had been talking about the Education Friday Workbox® and explaining how she was so organized, but I was still shocked that she was able to get approval overnight! It was an easy ?yes? for the superintendent because he knew it was already so effective for Jayme. I am so excited to share how it went!

?Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.? - Bill Gates

The same can be said for our houses. Most people overestimate what they can achieve in one weekend or month and underestimate what they can achieve in one year.

It?s funny, through developing Organize 365® I?ve been able to identify that we do not focus on decluttering or productivity as much as we focus on learning organization. The first one aids organization and the last is allowed due to organization. When I wrote ?Organization Is a Learnable Skill?, that?s what I shared; my acts of organization. When we are organized, we get the pay off of productivity. I?m excited to dive into the book study and dig into how you can achieve results, too!

Three years after launching Organize 365®, I was able to be the business owner and send my team out into the field. After six years of effectively running Organize 365® due to organization leading to productivity, I was still blogging, had the podcast, the early stages of what is now The Productive Home Solution®, and manufacturing for the Sunday Basket®. I was still in multiple direct sales companies and the train wasn?t stopping any time soon. But If you would have told me I would accomplish all of that, I am not sure I would have expected to.

I used to love to stay after school when I was a teacher and organize a fellow teachers? space. They loved when I bopped into their classrooms.

I say all of that to tell you that at that time, I launched 8 workboxes. I had a box for all the things I was doing. And the Education Friday Workbox® was one of those 8. Being a teacher is so different from any other career. When you need a potty break at work, you get up and go, right? Not a teacher, they are in charge and looking after multiple children. They can?t just leave them unattended. I have such an understanding of the teacher world, workload, and home life. So I knew how to make the Friday Workbox® work for teachers.

I truly believe this should be on each teacher?s supply list. It?s a one time purchase and then a lifetime of organization in the classroom. The real issue becomes who pays for it; I don?t think this should also fall on the teacher! Should it come from the federal budget? The state budget? Or the local educational budget? Each state operates a little differently so we?ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess. Our teachers really only get paid based on instructional time with students. But what many may not realize is all the administrative tasks they have, the responsibility to meet curriculum, nurturing the relationships with students and parents, and time that takes away from their families and pets that rely on them, too. They do not get paid based on all of the invisible work they do that is not optional!

Our teachers make large sacrifices of mental capacity for the career that they love.

Did I call Sally?s mom back? I need 4 toilet paper rolls for that experiment tomorrow. Those are just a few examples of what teachers are trying to remember. We need to help teachers free up their mental overwhelm! They are constantly surpassing their mental capacity. I designed this pilot to teach them how to write those thoughts down quickly, something that can be done right in the middle of class, and continue on with the lesson. Then at the end of the week, sort them into slash pockets and conquer the tasks. It?s so gratifying to free up mental capacity for them in a way that makes them confident everything will still get handled. Because I understand this world so much, I decided to create 3 more slash pocket colors for the Education Friday Workbox®.

So, how did it go?

What I Discovered

It was interesting to me that all three sessions I led were mandatory. There were 52 people in attendance. This was offered to all faculty, not just teachers. Thirty-five staff members took on the opportunity to get organized for a more smoothly run classroom.

The special needs teachers showed that they needed additional support. After doing a zoom with the special needs teachers, I decided to offer the Paper Organizing Retreat to all of the special needs teachers. Because what I learned was, almost all of the special needs teachers were new to teaching or new to their school building. That?s a lot of newness and it explained their desire for more support! I had 4 of them attend plus Jayme. I sat down with them and learned more about their students and their workload. We came up with customized solutions for each teacher. That?s the thing about any of the workboxes. They will get you 80% of the way there, but then you have to customize it to work for you and your needs.

They all felt that for the third session they would like to learn home organization. I was open to other topics like lesson planning. But of course, I love that they were experiencing organization at work and wanted it for home, too. Yes, get both trains running!!

What Puzzled Me

I was fascinated to learn that only 2 out of all participants had a digital only organizational process. Which meant that of the remaining participants, 50% were hybrid of both paper and digital while the remaining 50% were paper only. Mind blown because I always hear of people trying to get a digital system perfected. But what I think is actually happening is that they are doing double duty!

I?m also curious for the faculty that attended but did not take the Education Friday Workbox®, were the first two mandatory sessions beneficial? Should educators get an Education Friday Workbox® during college or first year teaching? Different states evaluate for IEP?s through different entities.

What I Would Love

I would love for all teachers to have the Education Friday Workbox® and embrace it! I would love to see professional development for teachers via the Education Friday Workbox®. I?d love to be able to improve their mental health by freeing up their mental capacity. And I?d love to see teacher retention.

I?m excited for this to become an actual study. But for now, I am happy with this pilot and it will add credibility to studies in the future. I?d love to help more educators as part of this Education Friday Workbox® pilot.

What I Need to Move Forward

Do you have knowledge about your state and how things are funded for education? Do I need to be part of a special vendor portal? Is there a certain list for vendors to offer professional development for your schools? Do the districts make the decisions in your state? Does your state have an initiative for teacher retention?

Are you on the board, PTO, a teacher or a principal and think this is something you may want to do in your building? Do you want to offer it just to first and second year teachers? Or on a voluntary basis? Who makes the decisions? Who do I need to talk to? Do they want to meet in person? What can I do to advocate for these teachers? Who is open to receiving this information?

Please email me at [email protected] if you have answers to any of my questions or can aid introductions. I am taking you all on this journey so you can see that though I do not know the answers, I keep trying. The success or failure of execution will determine my next steps. I have been uniquely created for a time like this.

I have been uniquely created to create online courses to teach people organization through the internet to make visible the invisible work done at home and work. And after my PhD, I will do research to make visible the cognitive and mental load in all these areas at a scientific level to elevate the conversation of systems and structures that need to be in place for adults, just like we have for children, in school, home, work, and teacher environments.

I want you too to discover what you are uniquely created to do!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Education Friday Workbox®

Paper Organizing Retreat

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2023-12-20
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570 - Creating a HOME Organizing Train

Are you driving a car, or conducting a train? Today's episode is about your home organizing train.

It takes a lot of effort to stop a train. When you are productive, have a lot of impact, and your life is up and running - you get a couple of unexpected events coming at you but can take the first few of them in stride.

When you are driving a car, there's only so much you can handle. You only have so much capacity, although that car moves fast and is nimble. You can stop it easily, pivot or turn around. The size of your car, how fast it is, how much gas you can keep in the tank has a limit. A train doesn't start or stop very fast - but once you lay those tracks and build those train cars, you can go really far really fast without a lot of effort.

How do you lay the tracks and build the cars? Organizing. Creating and maintaining systems, habits, and productivity at home and work. Once you have those established - which is going to take a while - the only thing that will derail you are really big life events. These can be catastrophic: like a medical diagnosis, a divorce, or someone passes away. Or they can be happy events: getting pregnant, getting married, moving to a new home. Your train will also slow down and speed up during the Golden Windows of a calendar year. You will need to slow down and "come into the station" at the end of each quarter at work and each trimester at home. This is the piece I was missing that I am going to share with you.

