Organize 365 Podcast

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 Ryan L. is back, and she’s getting ready for a Golden Window! The last of her three children is getting ready to fly the coop! What will she do with all her new found time and energy? “This is for me! This is my time!” expressed Ryan. She plans to get fully organized. Ryan is a Kolbe Consultant and we dug into that for a bit. She and I shared our Kolbe numbers, what they mean, and how you too can learn from your Kolbe numbers. Ryan stressed that all numbers are a strength; they just simply show how you do things in those 4 categories.  Listen in as we discuss the necessity of planning and creating habits. One of her favorite “Lisa-isms” is Planned Neglect. Set the bar LOW and trust your instincts! It’s impossible to do this incorrectly. Too many times we don’t know how to get started or afraid we’ll do it wrong. The most important thing is to just get started. Ryan plans to start in her laundry room. It’s funny how you can think this is such an insignificant room until you analyze this space. This room is the “workhorse” of the house, the room where every random thing gets dropped. Check out the free week to organize your laundry room, you’ll be surprised! Ryan feels bad that she's so excited for her Golden Window (you know…that mom guilt starts to kick in). She will be able to put time on her calendar and won’t have as many distractions so she will be able to protect that time better. Her goal is to commit 20-25 hours a week to get her home through The Productive Home Solution™ this time around. If you find yourself on the cusp of a Golden Window like Ryan is…immediately fill that new free time as if you’ve hired a Professional Organizer for your house - except you’re the expert!  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Productive Home Solution™ FREE WEEK 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!

Productive people are weird. We just are. We are not going with the flow. We are where the flow comes from. First, I suggest listening to part 1, part 2 and part 3 of this series before doing anything else. In today’s episode we are bringing the entire process of expanding your capacity and productivity together. There’s a process to this and it all comes together today! I have received many requests to record podcasts on how I get so much done. Where do I get the capacity? The energy? How am I so productive? I’m obsessive about being productive and proactive because my sense of significance and purpose is burning so deep in me. I don’t want to waste my time. I am all in on having the most impact I can have on my family, my friends, the Organize 365® community, my team and the community as a whole! But here’s the thing - this was an evolution for me. It didn’t happen overnight or in a weekend. It was a long process. I've been thinking about this series for years, but have never been able to articulate it. I had to dig deep to really pinpoint the things I was doing to get it all done. It was hard for me to remember why or how I got to this skill level. Productivity has everything to do with how you think about your time, energy, capacity and your sense of purpose. It has nothing to do with containers, planners, or checklists. It is your mindset that makes the biggest difference in your own productivity. You can learn how to manipulate your own energy and expand your capacity just by focusing on your personal and professional development. If you also give yourself permission to do things you don’t see other people doing - you will be well on your way. What’s the thing you want to do or learn that will help you take the next step? What’s something you want to do but haven’t for #allthereasons? Today’s podcast is going to have you asking yourself some deep questions: What’s something you can learn to keep growing or developing in order to expand your capacity? What’s something you want to do that's out of your comfort zone? How do you keep maximizing your capacity, then using it with purpose? Are you deriving the energy from your physical space at the most optimal level? Do you truly know how to plan and are you planning enough? A productive person surrounds themselves with physical, mental and emotional space that supports their productivity and growth. Last week, I talked about juggling. I don't feel like I'm juggling, or that my life is imbalanced. This feels more like bouncing balloons up into the air and constantly keeping them from hitting the ground. Productive people have the capacity not only to keep all these balloons in the air, but to have more balloons than they would be physically able to hold all at once. What does it take to do this? Obsessive and relentless planning! I hope you join me and get functionally organized so you can do what you are uniquely created to do! EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Productive Home Solution™ Home Planning Day The Friday Workbox® Work Planning Day Jeff Olson - The Slight Edge Rory Vaden - Procrastinate on Purpose 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!

