Organize 365 Podcast

I’ve answered questions about the invisible work we are all doing and today I am answering questions about the visible work we do. A good example of visible work is everything you would do inside of The Productive Home Solution™. I explained the evolution of the program from it’s inception as 40 weeks One Home to the “exhausting” 100 day program where I realized not everyone has kids, to today The Productive Home Solution™. I have been refining this program for 10 years to help anyone be able to organize any home. It’s a 52 week cycle of organizing spaces that matches the energy of the year. Yes, the energy changes throughout the year. Remodeling Elizabeth is getting ready to remodel her kitchen and wanted to know the best way to leverage The Productive Home Solution™. I answered saying as items are boxed up, label where those items will go once the remodel is done. One box per cabinet. I also found it useful to set up card tables with laundry baskets as cabinets during the remodel.  Pro tip: ask for extra shelves for your cabinets! Another person asked for an alternative to the shoe organizers during the remodeling because her husband doesn’t like the look. “The organizers stay!” The alternative is more expensive and cumbersome. Plus, if it was all tucked away her family would constantly be asking where things were because it’s all out of place to begin with. You can see through the organizers and it’s for a short amount of time. “The organizers stay!” Email! You guys, we are all in trouble with AI. It is making email more and more difficult to maintain. In The Productive Home Solution™ there are TEN lessons on email alone! If you are “email upside down”, archive all you have now and slowly go through them. It once took me 8 weeks to go through a client’s email inbox!  A few additional quick tips that I was able to offer was use your email like a Sunday Basket®, delay replying, delete spam, print actionable emails or emails you have replied to, and hire an executive assistant if you can. At some point, you may even think about a Chief of Staff to help. We are doing all of this invisible/ visible work for our families on top of our paid work. Email is the easiest to step out of. But only you can comfort your child in the middle of the night. What can you outsource? What Can You Outsource As women we are wearing the hats of wife, mom, home school teacher (in this case from the question), and household manager. She wanted to know if she should focus on The Productive Home Solution™ or the Teacher Friday Workbox™ because she homeschools. There is a great compromise to be made here. Do both. Do the teacher planning and incorporate an hour of home school to The Productive Home Solution™ and while you are at that they could be working on some of the Kids Program. Also, to lighten the load get a housekeeper. Again, where are you needed and what can you outsource? A housekeeper was suggested for another person asking about how to best prepare for going back to school for her CPA exam. I replied to delegate and elevate your family members. She had a college aged child that could help with housekeeping or hire it out. Also stock up on everything you can before classes start. Take care of things like dr. appointments and upcoming maintenance on cars or anything else. Those are things you can do early because school has hard deadlines that aren’t flexible! Lower your standards of clean and communicate with your family about what to expect and things you will need help with because you no longer will have the bandwidth to do them.  You guys submitted such great questions. Catch the full episode to hear the more questions and solutions I provided.  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Paper Solution® The Productive Home Solution 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Lauren H. who is married and has a blended family with three kids and two dogs. Her mother actually lives on her property too in a separate dwelling. Lauren has been listening to the podcast for past 9 or 10 years. Only in the last 5 has she officially started her organization journey when she had her son, her mom came to live “with them”, remodeling their home, a booming business, her daughter starting Kindergarten, and oh yeah covid for the perfect storm to make someone need to get organized. Paper had always been a problem for her and the other systems didn’t address paper. She was no longer in control of the paper and she needed a system to get things in order.  We had a great conversation about multigenerational housing, which was one element adding paper to her life.  Lauren’s mom has lived on their property for awhile now. It’s cheaper and she’s very able to live in her own place with Lauren close by instead of an assisted living facility she doesn’t want to be at anyway. That being said we talked about the peace of mind the medical binder provided for Lauren during Covid. No one could go to the doctor with their loved ones, this was a way to make sure the medical team knew about her severe corn allergy.  Once Lauren got all of the medical binders filled out for her family, she moved on to the financial binder. Lauren and her husband run a modular home business. The financial binders help them to keep track of all the business accounts. It felt so great when her husband needed a title for a trailer he sold and he knew exactly where to look for it. Lauren is thankful for her helpful and supportive husband. She thanked me for the message that yes women are doing more because actually they want to be running the show! They want to do all the household things but also be supported. Even in business it’s easier when there is one person in charge.  And because lifestyles are so varied, at Organize 365® we try really hard to have the conversation be dynamic to support all the ways we are running our households. When life grows, so does your paper and that’s why Lauren finally gave into putting systems in place because life kept growing and her paper was overwhelming. She loves that the Sunday Basket® is like her external brain. She has so much more space in her brain now.  She had very nice things to say about me, her “Organizing Big Sister”, as far as my teaching style.  And then she got very excited about planning. Planning provides her the opportunity to look at her life and her business. Lauren agrees that it’s critical to take time to plan. Take yourself out of the daily activities of home and the tasks at work and plan. She feels like when she’s planned out the next quarter, she can be more present during the days of that planned quarter. And she loves that with planning nothing sneaks up on her like November that is clustered with birthdays then followed by the gift purchasing holidays. She can plan for it. She can budget for it.  She only wishes she knew how to be organized and plan sooner! Lauren’s advice is, “Start with the Sunday Basket®. Get everything out of your brain. For 6-8 weeks get your mind and body in a rhythm of sitting down every Sunday and processing your Sunday Basket®. Then start one of the binders.”  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® Friday Workbox® Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter  On the Wednesday podcast, I get to talk with members of the Organize 365­® community as they share the challenges, progress, missteps and triumphs along their organizing journey. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. If you are ready to share your story with us, please apply at https://organize365.com/wednesday. Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media!