You have to establish your systems, routines, and habits that your train will run on; otherwise you can't have the train. You must establish these first, so your train has something to run on. If not, then you're stuck in the car. When you're driving a car, you're just on roads that have been established by other people and you decide in which order you want to take those roads that somebody else created. You have to stop at every red light, decide whether to turn right or left, take the highway or the back roads. Constantly making all these decisions unnecessarily.

Now that you have the engine, it's time to build those train cars. Your first one is the Sunday Basket®. You must become a master at delaying your decision making. You plan your week and stop being pulled by every single decision that comes at you. The next train cars are personal, storage, family, and paper organization - which happens within The Productive Home Solution®. Remember, each of these train cars are going to take a couple of months to build. They will need regular maintenance. This takes discipline and the right mindset. Every car needs to be decluttered and organized every trimester at home. At first, it's going to take more time.

To establish the train tracks, move from a car to a locomotive, put the cars on the track, and get the train up to speed takes at least three years. This realization is such a buzzkill, I know. Don't get discouraged though, it's not like it takes this long to see any positive changes. You can run that train at 50% after a year and it's still going to be better than what you had before! But to make the impact you want and need, those train cars need to be running at 80-90% organized so they are running strictly on maintenance.

A train that is running on maintenance pulls into the depot and you go through it car by car - this is what happens during Planning Days, and now during the new Prep Event I've created. You will revisit each of your train cars - the Sunday Basket®, your personal, storage, family, and paper. If you are this far in organizing, this will feel weird. You will think that you need to tear it apart and start all over each time. But you know the math: you've subtracted by decluttering, added in what you need, multiplied for productivity and now you're in division. You don't have to start all over again. Even if you have a major event, you can go through it all again - but it will go so much faster.

Moving to a train is a purposeful, disciplined act that requires you to grow organizing muscles, to think long-term instead of short-term, to think strategically instead of giving into immediate gratification. Once you learn this, you will have the skill set with you for the rest of your life.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Business Friday Workbox®

The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day Workbook Monthly Subscription Plan

Kids Program

The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day Prep

Episode 69: My Depression Story & How Depression Affects Organization

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

2023-12-15
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12 Years Ago Today - Lisa's Story

Ready to get to know Lisa Woodruff from the past? I feel like it?s valuable to fill you in on where all this started. Have you ever had an out of body experience? A temper tantrum of sorts? I remember one night in 2005, when I had one. It was as if I was watching myself have this meltdown. Greg was in shock, took the kids, and left for a long time. During that time, I tried to figure out what my problem was and how to get it together. I looked at my planner and realized I had taken the kids to 110 Dr. appointments on top of work and regular life responsibilities. No wonder I was having a melt down. I can remember the added stress of how broke we were in 2007 and 2008. Unfortunately after my parents divorced, my father passed away in 2009. My sister and I found a little financial relief in the sale of his house. Nothing stressful about settling an estate! But I was able to remodel our kitchen with some of that money, but then what? I knew better than to think the debt we had accrued wouldn?t just get racked up again if something didn?t change.

I do have both trains running full steam ahead now. But there was a time when I graded all aspects of my life with an F with the exception of work. I was a teacher at a Montessori school for 18 months. I learned alot from my co teacher, the students, and that school. I learned compassion and was exposed to more diversity than I ever had in my teacher settings before. 2010 was the year of the Tsunami in Japan and the Earthquake in Haiti. Montessori is flexible and allowed for us to have discussions with the students about these current events in a way that expanded their thinking. I really loved my job there.

That is, until it was brought to my attention that they didn?t feel like I was doing as great of a job as I thought I had been doing. As I drove home from that difficult conversation, a conversation I tried to pass on because Abby was home very sick and I just wanted to be with her, I knew I needed to make a change. I asked myself, ?What am I doing with my life?? If I was appreciated in my work, I knew my family would make a small sacrifice. But that wasn?t the case. So I decided to ditch the job and raise my grades in the other areas of my life. I was spinning way too many plates the way it was.

In December of 2011, I quit my job to be a stay at home mom. I knew the life I wanted to provide for my children. I also knew I needed to make money to replace my teacher salary. I am no stranger to making money and within 6 months I had surpassed that teacher salary. By our 2012 tax refund, I listed 9 schedule C?s! NINE! I was doing it! I was available for my family and making money. Greg and I are very much aligned in two things; doing whatever it takes to help our children and living a life with no regrets, even if that meant money was tight at times. I didn?t want to regret not being home with my children. I don?t regret that we haven?t been able to travel until now but boy am I ready! Europe here we come! And with everything Greg and I have been through, I?m so thankful that my marriage was never in question.

2012 is also the year I launched Organize 365®. I didn?t know what it was going to become. All I knew is that the areas I had been successful in were organization and that it would result in good SEO! I wrote the book ?Organization Is A Learnable Skill? for that year. It?s a pretty accurate account of that year. I wrote month by month what I did and how I felt about the actions I was taking. I am a 4th generation female college graduate. I am a 4th generation female business owner! And here we are 12 years later with a podcast that has been consistent for 9 years helping this community. And I am proud to now be pursuing my PhD to better my business, Organize 365®!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Organization Is a Learnable Skill

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2023-12-13
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569 - Increased Productivity Comes from Organization

Today's episode is going to be a refresher to some of you, and new to a lot of you. I've recorded two podcast series that I'm going to reference, plus a concept I created years ago. This will get us all to the same place of thinking as we end the year.

Are you the one thinking: "Ok, I want that productivity that Lisa has and I'm doing #allthethings. So why don't I have what I think I should have as productivity?" You're busy running around like a chicken with your head cut off, trying to make the merriment for everyone around you the entire month of December. What you're craving and what you want is to figure out how to finally get organized so you could be more productive, so you could be less stressed, so you can get more done.

So why is it that we can declutter, get kind of organized, and then get to productivity - and yet we still don't achieve our goals? Or we get some time back, but not a lot of time...then one little unexpected life event comes and you feel like you've been put behind 6 months at home. Why is it such a regular occurrence that getting sick or an unexpected event can derail us so badly?

Organization is a three-part cycle: Decluttering, Organization, Increased Productivity. I'm going to add a fourth part to the cycle - Impact. This is the one that most people never get to. We're always going for productivity, but really I think we're going for impact and productivity is the step before impact. Now consider the Lisa Math that I do...and let's fit all of this together.

Adding is organizing. Subtraction is decluttering. Multiplication is productivity. Division is the impact.

Impact comes from organization. Not productivity - impact. Productivity will increase the speed of the organization you have, but that's it. If we're only as productive as our organization will let us be, how do we optimize organization? Productivity is time bound. You can only get so much done in a day.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Workbox Implementation Event

Planning Day Prep Event

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

2023-12-08
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568 - Planned Neglect - Enjoy the Holidays!

I've been talking a lot about planning lately - an obscene amount honestly, but that's ok. Ironically, today is Workbox Planning Day! We're starting off the month getting those purple projects completed and ready for more GREEN in 2024!