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 Mary B. She’s a mom of 4 and after her divorce found Organize 365®. She walked away from that divorce thinking she wasn’t good enough. When she looked around her house, her negative self talk got the better of her, telling her she wasn’t even good at keeping her house organized. Then when she noticed she’d also been gaining weight, she started to dig into why. Mary was very vulnerable and shared the mental health journey she has been on and how Organize 365® played a role in her healing.  Mary saw a naturopath and also saw an EMDR therapist when her anxiety and panic attacks became regular. Through EMDR therapy, she discovered trauma from the divorce hanging around, and unfortunately even more trauma from her childhood. All this trauma was stuck in her body and keeping her cortisol levels high. We discussed how no two people experience the same thing in the same way, and also about how you can move on from a traumatic event without dredging up the past to try and “solve the problem.” Listen in as we discuss the guilt we feel as women - even when we are the ones doing most of the childcare and generating an income too! Research has supported that for each child a woman adds to their life, they gain three and a half hours of extra work while the man gains none. How much leisure time does the dad lose when a child is brought into the family? NONE. How much time does the mom lose when a child is brought into the family? Countless!! It’s time for us. You should not feel guilty about budgeting for home cleaning services then using that time you get back for yourself. Use it for your hobbies and interests - guilt free.  It was so important to have this conversation because it seems as though we are living these isolated lives, even in such a connected world. We keep everything so private to “save face” when really it’s all falling apart behind closed doors. These conversations need to be normalized.  Mary is not stuck anymore and has been able to conquer her paper piles. If you find yourself in a similar situation to Mary’s, you can reach out to her in the Organize 365 community app so you can have a private, candid conversation with her directly. 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!

Let’s unpack the next step in my productivity journey - PLANNING!  First, if you haven’t listened to part 1 and part 2, I highly recommend doing so before delving into planning! Planning is the fun part, but you really need the foundational productivity mindsets discussed in the first two parts of this series. The planning we are going to discuss in this podcast is a completely different kind of planning. This is planning from the ground up! A productive person teaches themselves how to get all the way done.  For me, I really learned how to do this kind of planning in March 2020. This is when reality set in for me and failure was not an option. Planning became my number one priority. The type of planning I’ve learned to do and the type of planning I teach in Planning Days for both Home and Work allows you to look at the big picture as well as what is actually possible in the season you’re in. It’s an awesome way to continue taking next steps without feeling overwhelmed or like you’re drowning! I don’t plan for an entire year at a time. That wouldn’t work for me or my business. I break planning up for Home by my three new years - listen to this podcast to learn more about those. For work, I plan by quarter which allows me to be agile and create efficiencies for my teams and meetings throughout the year. It doesn’t end there - setting up this system for planning and essentially planning out my planning time allows me to have multiple times throughout the year to freshen up my home and work. You know that amazing burst of energy you get at the start of the new year? The whole “new year, new me” energy? Imagine having that multiple times per year? What could that do for your productivity? That’s exactly what these planning days do for me and the Organize 365® community! Ultimately, this podcast series on productivity is going to teach you how to juggle really well. It’s true that life is a juggling act and you need to know how to keep all the balls in the air. Listen in to hear what balls I’m juggling and how I’ve used my productivity skills to juggle better! EPISODE RESOURCES: The Friday Workbox® The Friday Workbox® Planning Day The Productive Home Solution™ Home Planning Day® The Sunday Basket® 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!

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 Kristen M. a mom of three, a teacher, podcaster, and a teacher-prenuer.  How does she do it all? Kristen shared that it started with the Sunday Basket®.  She knew she had to get her paper under control first.  Routines are so important and without her knowing it, she had established an afternoon routine of doing 15 min of paperwork between the end of her work day and when her children would be home. Once she experienced the magic of the Sunday Basket®, she quickly layered system upon system and now is a well rounded Organize 365® member! Listen in as we discuss the different uses for Sunday Basket®s throughout the year.  Kristen used one of her Sunday Basket®s to organize her daughter’s senior year and now her daughter will be going off to college with the Launch Program and Binder. And she will use it differently again closer to the holidays. Hear how Kristen’s children love the magic of the Sunday Basket® too, mind you one is only 8 years old!. The Sunday Basket® helps her to be more present because she is not trying to remember everything.  And she can stay aware of her children’s desires due to them contributing to the Sunday Basket® index cards. Kristen also shared the magic of the Sunday Basket® through her eyes. Once she got the hang of it, it was so freeing. Kristen was already organized so why did she need new systems? The reality is the new systems were freeing up her working memory. Instead of trying to remember everything all of the time, now it was physically in her external brains known to us as Sunday Basket®s. She doesn’t have to remember how the school year curriculum went. She just refers to the Sunday Basket® and knows what she can change or do better for the upcoming school year.  She uses her different slash pockets to organize things for her podcast, “The Modern Math Teacher” and her teacher business within each “external brain.” She’s impressed when she looks back and can see all the impact she has been able to have due to the physical systems of her external brains, the Sunday Basket®. 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!

