Organize 365 Podcast

The podcast discusses how passive organizing prepares you to get organized, using the host's PhD journey as an example. It explores audition organizing and transitioning from passive to active organizing. The podcast also delves into the distinctions between resumes and CVs, navigating the admissions process for a PhD, and pursuing research. Lastly, it touches on getting organized for the holidays and offers suggestions for organizing steps to take.

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 Sunday Basket® The Paper Solution® Warrior MAMA Binder Education Friday Workbox® The Paper Solution® Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter  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!

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 Free Consultation (online) 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!

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: The Sunday Basket® Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter  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!

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!

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: Sunday Basket® Friday Workbox® The Paper Solution® Medical Binder The Paper Solution® Financial Binder The Productive Home Solution® 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!

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: The Sunday Basket® The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day The Paper Solution® Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter  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!

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. For episode #5 in this podcast series, it's Virginia's turn! However, this isn't her first time on the Organize 365® Podcast. Virginia lives in Florida with her husband and two boys, and she was with me in Missouri for the Great Homeschool Convention back in March when she realized that being a traveling mom was no longer working for her and her family. She used to travel a lot after she had her first baby, but was living in Maryland at the time and had a lot of family around to support her. Additionally, the complexity of having so many parents contributed to her not being able to travel any longer. Both her and her husband are products of divorce, and each of their parents are remarried. She also has 2 aunts that consider her to be "their child" (her dad was the only one of his siblings who had children) - so that's a lot of older adults in her life!  So naturally, Virginia used this opportunity to talk to her parents, step parents and her husband's parents about the Financial and Medical binders that Organize 365® offers. She made it all about her as she said, and showed them how she was organized and then casually asked "How do I do this for you if I need to?" It's not an easy conversation to have, and we know our parents don't want to leave us with any burdens after they're gone...but how do you get people in their 60's and 70's to do their homework so that we can take care of them in their 80's and 90's?  Living as a powerful, controlled, organized person doesn't happen by accident. It takes proactive anticipation and purposeful planning. Virginia says you have to build in some slack for yourself, that way when someone (or something) pulls on that proverbial leash - you can't feel it and it doesn't hurt! We need to realize that unexpected events are actually expected, you just never know when they are going to come.  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Paper Solution® Medical Binder The Paper Solution® Financial Binder The Productive Home Solution® Home Planning Day (must be a member of The Productive Home Solution® to purchase) 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!  

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 Laura M. who is a mom and wife living in Kansas. Once Lisa learned she was also an academic researcher, she wanted to go offline and geek out about research and all the things. Lisa refrained and they continued on about how Laura found Organize 365® in the weeks of homeschooling due to the pandemic while also carrying on with her full time job. She bought the Sunday Basket® and it sat. When she knew the program would no longer include the kids program, she felt urgency to take advantage of The Productive Home Solution® while it still included the kids program. She did her first Planning Day in December of 2021.  Laura loves the mental capacity she now has. She has since started and uses the Sunday Basket® regularly. Laura then started to think about her work days and how meetings were really hanging her up. She wanted to find a way to not be working deadline to deadline and micromanaging her team. Cue the Meeting Mastermind. She now has an effective way to communicate with her team and meetings are more efficient. She has more capacity and more bandwidth. Our capacities can shift from hour to hour depending on what we have to deal with. Because she is focusing on the right things that day, she has more capacity and it gives her relief that she only has to do those tasks and not worry about things that are earmarked for a different day. She knows it will all get done.  Laura and Lisa really took a deep dive in the structure of what Organize 365® is building. Laura taught Lisa that Organize 365® is essentially collecting community participatory research!  You all are participating - so thank you! They both agreed that in the long run it is for the benefit of the community, and lives will be transformed as a result of the research and surveys that are being done now. They dissected what generalizations have been made about housework and how they both desire inclusive language. However, little side joke, that academia doesn’t really appreciate corporate speak and vice versa! And with inclusivity, Lisa would love to find a way to help all with their organization and housework; she’s thinking about what that will look like. Organize 365® is really striving to provide an operational definition of housework. There must be no assumptions made like a master bedroom, home owner, or man vs. woman's work (worn out conversation but not the solution!) Laura’s advice is, “Just get started at whatever pace you can.” She pointed out even if you are just thinking about it, it’s on your radar, and you will start to take baby steps towards your organizational goals. If you miss a lesson in The Productive Home Solution®, no problem. Start on the lesson of the day in the course. The reality is that the lesson will come back around. If you have extra time you can go back. Lisa added they are all loops. Each lesson is designed for you to start and complete it, leaving the space better - not perfect. But if you never get back to it - no harm - no residual mess. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Productive Home Solution® Planning Day Meeting Mastermind Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter  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!

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. Today's episode with Tanya talks about how she stepped up to the challenge of traveling to the Homeschool Convention and Paper Organizing Retreat in Greenville, SC without hesitation. During this recording, I found out about some other things that took place in her personal life right around this time - I had no idea! Tanya made the move to Florida in January 2023 to combine households with her in-laws. We discussed this multigenerational living in a previous episode (check that out here). The timing of this move was incredible, because by the time they were all settling in and her mother-in-law started visiting new doctors and establishing relationships with them, they discovered that she needed to have a heart catheter and surgeries quickly followed. Let's rewind back to March for a second - we decided not to do the booth at the convention, but we still had to make sure the Paper Organizing Retreat went off without a hitch. Tanya was all in, but then something happened right before she was scheduled to fly to South Carolina. On Tuesday night of that week, her son fell during football practice and hurt his arm. The next day they decided to take him to the ER because he was still in pain. Tanya felt guilty she wasn't the one to take him, but her husband was able to since his schedule was more flexible. Turns out he had a broken arm! Tanya reluctantly flew out the next day to join me in Greenville, but knew her son was fine and would be taken care of. As an owner and manager, I find it important to spend as much time as possible in person with my remote staff to problem solve. This worked out great for Tanya and I on this trip. We spent as much time together as we could to discuss how we were going to handle our company finances, move our website, and which of our existing programs were going to work on WordPress without breaking! During the rapid changes with her work role, she was still dealing with the medical situation with her mother-in-law at home. Her in-laws helped a lot with the kids, so logistics changed for a while with school drop offs and pickups. They had no other family in the area, and hadn't made any new friends yet since moving to Florida. Her husband had also just started a new job about a month before, but thankfully his schedule was flexible. Tanya and her husband were doing what was most necessary to keep their heads above water and focusing on the day-to-day essential tasks. She knew she could leave the rest because when she was ready, it would still be there to deal with. I asked what would've helped at the time if anyone could have or would have offered - and she said three things: food, a clean house, and childcare. She also brought up pet care, because her in-laws have a cat. Sometimes you forget how much work pets can be; they definitely are an added chore on top of all the other things! So if you've been paying attention and wondering why all the sudden the Paper Organizing Retreats are only being hosted in Cincinnati at our headquarters - now you get it! If you aren't able to come to Cincinnati, please visit our Certified Organizer Directory on the website to find a virtual or in person retreat near you! Next week we'll hear about Virginia's unexpected event. Stay tuned for series episode #5! EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Friday Workbox® Certified Organizer Directory Cincinnati Paper Organizing Retreat 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!