In today's episode I talk about how this week I'd love for you to come up with a list of planned neglect. It's been a long time since I?ve talked about planned neglect. I remember the first time I ever heard about this concept at a Creative Memories conference. I want you to think about all of the things that you've done for the past 11 months of this year. Out of all those things, what are the things that you are NOT going to do in order to create more margin, more bandwidth, more breathing room for you to actually enjoy the holidays and enjoy the end of this year? Really, honestly think about it - what are the things that you are going to purposefully put off from right now until the end of January?

Just like right now with getting my PhD, I know I'm neglecting a lot of things in my life for the next 2 years (I'm almost done with year 1!) This doesn't mean I'll never do those things again, just not right now. Figure out what you can do, when you can do it, and how long it is going to take. What are all the roles and responsibilities that you have inside of your life and what are things you can do to make those easier?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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

2023-12-01
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Coffee Chat - NEW Complete Sunday Basket Pricing

I?m excited to announce that the Complete Sunday Basket® will now be offered at a lower price of $179!!

Do you budget for organization?

No, most people do not budget for organization. And when you think about spending money on organization, it usually means a professional is coming to your home to complete the organizing or you will be purchasing cute bins to make everything cute. But this, the Sunday Basket®, is a system for organization. We have not traditionally budgeted or thought about purchasing organization in this way. The Sunday Basket® is a system for your home that you are purchasing that most homes do not have. Placing value on learning the skill of organization is a new phenomenon.

Same Great Basket with the Same Great Value

You as the person considering the purchase has to decide if this is of value or not, right? But it?s hard to determine that until you have used it and experienced all the benefits. But once you have, you realize I should charge a lot more because it?s chalked full of value and transformation. For only $179, you will still get everything you got before?the community, the online dashboard, the workbook, slash pockets, and of course the basket in the color you choose. But what you don?t know yet is the confidence you will get from being organized, the relief you will have knowing all things are taken care of or planned for, less negative self talk, and the time you will have for other things than just panicking about being organized.

What Lisa? Why?

In the beginning, I was able to offer lower pricing because I was personally mailing each box out from my home. Now I have the warehouse, labor, and supplies? you know - all the things! So as Organize 365® grew and I was able to offer more, I also needed to increase the price to cover those costs. And if you are feeling like you have no time, no money, like you are under water and overwhelmed?then I want to be able to help. This price point should be able to make this more accessible to more people out there who need more time so they can explore and do what they are uniquely created to do.

Get Your Sunday Basket® now for only $179!

After you use your Sunday Basket® for 12 weeks, I promise you will have recouped the price of your Sunday Basket®!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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

2023-11-28
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567 - Your House IS a Small Business! - Small Business Saturday

Happy Thanksgiving! I am so thankful for YOU!

Did you know that you can write a note to us when you place orders with Organize 365®? I love to read them! I also love to know what some of your orders are for...they can be so random sometimes! It makes me so curious - and it makes me want to know even more about you!

As you're listening to today's episode, I'm probably putting up our Christmas tree. I used to put it up the Monday before Thanksgiving, when the kids were in school. I'd grab my fountain Coke, turn on holiday music, and get to work. Things have definitely changed!

Only in America do you have Thanksgiving, followed by a bazillion days where you spend money. We eat a lot of food and spend a lot of money! I spend an obscene amount of money on Black Friday. I couldn't believe how much money I spent last year, but also how much I saved! I finally realized when you're looking at your household economy (hello food prices!) you have to figure out how to make your money go further at home.

Here's my tip: shop for ANYTHING you need on Black Friday!

Think of your house as a small business - when you spend money, you stimulate the economy. You are the CEO of your home; the business owner of your household. You have expenses and ways in which you can make your cashflow last longer. If you see anything that is being sold at a deep discount right now, and you know you will be using that item before March 1st - buy it NOW. Also, think about not only the gifts you can give that people want, but also the things that people need. Items like Apple watches or the Hero medication dispenser may be expensive purchases, but for loved ones who it could be incredibly beneficial to (think elderly parents) it would be a worthwhile purchase. Could you go in on big ticket items with other family members? Would it give you peace of mind or take any burden off of you (or them) in some way? You may come up with gift ideas of things that they don't even realize that they need!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Black Friday Shop

Holiday Blitz Shop

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

2023-11-24
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Wednesday Podcast Anniversary - One of the BEST Decisions I Made!!

Happy Anniversary Wednesday Podcast!

In this episode, I wanted to do something just a little different. Normally I talk to someone who shares their Organize 365® transformational story. Some way, shape or form they found us, BUT not today?s guest. Today, I am introducing you to the editor of the Organize 365® Podcast, Tiffany Mason with Virtually You! She has been with Organize 365® for a year now. I wanted to know her thoughts about the time she has been with us and the effect we have had on her. She sends me Voxer messages often so I know she has fallen down the same organizational rabbit hole as the rest of us!

Recently, Virginia had to leave Organize 365®, but it was Virginia who connected us with Tiffany. There was an interview, we threw a lot at her, she didn?t blink, so we decided to give her a try. Initially, she shared that she felt a little overwhelmed; there were a lot of different episode formats, products she didn?t know about, and lingo she?d not heard before. After a few episodes, it made sense that we had a glossary playlist we needed her to republish for the sake of the Organize 365® Podcast listeners.

It wasn?t long before I could tell she was hooked. I mean, she is paid to listen to the podcast, but I think she would listen regardless. But why? Tiffany shared that she feels seen by me. She feels like my mission is not to sell sell sell - but rather offer systems and products to free up time for my listeners so they can do what they are uniquely created to do. Tiffany can also relate to my husband Greg. Her husband is more like me and she finds humor in the things I share regarding Greg and I! And she shared how impressed she was to learn Organize 365® was the 32nd largest woman run business in Cincinnati. I am proud to share that this year we moved up to the 30th spot! Because Tiffany is in Florida and I am in Ohio, I shared that Cincinnati is the number 1 city for startups. She pointed out that our ranking is even more impressive, being in that environment and climbing.

I wanted to know how her organization has changed. She said she started with the Friday Workbox® and after she was comfortable with that, she wanted to do a planning day. She has had such a great impact from the planning day that she joked about getting on her knees and calling it a PSA post for society that all women should attend a planning day! She saw what it could do for work so naturally she wanted a Sunday Basket® for home life. She aspires to train her family to put things in her Sunday Basket® as you have shared here on the Wednesday Podcast.

We got into an interesting conversation about the definition of home roles. Tiffany saw a post where a wife had the kitchen garbage and questioned if she?s crazy to think he should do all of the garbage, if his ?chore? is to do garbage. But this is the problem. After the war in the late 40?s, marketing ?brainwashed? us all into thinking a woman?s role was homemaker. The guys aren?t at fault either, they are just doing what they saw modeled. There are plenty of great fathers and husbands who are willing to do their part. Tiffany remembered a previous guest sharing that nowadays women are working and don?t only have the house to focus on. In business, job descriptions are written but at home?well?? And in my studies, I have uncovered this is a white woman problem. In other ethnicities, they have well defined roles and housework gets done! Even the children have roles.

Tiffany expressed so much gratitude for being a part of Organize 365®. She is impressed with the grace we all extend one another. She has been able to take some of our organization and implement it with her clients. There are so many moving pieces, but she?s proud to work with Organize 365®. She encouraged all of you to share an episode with someone on the drive to Thanksgiving dinner, like a spouse maybe (wink wink). OR if you have had enough Thanksgiving, get some fresh air while you catch up on the Organize 365® Podcast and feel free to tag us!