We are moving on to the questions about paper management. You become responsible for more paper as you get older. It starts with car titles, insurance, and institution degrees. Then you graduate to information about your health, your home, and your growing family. Before you know it you may be caring for a parent or settling an estate. How do you control all the paper? Financial Binder  The Paper Solution has two steps to it. There is the great sort. You may need Sunday Baskets® to initially sort paper into according to which binder you will be placing it in. You will feel more confident knowing what paperwork you have, even though it’s not in binders yet. And then there’s placing all those papers in the appropriate binder. The first question was a little bit of a heavy one asking about filing personal papers for the event of your passing. It was easy to answer though, make sure you have a financial binder filled out. I created the Financial Binder after settling my dad’s estate. There were so many things I didn’t know I needed and I wanted others to know when it is time for them to settle an estate.  I was stumped when asked about a loved one’s social media. Anna mentioned she discovered that you can designate someone as your custodian upon death. And she’s seen accounts that indicate the person has passed. Check your social media settings. Completing the binders can be a huge gift to your future self but can feel overwhelming today. Just set aside 15 to 20 minutes a day or extend your Sunday Basket® processing time. You probably need roughly 120 hours to get through all of the paper and set up your binders. A good cheat is to attend a paper retreat here at Organize 365® or at any of our certified paper organizers retreats. You can get roughly 40 hours of work completed by attending. You may find your to-do list growing as you fill in the binders. So set yourself up to complete tasks from anywhere. That’s why I set it up in a basket, so it was portable. Switch your mindset to think of what you can do in the places you go so you can be the most productive in completing this gift to your future self.  This could be your plan B too for days you need to pivot. If you normally care for your child or parent and a doctor visit gets changed or your loved one is not feeling well, you could paper sort in place of those activities or at those activities. You never know how the day is going to go when caring for others. You could also be enjoying these summer days and paper sorting could be saved for rainy days. It’s a small shift in mindset of when and how you can get this paper under control.  Medical Binder “How much detail should go into the medical binder?” I have found it useful to have past blood work, tests, and any letter from a doctor regarding special permissions for a prescription or procedure. I gave three situations where without my medical binder, the course of treatment would have included medicine but due to paperwork I had, the course of treatment changed. The Value of a Checklist One person wrote in saying she spends a few weeks in Mexico every summer and how could she better plan for it. Good ole checklists. You create a checklist and each summer just update the list according to any changes in growth or what you need when away from home. You can store it in the Household Operations binder until you need it, update it, and place it back in the binder till next time. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Paper Solution® 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!