In today’s episode, Expanding Your Productivity: Productive People Part 2, I discuss how the next step on my productivity journey was very much an inside job. A lot of the things that I was doing during this part of my transformative journey were invisible to those around me. But, yet had a massive impact on where I am today. I quickly realized that to have the impact I wanted to have, I would need to create products and courses. The products you need to truly get your papers organized didn’t exist. I would need to create them. The courses you need to learn to get functionally organized and stay organized didn’t exist. I would need to create them.  My in-home professional organizing business was growing rapidly and in the background I was creating a new vision and mission for Organize 365®. Listen in to hear how I was able to create this on an airplane! I had a burning desire to help women learn the skill of organization so they could unlock their time to do what they were uniquely created to do. I was having great success with this with my in-home clients. But how could I do that on a larger scale? This is where I had to just keep taking the next step. You know the long game but you are very much in the weeds, putting one foot in front of the other. To those around you, your transformation may be undetectable at this point.  If you aren’t sure what the next step is…I’m here to affirm that no one else is going to be able to tell you either. I can tell you that you are always capable of more than you realize. You have so much more in the tank than you realize.  Through this period of time in my life, where I was deeply internalized and absorbing information, books and podcasts, I became laser focused on creating the products that now fill the Organize 365® warehouse and are helping people all over the world (literally)! I also created The Productive Home Solution™ as the course that will help you learn to live an organized, productive and proactive life while organizing your entire home - one step at a time. It was through my own experiences of not knowing what that next step was that I was able to create a complete program designed to provide you with the next steps for getting organized in a way that is functional and sustainable for you. Then, once you’re organized, the sky's the limit! You will have unlocked so much time and possibility and I can’t wait to see what’s next for you! It’s so fitting that this podcast happens to be episode 550! We are now half way to 600 episodes because I just keep making the next episode and taking the next step. Whatever stage of life you are in, I want to encourage you to let go of guilt and invest in yourself. Do and get the things you need to feel motivated, be more productive and take the next step. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Productive Home Solution™ The Sunday Basket® The Friday Workbox® 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!

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 am excited for Susan T. to share her Organize 365® journey with you! Susan lives with her husband and adult children - her daughter is 29 and her son is 26. They both live in apartments in Susan’s home and we talk about the blessings and challenges of building strong relationships with our adult children. When she found Organize 365® through an interview I did on another podcast, she was helping a friend get her paper organized. She then, like many of you, binged all of the Organize 365® podcasts and found that our solutions were exactly what she needed!  She had been trying for a while to figure out a system for organizing her work. She had an ever-growing pile sitting on the corner of her desk. The pile was creating overwhelm for her. She struggles to get her work organized and move easily from task to task. She needed a system for her work and her paper pile. The Friday Workbox® transformed how she organizes her work and her ability to keep moving throughout the week at work, especially as someone who works mostly out in the field. Planning Day for Work and Home have also been a gamechanger for her. She subscribes to both Work and Home Planning Days which leads us to a conversation about how Organize 365® is able to help orchestrate a flow for your life through these planning days, which is exactly why Susan goes to them all. She looks at it as an accountability partner for her home and work. The coaching she gets from me during these events is an added bonus! Listen in to hear our tips for organizing your medical history in real time and how to set aside time for yourself to dream and think! EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Friday Workbox® The Friday Workbox® Planning Day The Productive Home Solution™ The Productive Home Solution™ Home Planning Day 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!