Tiffany?s advice is, ?You don?t need to reinvent the wheel, just get the products that Lisa has taken the time to perfect.?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2023-11-22
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566 - Be the Person YOU Want to Be at the Holidays

What do YOU want - and how do YOU want to show up at the holidays? We spend so much time, money, energy, thought, worry, and preparation for the holidays. Always outwardly focused, which is fine. It always seems as if we're constantly in the mindset of...what does the family need? What do elder members or extended members of the family need? What do the kids need? What do we need to keep doing, even though we don't want to do it anymore because somebody still wants us to do it? There are so many things that we spend our time and energy on that are outwardly focused; we do them out of service, out of respect, out of love, whatever it is. In this podcast, I want you to be selfish just for a few minutes. I want you to think about what you want and how do you want to show up at the holidays?

You probably just completed the Holiday Blitz. It was free, you got the printables, you watched the videos, you asked your family questions. Then, today at 11 am ET is our first annual Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day. It's 90 minutes, and if you can't attend live the replay is available to watch through December 31st. This mini planning day will focus on the person we want to show up as at the holidays. Not what you're going to serve, what your house will be decorated like, not if you send out Christmas cards or not. All that was decided in the Holiday Blitz. That is the difference between the planning days and the product. So the Holiday Blitz identifies all the work, all the external, visible things that you see in the holidays - the food, the decorations, and everything in between. The Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day is about YOU.

Planning days are selfish. That's ok. They are selfish because planning days are for you to plan your energy, your financial resources, your intellect, your energy level, your hopes and dreams and desires. I don't think we sit back often enough and ask ourselves what we want, because we're too busy doing all the things that are already on our to-do list and we say: "I'll figure out what I want after ALL this is done." It's time for that to end.

You're so used to being the orchestrator, the driver, the director, the doer, the giver, the server. What if someone coordinated the holidays for YOU? How would you want them to orchestrate it? I want to challenge you to give that to yourself because you're worth it and you deserve it. You should be able to enjoy the holidays just like you are making the merriment for everyone else. When you're happier - everybody else is happier too. Remember that.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Holiday Blitz Bundle

Holiday Blitz Bundle [+] Complete Sunday Basket®

FREE Holiday Blitz

Sunday Basket® & Friday Workbox® Clubs

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

2023-11-17
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Transformation with Trish K

In this episode, I introduce you to Trish K. Trish lives at home with her daughter and 3 year old grandson, Wolfie. Trish has a great relationship with her sister, Kathleen, who loves to try all kinds of organizational systems. When she tried Organize 365®, she believed Trish could utilize it too. So about a year ago, she ?tricked? Trish into doing ?a free thing.? Once Trish was inspired to take her organizing one step further it got her wondering, what else could she learn from Organize 365®

Not only has Trish learned new ideas, but she has sustained her organization. That was the thing. With other organizing systems Trish had tried, she?d fall off the wagon. But with Organize 365®, she?s been keeping up with The Productive Home Solution®. Trish has taken advantage of most of the systems and products from Organize 365®. Lisa pointed out that holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, these all happen annually without fail. Trish expressed how she loved the planning days that help her to be proactive. Trish said she wants to live a proactive life. She loves that she gets to revisit her planning every 120 days. Lisa talked about the age old theory that simply writing down our goals ?puts them on our radar.? And sometimes we even accidentally achieve them! Even if you do nothing after planning day, you thought about it and are aware now. No one knows what you are doing and no one knows if you took any action. No one is checking. Trish said it?s like planting seeds; over time they bloom. Trish has found so much joy throughout her short time learning with Organize 365®.

She unintentionally planted seeds in her daughter, too. Trish was so excited about an organization project she had completed that she wanted to show her daughter. Trish?s daughter has ADHD and Autism, so organizational projects can be tough for her. Heck, school and life has been tough for her! Lots of times when Trish talks to her daughter, she feels like her daughter only hears Charlie Brown?s teacher speaking to her. Much to Trish?s surprise, her daughter is watching what she is doing and wants the same for herself. This brought out a lot of similarities for Trish and Lisa to talk about. They both have grown single moms, who have their own struggles, living with them with their grandchildren.

And of course, the conversation turned to their grandsons. They compared weight, the types of beds they are in or about to grow out of, the sizes of clothes they are in, and the pure joy of living with them right now. As grandparents, you get to see life through their eyes because you aren?t worried about dinner or those daily tasks that we do to keep our houses running during the active parenting years. Trish is happy to see her daughter thriving too due to the example Trish is showing.

Trish started with her closet and graduated to her kitchen. She goes by The Productive Home Solution® plan and has done the kitchen three times now. Trish described her old placement of items in the kitchen; how silly that she put the thing she uses the most on the highest shelf. She has since learned to put those items in a more convenient spot. Trish also appreciates the freedom of ?permission? to put into action functional organization over Pinterest organization where all the boxes match.

Trish?s advice is, ?Just start!? Even if it?s just one drawer, get started and it will give you energy to do just one more drawer. And that will feel so good, you?ll want to tackle a small closet or room. Get started before your brain has a chance to start coming up with excuses!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2023-11-15
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565 - Email is the Laundry and Dishes of Work!

As a teacher, one of my favorite things to do is to figure out a word picture or to take something that is so close to you that you're literally living through it and make it so obvious that you can't unsee it going forward. A couple of months ago, I came up with the title for this podcast and I thought "Yes!" and I've been thinking about how email is the laundry and dishes of work. In this week's episode, I'll explain!

Doing laundry and dishes is administrative, it's repetitive, it's hard to outsource. Yet it is essential for your well-being and your cleanliness; and so that you won't be naked when you leave the house! Laundry and dishes are NEVER DONE.

I'm a middle-of-the-road person. I'm not going to leave everything in my inbox, but I'm not going to use one single folder either. If it's in a folder, it doesn't exist to me. That's why file cabinets don't work for me. I had a beautiful color-coded file cabinet. It was pointless. That's my limitation - if it's out of sight, it's literally out of mind. For me, it doesn't exist. Everything in my email that's in process must be visual.

STEP ONE: You should only have companies and emails coming into your email inbox that you want to do business with. So that means UNSUBSCRIBE!

STEP TWO: Once you have emails coming into your inbox, you need to learn to triage and respond in the appropriate time.

I'll never get to inbox zero. I'm fine with it. Also, there's no need to respond to email within 24 hours. Scary, I know. Unless your company has a policy, you're not breaking any laws, I promise. My personal response rate? 7 days. Terrible, horrible I know...I can't believe I said that out loud!

We need to give ourselves grace and understand that laundry, dishes, and email are never going to be done. We need to pace ourselves, and when you stop trying to get email, laundry, and dishes done - you free up so much mental capacity and time for things that are bigger that you're uniquely created to do.