Happy Monday!  This Connections Episodes is all about Routines. Energy is a word that keeps surfacing in these questions and conversations within the community. We are busy ladies! So how do we establish and stick to these routines? It’s important to regularly evaluate your routines and determine if they are still serving you and your house for the phase of life you are in. Energy for routines and sticking to them regarding family  Right out of the gate Mary asked about sticking to routines now that her children are out of school for the summer. We all do better with schedules/routines. You don’t have to rush out the door anymore but you can still have a schedule. This way you and your family can have expectations for the day. The best part about being an adult, is that you can make the schedule anything you want.  It’s ok to have a few non productive days and enjoy the time with your kids. Most importantly enjoy your summer.  “I’m so busy doing everything for my family I feel like I never get to do what I want to do.” OR “I feel guilty being lazy when it’s so beautiful outside.” I say choose a day that you will what you want to do. For example, in the summer Greg golfs on Wednesdays so, I “project” on Wednesday. If it rains or golf is cancelled for some reason, I still “project.” OR you can say these are the projects I will do on rainy days. So go out and enjoy the sunshine but when you can’t,  pull out those projects you have been wanting to tackle. You could also designate times or nights when you, say, watch tv with your spouse. It’s important to nurture important relationships and it’s important to fill your cup too.  Sticking to your routines for you Another question was about having a plan for the week but not having the right energy for planned tasks. I had to throw out a little tough love. I want you to ask yourself “How bad do you want it?” I want my PhD badly so I have sacrificed time with my family and I have done the work even when I didn’t want to. If you want your home organized, do 15 minutes a day even when you don’t want to.  If you find yourself waning in energy in general, look at your diet and physical activity. I have always been an energetic person but I noticed by cleaning up my diet and increasing my daily movement, I have more energy. I explained how making environmental changes can help you in making dietary changes. And I talked about the 24 hour rule. I delay projects and I delay decision making until Sundays. Basically I don’t buy anything unless I know I can start it within 24 hours. Anna and I laughed about me learning about the Orgnaize 365® staff and their addiction with the “Save for Later” feature on Amazon. I said a lot more about it so please go listen to the full episode.  Rapid Fire Q & A “Lisa, What do you do with all of the completed puzzles?” “I donate them.” “What is a typical work day for you Lisa?” “What is a typical home day for you Lisa?” Listen to episodes 471- 474 I take you through each day! I explain my rationalization for what I do.  “Do you have a routine with Amazon ordering?” Back in the day I had to watch all our pennies. And I explained how I would delegate our money in combination with processing my Sunday Basket®. You may get a better idea for how to set up an Amazon routine for yourself by listening to those episodes.  Regular Review It is so important to establish routines so you have capacity for other aspects of life. Planning Day gives you a great opportunity to evaluate what you are currently doing, are your routines still serving you, are there things that have fallen off that you want to add back in or try in a different way? Every planning day you decide what you want you day to look like for the next 120 days. Planning day provides the opportunity to stop, review, change, and move forward.  EPISODE RESOURCES: Ep. 196 The 24 Hour Rule Ep. 469-479 A Day in the Life of (Weekends, Home, and Work) Ep. 521-525 How Lisa went from No Sunday Basket® to Sunday Basket® retailer  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.

Discover the transformative power of the Sunday Basket®, a system designed to manage daily tasks and paperwork. Hear how it evolved from a busy parent's inspiration, offering innovative strategies for decluttering and task prioritization. Learn about effective household financial management and the importance of discipline in productivity. Find out how to streamline responsibilities with unique organizational bundles, and explore the integration of tools like Google Docs for enhanced information management. It's all about mastering the art of organization!

Carly L., a devoted mother and organization enthusiast, shares her inspiring journey from chaos to clarity. Struggling with paper clutter, she found empowerment through the Organize 365 systems, transforming her home and mindset. Carly highlights the importance of adapting organizational strategies to suit different life phases, emphasizing that real change comes from within. With humor and authenticity, she reminds listeners that building an organized life is a personal journey, and it's all about making your space work for your family's needs.

This engaging discussion delves into the essential difference between decluttering and organizing. Listeners learn that decluttering is an ongoing process, similar to vacuuming, and is crucial for creating space. Emotional challenges tied to letting go of items are addressed, especially with inherited possessions. Practical strategies for monetizing unwanted items and how to adapt cleaning routines for easier maintenance are also highlighted. The conversation emphasizes the lifelong journey of decluttering while encouraging realistic expectations and teamwork in the process.

This week, the speakers tackle a variety of personal and family-related questions from listeners. They discuss the challenges of getting family members on board with organization efforts and share insights on managing household responsibilities effectively. Listeners learn about tools like Google calendars to streamline tasks and the importance of establishing personal boundaries. The conversation also touches on the impact of life stages on family dynamics and highlights strategies for maintaining positivity while navigating responsibilities.

A listener’s journey inspires a professional certification and sheds light on the housing market's turmoil. The discussion dives into skyrocketing prices and inventory shortages, reflecting real family struggles in securing homes. It critiques traditional household designs for lacking adaptability, urging a rethink of family dynamics and responsibilities. Finally, the importance of home renovations to meet evolving family needs is highlighted, promoting creativity over relocation for a more tailored living experience.

In this chat with Amanda A., a busy mom of three balancing ADHD and family life, she shares how she transformed chaos into order. Amanda recounts her journey of rediscovering the Ultimate Bundle, which motivated her to embrace structured organizing systems like the Sunday Basket. She dives into using her dining room as an office and adapting her home for family needs. Plus, practical tips on food storage and the significance of embracing flexibility in organization highlight her empowering experience.