Where does productivity come from? Planning our day the night before? Having solid routines? Having a beautiful and well-maintained planner?  Those things are all important, but they aren’t necessarily going to make you more or less productive. What are the differences between productive people vs. less productive people? To begin this podcast, I want to offer grace and understanding for those of you in phases of life where you have very little or no control over your productivity (such as a medical diagnosis, depression and active parenting years). I’ve been where you are and I know that these are all very real constraints. Productivity comes from being in control of your time. In order to do this, you need to observe YOURSELF. Look at your day and pay close attention to your energy levels - physically, mentally and emotionally. Become curious about yourself. What makes you more or less energetic? How can you extend periods of productivity? How can you unlock more of your time? In this episode, which is part one of a four-part series, I discuss the very first steps I took in my transformative journey to becoming my most productive self. I didn’t just wake up one day with the energy and capacity to be the CEO of Organize 365® while also getting my PhD. This was a long journey. The first step in this journey was a wake-up call for me. I realized no one is coming to save me. If it’s going to be, it’s up to me. This realization led me to quit my job and other habits that were draining my energy on all levels. Through this series you can follow along on my productivity journey and learn how I had to take total ownership of my life. Productive people are obsessed with knowing what things make them more or less productive, from their diet choices to the amount of sleep they are getting.  A big part of my transformation was looking at the purpose of the things I was trying to do. Productivity is not just about getting more done, it’s about doing things that matter, knowing why you’re doing them and doing them with a sense of calm. Want to instantly boost your productivity? Here are two questions you can start asking yourself to be more productive starting today: What’s one thing I can do right now? Keep moving forward. Even if you are only taking one step at a time. When you feel “stuck” ask yourself, what’s the next step that I can do right now. Do I have 15 more minutes? True productivity is not a check mark on a checklist - it’s a completed project. When you are working on something and running out of time, don’t be afraid to spend extra time to complete the project, especially if it will save you time in the future. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Friday Workbox® Brooke Castillo and Kris Plachy Podcast 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!

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 Lori S. Lori is married with two adult children. Her daughter has completely left the nest and is getting married next spring and her son is in college. Lori has always been an organized person and loves to plan as much as I do. She found the podcast while looking for new ideas and systems to try on her organizational journey. Lori immediately upgraded the DIY Sunday Basket® in her kitchen to the real Sunday Basket®. She and I discuss how all the solutions ebb and flow, shrink and expand depending on your phase of life.  A real light bulb moment for Lori was when she learned my philosophy on getting your storage room organized. In The Productive Home Solution™, I teach you how to organize your storage room as a store. This has allowed Lorie to transform her home over the past year. Lori has unlocked her time to do what she is uniquely gifted to do and that includes writing a book! We discuss Lori’s book, “One Shade Greener at Home: A Room by Room Guide to Reduce Toxins, Lighten Your Environmental Footprint, and Live Simpler”. Listen in to hear the things I’m doing to live greener! Lori and I both agree that small consistent steps over time make the biggest difference! EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Productive Home Solution™ 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!

It isn’t really about scissors. It’s about empowering yourself. It’s about taking back your spaces, your time and making things more efficient, functional and enjoyable for YOU. Your home is yours. It is the place where you have the most control. So if there are things at your home like old scissors - now is a great time to re-evaluate your supplies and get better ones if needed! I can’t say it enough - managing your household is a full-time job and you get to be the CEO. So if things aren’t up to par, you get to make it better! What would make your job as the CEO of your household easier? This podcast is airing in the middle of summer because right now is when you are going to find the best sales and the most variety of office and school supplies. Observe what you use and want to stock up on now while it is all on sale. What current supplies are you just tolerating but would be better served by upgrading or updating? Small upgrades to your supplies can yield big results! Grab your favorite beverage, take some time to yourself and go stroll the back to school supplies aisle at your favorite store. EPISODE RESOURCES: Back to School Blitz Upgrade your Organize 365® Supplies 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!