I'll leave you with a couple questions. What if you didn't reply to emails within 24 hours? What if you didn't reply to emails on Sundays? What if you didn't reply to emails from Friday at 5pm until Sunday at 5pm?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Sign up for our Newsletter

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

2023-11-10
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Transformation with Lisa J

In this episode, I invited Lisa J. back for an update because she has some exciting news. She lives in Australia with her husband Kirk on their large farm, and their two teen children go to boarding school. She takes care of the administrative tasks for their farm. She loves what she does but got overwhelmed with all the tasks. If you recall from her previous episode, she got relief with the Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox®. It?s not common for a farm in Australia to have more than one person taking care of the office and associated tasks. She took Lisa?s advice after being on the last podcast and has hired an executive assistant three days a week for the past 3 months. It?s going well and she is now looking more at the corporate farm structure. Family farm, one wife is usually taking care of the office. Corporate farm, there is a ?team? doing all of the administrative tasks. She can see their farm going in the Corporate direction.

The Lisas discussed what that may look like. Lisa Woodruff brought up the point that yes, there are a lot of tasks. Yes, you can hire help to get those tasks done BUT it must be in the name of growth. Or be aware that it may just simply enhance your lifestyle. Right? It will free up time that usually a business owner can then use towards strategy and growth. If you are content with where business is then just know you are paying for that extra time. And that is fine but Lisa made a brilliant point about hiring help in this respect. That being said, Lisa J. is in a growth mindset and since the last episode has been able to attend 4 planning days. She said the way Lisa W. breaks down the quarter really helps her. It helps her to spatially visualize what will be taking place. She likes to do a one year plan, break that down to one quarter, then one month, and lastly one week. The planning days help Lisa J. to do just that and accomplish goals.

Lisa J. has been able to transition some purple slash pockets to her assistant. Now that she?s in the thick of it, she and Lisa also talked about some blue and green slash pockets Lisa J. could hand over to her assistant. The Australian government has put a lot of paperwork back on the farms which has increased their workload exponentially. These are tasks her assistant can do, as well as handle technology and social media. Lisa J. was good to create slash pockets for her repetitive tasks and can now offload them one by one.

Lisa J. wants to share her organization with other farm offices. It?s usually the wife of the farmer. We all know mom?s wear a lot of hats and not all of them have the capacity or skill set to be #allthethings. Both Lisa?s agree the work that one woman is doing is easily the work of 5 people. Just think of companies as big as Lisa?s farm and there are usually multiple people running HR, bookkeeping, administrative tasks, and more! The beautiful part about Organize 365® systems is that they are kind of like scaffolding and then you, the homeowner or business owner, can customize it to your needs. Anyone can apply these systems to their lives.

Drum rolllllll pllllllleassssse?.Lisa J. is going to start a podcast to help other farm offices. It will be titled Farm Office Tool Box. She has a burning desire to help other wives/farm offices that may be trying to do it all and feel overwhelmed. She wants to share how she uses the Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox®, or really how she had kind of combined them to stay consistent and feel in control. And she wants to normalize more people running a farm office. Lisa J. shared that being organized really helps her to feel confident. She trusts herself to make good decisions for the farm. Lisa W. pointed out that all farms, not just Australian farms, will be able to utilize and implement the tips and advice Lisa J. will be sharing.

Lisa?s advice will be in her podcast Farm Office Tool Box Podcast?check it out!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2023-11-08
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564 - Moving From Day to Day Planning to Week to Week Planning

I find it challenging, interesting and exciting to try to break down how I plan and win at home and work, which took me two decades to figure out. It's like working backwards with little Lego bricks that you can replicate to build your own productive and organized house.

There are productivity courses and productivity gurus. For the most part, people who have learned to be productive have done so through a lot of trial and error, thinking, processing, and moving things around in their brains and in real life. Organization is essential for a productive life because if your physical space is disorganized, then it's harder to have enough mental capacity to organize invisible work - which is what productivity is. If your physical space is disorganized, then your productivity doesn't get enough traction to make enough of an impact in your life that you will persist long enough for it to become magical.

The Sunday Basket® is the first step to becoming a productive person, because it moves you from day-to-day thinking to week-to-week thinking. Even if you only do it for 90 minutes on Sundays, it's a monumental lift because the day to day of running a household and being a homeowner is pervasive. There's an inherent, unending task of being a household manager. You can't systematize your house to the point that there's no work to be done. You can reduce your expectations, the amount of stuff you own, the size of the house you live in, outsource your meals, cleaning services...the list goes on and on. But still there's only so much you can automate in your life. You still need to buy clothing and take care of your body (shower, brush your teeth, etc.), eat, sleep, and the like.

The final thing I want to reiterate is that the Sunday Basket® System moving you from day-to-day thinking to week-to-week thinking has a secondary benefit for your whole family. It creates this weekly cadence and this purposeful pause in requests and fulfillment of requests for yourself and your family. Being able to look at your finances on Sunday and then make decisions based on what everyone wants or needs helps you make better money decisions and also better time decisions.

Next week I'm going to talk about why email is the laundry and dishes of work. Oh my gosh! And then in a few weeks I'm going to talk about how to move into season-to-season productivity, both at home and at work. What does it look like to take the Sunday Basket® and turn it into seasonal productivity? What about the Friday Workbox®? Why would you even want that? Stay tuned!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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

2023-11-03
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Transformation with Kristi L.

In this episode, I introduce you to Kristi L. who has two daughters at home. Rachel is a high school senior and Lydia is in 8th grade. After losing her husband to cancer, Kristi decided to move closer to family in Indiana. Kristi is a rare gem who found Organize 365® before the podcast! It?s so fun to meet someone who has seen and appreciated the evolution of Organize 365®. Kristi started with my eBook in 2012, then grew her organizing skills through the Sunday Basket®.

Kristi relied heavily on the Sunday Basket® to stay organized while she took care of her husband. After his passing and trying to do it all, Kristi decided to sell the horse farm and move. It didn?t sell overnight. While trying to keep the house ?showing? ready, she moved a lot of stuff into a pod for later organizing which was smart because it took 2 years.

She decided the taxes were just too high and was tired of spending a lot of time mowing the lawn, just a quick 8 hours! When they got to their new downsized home with only two garages, Kristi took her time settling in. She could have continued to get COBRA health insurance forever, but her girls needed coverage going into 2019. So Kristi decided to go back to work. It was a good thing too because shortly after her daughter, Lydia, would be diagnosed with epilepsy and she?d be using the Warrior MAMA Binder more than ever. She already had the binder because Lydia has an IEP for ADHD.

This is when Kristi decided they needed more structure and she knew the 100 Day Challenge (now The Productive Home Solution®) was just the answer. Shortly after, she added the Friday Workbox® for organization and productivity at work too. She realized a lot of tasks were assigned digitally so admittedly she let the Friday Workbox® go. But then in her review, she was urged to get more training done. It dawned on her they weren?t getting done because it was something the Friday Workbox® used to help with! She was happy to share that she went back to the Friday Workbox® and now has the next three months scheduled, which allowed her to delegate work to others (in different time zones) to help with different tasks associated with the training. She learned her lesson and is sticking with the Friday Workbox®!

Kristi now has The Productive Home Solution®. After having a nightmare that she was passing and her daughters were going to have to take care of things and she wasn?t organized, she knew she needed the binders for peace of mind. She pointed out that the Sunday Basket® serves to accomplish actionable tasks while the binders keep your affairs in order. She felt it beneficial to get both which are included in the The Productive Home Solution®. Kristi has a lot less stress these days due to the products and systems from Organize 365®.

One the most recent things Kristi treated herself to was the Paper Organizing Retreat! Kristi loved the 1:1 help she received with her paper and binders. She had such a fabulous time at the retreat, not to mention the night in the hotel where she was finally able to charge her car. More importantly, she got to ?be? with all her paper that next day and make more progress on what she started at the retreat! Next time she?s bringing her mom! Her mom is 80 and has a lifetime of paper. Kristi likes the idea of being able to shred what she predicts to be 99.99% of that paper at the retreat! Lisa joked that either way, Kristi will be taking care of that paper. So it can be with her mom?s help now or later because it?s not going anywhere otherwise.

Kristi?s advice is, ?start with the Sunday Basket®, then buy it all.? Kristi says to start with pink and take care of yourself first. Get you organized for two reasons; as a woman you need to get organized first and it?ll take a long time before it needs to be touched up-you?re the only one using your personal space.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday.

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

2023-11-01
Link to episode

563 - What do you need to plan in the next 10 days

My "party trick" is being able to know what you're thinking; I've been doing it for over a decade. My obsession is figuring out how families and homes work. How to make visible the invisible work so ultimately we can spend more time with family and make more memories.

If I stay at least 10 days ahead, I'll have a buffer. If you have a buffer, then it takes A LOT for you to get behind the 8 ball again. Here are the things you need to be thinking about that will happen in the next 10 days.

Halloween: candy inventory and costumes

Fall Events: pumpkin patch, festivals, trunk or treat, etc.

Daylight Savings Time: changing clocks and circadian rhythms

Election Day: how and when you will vote

As a business owner, I think about how these events will impact my employees.

The more you are the leader, the Household Manager, the CEO and COO of your home - you get to decide what YOU want. You get to ask yourself: "What do I want?"

How do I know what's coming next? I know because I observe my own life, look a couple of weeks into the future, and then I move backwards. I'm obsessive about what is coming next, what is coming next, what is coming next. Always.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Holiday Blitz

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

2023-10-27
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Transformation with Jayme H

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU learn the skill of organization, too!

In this episode, I introduce you to Jayme H, a wife and mom of two. In 2016, Jayme was lucky enough to attend a summit where Lisa was a speaker. From there, Jayme went down the Organize 365® rabbit hole. When she found Organize 365®, she had two children in K-8 and was a teacher. Since then, she has been promoted to counselor and is now principal of her school. Jayme is a unique individual that has found so much success with the Sunday Basket®, that she is doing a pilot of the Education Friday Workbox® with the entire staff at her school. We?re going to report back to everyone in January on the feedback and results.

Jayme really loves the process of organizing. In her teaching years, she was stuck trying to be a perfectionist. But now that she?s attended three years of Planning Days and taken advantage of all the other Organize 365® resources, she knows functional organizing is where it?s at! She and Lisa discussed the importance of knowing when to organize and when to move on to doing what you are uniquely created to do. It?s funny, most people start organizing to get control of life and get time back. It?s advised to do The Productive Home Solution® at least three times. But then what? Keep organizing? No! You have earned the time to focus on you now. Many times people want to stay where it?s comfortable. The idea is to get your home to a place where you are not always starting from zero! The Productive Home Solution® gives you an assignment each week, right? If you feel good about that area, you do not have anything to do so go catch up on your show or use it to be uncomfortable growing in what you are uniquely created to do! You don?t have to focus on the whole house all the time, just that week?s assignment.

She?s one busy lady with her family, her career, and now her side hustle. Jayme and Lisa also discussed household management like the management you see in the workplace. Jayme wanted her home to run as smoothly as work does. When you go to work, you don?t wonder who is going to clean the restrooms. But who is going to clean the restrooms at home? Roles are not defined. Departments are not defined. All of the invisible work in our homes has not been identified, broken down into ?departments? and discussed who will take care of what.

Jayme gained so much time that she has been able to grow her organizing business on the side. The first year putting The Productive Home Solution® into action she gained a chunk of time and then again around year 3.When she got motivated to do her binders, it was easy. She had already decluttered and had those papers in their places so she knew where to go for information! This year she finally felt like she could reply, on Planning Day, as feeling organized. She uses her Sunday Basket® at school too and her actions have caught the attention of the Superintendent. When Jayme asked about the school implementing the Education Friday Workbox®, he asked if that?s how she?s always remembering to follow up (AKA bug him) about projects and checking on the progress. He quickly agreed and we are so thankful for the opportunity to run this pilot?can?t wait to share with you all in January!!

Jayme?s advice is, ?Hold yourself to your own standards.? Stop comparing yourself to others and make the systems work for you. She has recently come to the conclusion that we all have different standards and capacities. You are one person, complete what you think one person should be able to complete; you can?t do it all.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Education Friday Workbox®

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.

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

2023-10-25
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Coffee Chat - Get Your Customized Organization Plan - Book a Call

I?m excited to announce that you can get 1:1 organization help!

As a female, mom, business owner, and head of household, I see all organizing differently. I see it through all those unique lenses. Despite what all the consultants have said, I just have to run Organize 365® in my own Lisa way. At the end of the day, I want to offer as many ways as possible to learn organization because we all agree it?s learnable and yet only 13% FEEL organized in any particular area. I want to offer what works for you so you can have more time to dive into what you are uniquely created to do.

Ok, you want a personalized organization roadmap?

Now you can get your own customized, personalized organization road map. I know, with all the free content from the podcast and blitzes, what more could you need? Well, maybe within your business or your household The Productive Home Solution® leaves you with questions or it all just seems too overwhelming. Now all you need to do is email customer service and you will get a form to fill out to get a call schedule with Tanya, Stef or Monique. You can address all the burning questions you have that apply to your unique household or business. At Organize 365®, we understand how the energy of the season and big events impact the home and business. Book your call, get your roadmap from a member of the Education Team, and get to work. No obligation to buy one single thing!

You just need to decide:

The time you can allocate for organizing

The amount of money you have to spend on organizing at the current time

Give this gift to yourself!

Episode Resources:

[email protected]

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

2023-10-24
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562 - Preparing for Getting Organized in 2024 (Auditioning)

I had a huge revelation I have to share with you.

I'm going to equate my PhD journey to your journey and how you're getting organized with Organize 365®. Hang in there while I explain.

How is what you're doing now getting you ready to get organized? In episode 501 ("Passive Organizing"), I talked about how things like listening to podcasts and doing free blitzes are passive organizing. If you're listening to this podcast and reading this email, then you're learning to become a person who thinks about organization, productivity, and becoming an organized person. You are starting to identify as a person who's learning the skill of organization.

It's the same as when I was doing "passive academia" during the postbaccalaureate program to set me up for extreme success for the PhD program. In the 6 week time frame between being accepted to when the postbaccalaureate started, I didn't know what to do or where to start. The only thing I knew to do (since I knew no one at the university) was to search for PhD podcasts in my podcast player. Doing so helped me to assimilate into the world of academia. It helped me to identify as a person who was getting a PhD.

We are always in a process of passively doing the next thing, auditioning for the next thing, or actively doing it. You are so ready to be in the auditioning or active stage because you listen to this podcast and you understand the lingo. We speak the same language and you've been passively organizing...it's time to move to the next step!

Audition organizing is when you're investing your time versus your money. There are so many ways you can do this with Organize 365® - so many ways that I don't mention often enough. The podcast, blitzes, free week of The Productive Home Solution® - you can follow me for a long time and never buy anything and still get organized!!

Is that going to keep me in business? NO. So that's where active organizing shows up. You actively organize with your dollars. You've tried with your time already, now it's time to try with your money. You start to take advantage of the paid things to move you forward faster. Do you want to get organized in a longer amount of time with less money or a faster amount of time with more money?

When you have all the resources at your disposal, you make faster progress because you're not wondering how you can get the same effect without the item you need. You can get from passive organizing to audition organizing with the Holiday Blitz. You can get from audition organizing to active organizing with The Productive Home Solution®. If you've already done the Holiday Blitz but you're not ready for The Productive Home Solution® - then start with the Sunday Basket® or the Holiday Blitz Bundle. Try out a planning day by registering for the Holiday Blitz Mini Planning Day! What would set you up best for running even faster and being even more prepared for when you're ready to take advantage of the next opportunity?

Everything is happening FOR us, not TO us. You're in the right place at the right time. If you are in the active organizing stage and you've made the investment in Organize 365® and you're seeing the transformation - THANK YOU! Please come be my guest on the Wednesday Podcast if you haven't done so. For everyone in our community app, thank you for nurturing everyone who is new to this journey and affirming and encouraging them along the way. Remember how you felt when you were moving from passive organizing to auditioning? Then auditioning to active? Reminisce on those feelings and use that as fuel to help others be successful the way you have.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Holiday Blitz

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

2023-10-20
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Transformation with Kathryn P.

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU learn the skill of organization, too!

In this episode, I introduce you to Kathryn P. who found the Organize 365® Podcast when the paper became too overwhelming and she was looking for help. Kathryn is one of the most generous people. She is a mom to her 18 year old, a foster parent, and is also a teacher. In our conversation, it was clear she does not let any of her kids go without. She provides a safe space for them. Each kid comes with a lot of paperwork though. After Kathryn moved from her 2 bedroom apartment to a 4 bedroom home she now owns, there was just too much stuff and too much paper!

Who doesn?t shop the estate sale of the home you are buying? LOL! Kathryn was a smart cookie and did just that! Listen in as we discuss Kathryn?s move from the apartment to the home that was partially furnished due to that estate sale. There were also some renovations that were required. Kathryn used painting and other tasks as ways to teach and bond with her foster kids. Kathryn also set up her ?general store? in her attic. She knows where all the extra supplies are for each kid's needs like pencils, luggage, and stuffed animals.

Being a teacher and a foster parent serves Kathryn well because she understands what these kids need in the school setting. She takes the kids to their doctor appointments, obtains the 504C?s, and of course an IEP for school. That equates to a lot of paperwork. She decided to make her own Warrior MAMA Binder for the kiddos to keep things organized. This is also where she keeps the sign in sheet for the social worker?s visits. While discussing the slash pockets, I got such a great idea from Kathryn; each kid gets half of a slash pocket. Yes! We are starting to work with a school on a pilot program and I was thinking they?ll need extra slash pockets, but this solution solves that dilemma! See, we all need a community to share ideas and encourage one another!

On another teacher note, we discussed the natural cadence of a teacher's life. We call them Golden Windows. Kathryn and I discussed her floors getting replaced. She was prepared, in her most recent Golden Window, to replace her floor until the contractor told her she was missing something. So now she just knows that it gets shifted to next year, same Golden Window, in summer. That?s why we do the planning days. Maximize these natural breaks the school year gives you and plan because then life gets going fast again and you don?t have that time to plan. The planning days give you an opportunity to think about the next 120 days, what needs to get accomplished, holidays/special occasions, prep for those holidays/special occasions, and establish what you want routines to look like. This helps Kathryn to focus on her classroom and her foster kids and not sweat things because she has planned for them.

Kathryn?s advice is, ?Focus on one thing and find the joy in it.? If you look at the whole project, you will be frustrated that more isn?t getting done. Kathryn gives her time and attention to the kid(s) when she has them and organizes when she doesn?t. She chooses to focus on the positives.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

The Paper Solution® Warrior MAMA Binder

Education Friday Workbox®

Free Consultation (online)

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.

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

2023-10-18
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561 - Everything But The House - Jacquie Denny - EBTH

Today on the podcast, we talk to Jacquie Denny - Founder of Everything But The House which is based in Cincinnati. She is a female business owner I met years ago when I was still doing in-home professional organizing. She and Co-Founder Brian Graves met at a tag sale and began EBTH in 2008. Their first online sale was $10,000. They were so excited that they took their spouses out to dinner!

Everything But The House began as a business to bring estate sales online in order to get better prices for their clients and reach a broader market and audience. They would go into a house, photograph everything, then invite buyers into the home to pick up their items. Within about 6 years, they changed their approach and now take all the estate items into a facility so buyers no longer visit the home of the client and potentially damage it or the surrounding property during the transaction.

Every single home has these 3 things: saleable, donatable, and disposable items. When Lisa first met Jacquie, she asked: "What about the paper?" to which Jacquie asked: "What paper? - We don't do paper." That's when I knew focusing on paper was the right business model for Organize 365®!

We talked about how the generations that Jacquie has worked with have transformed the market place. The Silent Generation stays in the same house their entire lives and never downsizes. The Baby Boomers are more apt to downsize or sell off their items before they end up burdening their children with them. Now Gen X and younger generations are far less interested in valuable items and would much rather spend money on vacations or life experiences. Jacquie says she's currently downsizing the largest generation in history - and they think furniture is their most valuable property. Not a lot of 20 or 30-somethings want the big, ornate dining room sets anymore!

Jacquie mentioned a few things she's learned over the years that she thought would be helpful for others to hear.

First: don't make the mistake of assuming that the longer you hold on to an item, the more valuable it gets. Everything has a 'shelf life' or a life cycle. So for example, if you have a signed Joe Burrow item - sell it while he's still hot! Don't hold on to it thinking in another 5-10 years it'll be worth more than it is now after he's no longer "at the top of his game".

Second: things that will almost always hold value are jewelry, art, and luxury goods (such as purses and shoes).

Third: what you paid for something or how much it means to you has no influence on what you'll sell it for...it's all about the market!

Fourth: the biggest sin you can commit is this - hanging onto an item you aren't emotionally ready to let go of, putting it into a storage facility where it?s forgotten until someone else finds it after you're gone. The diminishing return on that item while it sits there month after month is harder to swallow than letting go of the emotion attached to it, selling it while you still can and using that money for something else.

Some people let go of things to pay for expensive vacations. Some people sell things to pay off medical bills. Greg and I ended up selling our gold class rings in 2008 to keep the kids in school, and selling other items that our families had bought for the kids when they were very young (remember layettes?) in order to pay medical bills and other expenses. Sometimes you have to give up things that you think are valuable in order to survive!

Want to find out more about Everything But The House? Browse their "Marketplace For The Uncommon" and see if you can find a treasure, or reach out to them to sell a treasure you might already own. Remember, everything is something to someone!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Everything But The House

Call 888-965-8672 (or listen to the podcast for Jacquie's number!)

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

2023-10-13
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Jacquie Denny - EBTH

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU learn the skill of organization, too!

In this episode, I introduce you to Jacquie Denny, a Cincinnati native and Founder of Everything But The House. I remember calling Jacquie many years ago to have breakfast to talk about Organize 365®. Jacquie had discovered her own successful business through settling her father?s estate and I was looking to pick her brain. She watched as the auctioneer sold her father?s items for pennies on the dollar and thought there just had to be a better way. She also knew that children or loved ones settling an estate likely have full time jobs on top of trying to settle an estate, which is like a full time job of its own. She stumbled into solving a large need for people in her surrounding area by sharing her lived experiences to make others? lives easier. Now Jacquie finds herself becoming like a family member, almost like a therapist, to families as they navigate this difficult time.

Jacquie was an empty nester for 18 months till Jacquie?s dad got a cancer diagnosis. Caring for your parents is so much different than caring for your children. You don?t know how long they will be with you. You may not realize all the appointments they now have, prescriptions that need to be picked up, unexpected lengthy tests they may need. You may even need to cook for them, possibly feed them, and assist in daily hygiene. Unfortunately over the course of 10 years, Jacquie and her husband said goodbye to all of their parents. Jacquie really shared a lot about what it takes to care for loved ones and the toll it takes on the caregiver. And in the end, all of the arrangements that need to be made during an emotional time. Nowadays it's common to not live in the same state as your parents or siblings. Often, parents have remarried and we find ourselves as executors of multiple estates. As their decline begins, it?s a good time to discuss with siblings, or whomever will be helping with caregiving, what the expectations are based on convenience, what your job will allow, and proximity to the loved one.

Jacquie had been a stay at home mom when her father passed. After settling one estate after another, her family defaulted to her because she was a stay at home mom and had done it before. Settling an estate is an all consuming process! Jacquie?s business filled this void. She started working her business on the weekends while her husband traveled for work. Little did she know that her business would explode when she went online, with the help of her business partner Brian in 2008. At the end of the day, one of the things that helps Jacquie with her families is organization! Things are going to change and be unpredictable, but with organization it?s easier to pivot. Jacquie?s hope is that all of us will use our experiences and hand down advice to our children on how to survive it better. Do as we learned, not as we did.

Jacquie?s advice is?

The more organized you can be, the better off you?ll be because things continually change.

Utilize a lot of communication and patience to sustain sibling/other caregiver relationships.

Don?t assume your support system knows what you need in your caregiving role.

If your loved one is not in a facility, contribute how you can remotely with:

Sporadic visits where you assume a lot of the daily responsibilities to give siblings or whomever a break. Do some deep cleaning or make freezer meals for when you head home. Help them run errands or pick up their kids (your nieces/nephews) from sports or activities.

Cold hard cash to cover the meals, gas, prescriptions, personal care items of your loved one.

Be creative on how you can lighten the load and show you care.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

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.

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

2023-10-11
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Coffee Chat - How to use your HSA to pay for the ADHD Bundle

I recently realized that I haven't fully explained the ADHD Bundle and what my reason is for creating it and selling it the way I do. The # 1 reason why families go bankrupt is because of medical expenses. I want to support families however I can and make it easier to use your Health Spending or Flexible Spending accounts on products and services that are related to your diagnosis.

Listen to my Coffee Chat today to hear more explanation about the ADHD Bundle and how it qualifies as a medical expense.

If you have an ADHD diagnosis and your doctor and/or therapist has said that you need organizational support - you can buy the Organize 365® ADHD Bundle with your pre-tax dollars.

This bundle has all the most beneficial products and programs that Organize 365® offers to support you with your diagnosis. Ask your doctor for a prescription explicitly for this ADHD Bundle so you have justification to provide to the HSA company or for tax purposes.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

ADHD Bundle

ADHD Reference Page

ADHD Book Club

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

2023-10-10
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560 - Caring for Siblings and Managing Two Households - Organize 365 Team Unexpected Events - Pat

Our Organize 365® Dream Team has experienced way more than its fair share of unexpected events this year. Like...A LOT. Nearly every single one of them has dealt with or is dealing with really big life events. I asked a few of them who were willing to share about those unexpected events and how they navigated them.

Pat's episode will wrap up this podcast series. Believe it or not, this is her FIRST time on the Organize 365® Podcast! I can't believe it took 8 years! It doesn't bother Pat at all though, because she's definitely a more "behind the scenes" kind of person. She's also the most seasoned employee on the Dream Team. She lives with her fur babies (a cat and a dog) and a temporary houseguest - her sister.

Earlier this year, Pat's sister had surgery and has been staying with her ever since. She also has some chronic conditions that limit her mobility, so her stay has been longer than expected. They have agreed that she's going to stay at least another 6 months while her house is being repaired and renovated so she can live in it safely. They also realized during this unexpected event that her sister needed help cleaning and organizing the house that she's lived in for over 35 years. It's also a 100+ year old house!

More often than not, the relationships with your siblings are the longest ones you'll ever have. Some people choose to never get married or have kids. I have a feeling this 'trend' of seeing older female siblings living with one another (temporarily or long term) will continue for years to come.

Pat's message to everyone is this: the bottom line is that everything we do requires effort, but it's always so much easier when you have the right tools to help you. Organize 365® provides these tools, but you still have to do the work.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

The Paper Solution® Medical Binder

The Paper Solution® Financial Binder

Sign up for our Newsletter

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

2023-10-06
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Transformation with Andi M.

On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. You can see and hear transformation in action. I look forward to helping YOU learn the skill of organization, too!

In this episode, I introduce you to Andi M. She has a crazy house with lots of ADHD floating around as well as other diagnoses making it pretty difficult to get chaos under control. Cue Organize 365®! Andi started with the ADHD book and then the podcast. Andi sent her three children to three different schools for three different reasons after homeschooling! With that much change, Andi knew her Sunday Basket® would play a vital role.

Andi shared about their move from Iowa back to Ohio. She shared about her son?s IEP and the transfer. We went over the financial benefits and hurdles that come with the options of an IEP or 504C for a child with a learning disability. Please know each state has their own rules so check with your state for clarification.

In the early days of her children being tested for diagnoses, listening to the Organize 365® Podcast let Andi know she was not alone. There was a virtual conversation being had. There were similar stories being shared. There was advice being offered. Lisa seemed to understand what she was going through. Before she knew it, she and Lisa were like virtual best friends. It may surprise you to know that Andi got the Sunday Basket® for the community! She wanted to chat with others about their organizing and how they were doing it. When we organize, we are in our homes alone. The community lets you know others are experiencing the same hurdles and you can celebrate their wins with them. The Sunday Basket® has never been about the Sunday Basket®; it?s about the families and how they make it work for their lives. Andi?s advice is to start with your paper. When you get your paper organized, it leads to action. Nothing will happen if you don?t have the paper to register for the class, for example.

EPISODE RESOURCES: