

Organize 365 Podcast
Lisa Woodruff
Lisa Woodruff is a home organization expert, productivity specialist, and author of multiple books including The Paper Solution.
Lisa’s research-based teaching shines a light on the invisible work being done at home and in the workplace. Lisa’s sensible and doable organizing tasks appeal to multiple generations. Her candor and relatable style make you feel she is right there beside you, helping you get organized as you laugh and cry together.
Lisa believes organization is not a skill you are born with. It is a skill that is developed over time and changes with each season of life. Lisa has helped thousands of women reclaim their homes and finally get organized with her practical tips, encouragement, and humor through her blog and podcast at Organize365.com.
Lisa’s research-based teaching shines a light on the invisible work being done at home and in the workplace. Lisa’s sensible and doable organizing tasks appeal to multiple generations. Her candor and relatable style make you feel she is right there beside you, helping you get organized as you laugh and cry together.
Lisa believes organization is not a skill you are born with. It is a skill that is developed over time and changes with each season of life. Lisa has helped thousands of women reclaim their homes and finally get organized with her practical tips, encouragement, and humor through her blog and podcast at Organize365.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 1, 2023 • 1h 3min
Emily Kelly: How Do You Know What You Are Uniquely Created To Do? - Part 3
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! Listen in as Emily and I come back together for the final episode of our podcast series. The things we are talking about we regularly talk about privately, but we feel that what we are sharing is meant for more than just ourselves. People really don’t talk about this: how you stay organized at home, how you survive hard things, how you transition through unexpected events. I am such a forward motion focused person, I’m always thinking about what is next. And this is what excites me and lights me up. We talk about what you are uniquely created to do. It is not necessarily ONE thing, it is always evolving, changing, and growing. The Organize 365® mission is to help you get organized so that you have more time so you can do what you are uniquely created to do. My only goal is to show you the invisible work that you’re doing and you can decide if you want to continue doing it or not, organize it, habitualize it, or declutter it, so that you can get time to do what you are uniquely created to do. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Friday Workbox® Victim’s Assistance in Akron 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!

Feb 27, 2023 • 11min
Pursuing a PhD 5: Organizing Paper Citations By Color
During week 4, we talked about how I think in color and how it helps me to learn things faster. When focusing on learning something new, being able to chunk the information into at least 4 color categories as I am learning is really helpful. I’ve learned how to add colors into writing my papers to help me remember which journals I am citing, which information is mine, and which information is from different authors. As I am going through this PhD podcast, I hope that learning how you organize in one phase of life can inform and help you in the next phase of life. EPISODE RESOURCES: Follow my journey on Instagram - Check out the PhD Highlight Button Zotero Organize 365® Research Podcast Organize 365® Research 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!

Feb 24, 2023 • 56min
524 - Lisa's Organization Story 2017
Are you ready for the positive, productive and proactive Lisa to make her debut? Welcome to 2017! In this podcast, we explore the paradigm of personal and professional growth. By 2017, I was running my in-home professional organizing business. It was BOOMING. But I had this gut feeling that it wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. I was noticing that a lot of the women I was organizing were diagnosed or self-diagnosed with ADHD. I enjoyed what I was doing so much that I wanted to reach more people. I wanted to make a strategic pivot in my business so I could have a larger impact. During this period of my life, my Friday Workbox® took center stage. I went to an office supply store to get more slash pockets and found that they were no longer offering packs of solid colors - only the multi-colored packs. That’s when I realized that I needed to manufacture these slash pockets and bring this all together so people could master these systems and save time. Talking through my ideas with my mom helped me think even beyond just manufacturing the slash pockets. She had me walk her through exactly how I would create a Sunday Basket® or Friday Workbox® if I were to create my own. And then she got to work with her sewing machine and the first Sunday Basket® prototype was born. Looking back, it was such an exciting time of growth for me - both personally and professionally. I knew I needed to become a different kind of company (beyond in-home professional organizing). I needed a team. For the first time ever I was starting to trust my own intuition as a business owner. This is when I started to make the leap into the business owner and CEO you see today. I hired my first coach. I needed to invest in myself to grow as a business owner. I knew that the cap to my business growth was me. I had to (and still do) grow for my business to grow. All those things that I did gave me the investment in myself that I needed to understand my worth and grow into the role I wanted for myself. It’s okay for not every single thing I do in my business to be direct income generating. I wanted to create systems and processes that anyone in the world could get a Sunday Basket® to save 5 hours per week to use for The Productive Home Solution™ to unlock their time for what they were uniquely created to do. And that’s what I’ve done. All of these organizing solutions and courses are available to you today because 2017 Lisa had a bigger vision for herself and for YOU! How do you want to change your future? Learning to be organized can get you there. The time I spent as a professional organizer was what helped me create the courses we now offer at Organize 365®. I saw how much organization had a larger impact on people’s ability to achieve results. I share stories of this in this episode. What impact could living an organized life have on you? EPISODE RESOURCES: FREE Sunday Basket® Mini Course The Sunday Basket® The Friday Workbox® The Productive Home Solution™ 1.0 Slash Pockets 2.0 Slash Pockets 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!

Feb 22, 2023 • 54min
Emily Kelly: Organization During Multiple Transitions - Part 2
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! I’m excited to welcome back my sister, Emily Kelly, to the podcast for part 2 of 3 in this series. This has been much anticipated by the Organize 365® community and I was waiting for the perfect time for her to tell her story. In part one of this podcast series, Emily Kelly shares her experience for the last year. Today she is sharing how she has organized her personal and work life during this time. Listen to Emily as she describes how she is using her Sunday Basket®, Friday Workbox®, and her slash pockets to sync her bills, goals, and her calendar. Emily and I share what we looked like before slash pockets and binders while working together to settle our Dad’s estate. I share my CliffsNotes™ on how we handled this important time in our lives. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Friday Workbox® Athena International 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!

Feb 20, 2023 • 12min
Pursuing a PhD 4: Organizing Lecture Notes By Color
The way I see the world in color is helping me organize my PhD studies and the work I am doing in school. Being able to use color allows me to chunk the information I am learning and help me remember it better. Pink: For home it is anything related to your uniqueness and for work it is your ideas and marketing. Purple: For home it is anything related to household work and projects and for work it is the visible work and projects. Blue: For home it is anything related to your family and pets and for work it is your team and people. Green: For home and work it is anything related to money and your invisible work. I was able to learn how to do a literature review, how to do an annotated bibliography, and how to write a proposal for a conference using color for each of these key components. Whenever we talk about introductions it will be pink, whenever we talk about methods it will be blue, and whenever we talk about results it will be purple. EPISODE RESOURCES: Follow my journey on Instagram - Check out the PhD Highlight Button Organize 365® Research Podcast Organize 365® Research Organize 365® Business Friday Workbox® Organize 365® Sunday Basket® 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!

Feb 17, 2023 • 1h 8min
523 - Lisa's Organization Story 2012
When we left off in the previous episode, I was in the pit of despair. I wish I could say I was out of it by 2012. Spoiler alert - not quite. But 2012 is when a monumental shift began to happen. I was 39 years old by this point. I quit my job. Our family was sinking into debt. Our kids medical needs were still high. I didn’t even recognize my own house (it was a wreck). And my marriage was feeling the strain. My inherent organization ability had gotten me this far in life but now everything I knew about organization was not enough. I didn’t have a playbook or framework for being the person I needed to be - hosting the holidays, having kids with busy schedules (and going to two different schools), and all the other positions I found myself filling. Which leads me to explore how we become disorganized. I think part of it is that we get to a point in our lives where we no longer have a story we are working towards. This episode is really important because when you find Organize 365®, you're likely a pretty organized person and looking for more tips and tricks to be even more productive. But more of us stumble across Organize 365® when they realize “I can no longer continue this way for the rest of my life, there has to be another way.” And the good news is that if you have had this thought - there is another way. Change can be uncomfortable. But it is through this discomfort that you transform. I’ve seen it time and time again in the Organize 365® community. What you may not be expecting is that when you need to learn the skill of organization the most is usually at a point in your life where you don’t have the time and money to do so. But by not budgeting the resources to get organized, you won’t be able to easily get out of re-living the same story you are trying to get out of. This is where I found myself in 2012. I was in the wrong story. Tune in and find out how I began to turn it around in 2012. Also in this episode: The Friday Workbox® takes center stage Tips and Rules for Organizing Passion Projects & Hobbies Want to hear more about my 2012 story and my 5 tips for organizing with depression? Listen to this podcast. What is the organized story of me going forward? Stay tuned next week to find out! What is the organized story of you? EPISODE RESOURCES: FREE Sunday Basket® Mini Course Organization is a Learnable Skill The Friday Workbox® The Sunday Basket® Saving Your Story Photo Organization Program 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!

Feb 15, 2023 • 53min
Emily Kelly: What Happened With the Dream Job - Part 1
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! I’m excited to welcome back my sister, Emily Kelly, to the podcast. This has been much anticipated by the Organize 365® community. And I was waiting for the perfect time for her to tell her story. Emily Kelly worked for Organize 365® for about 5 years. When I last interviewed her on the podcast, she was embarking on a new adventure. She had found, what she believed to be, her DREAM JOB. This is a three part series where we are going to get all the details on Emily’s journey since she left Organize 365®, but you are also going to get an in depth look at the relationship between Emily and me. Sibling relationships are unique because this is likely the longest relationship you will have in your life. Longer than your parents, your spouse, your children and your friends. You and your sibling(s) are in a unique position and have experienced things together that will forever just be an experience shared between you and them. Emily experienced some very unexpected life events. And one of the lessons that she had learned during her time at Organize 365® kept her going in the right direction. Grace. Give it freely. To yourself and others. Flash forward to today and we find Emily, a new version of herself, ready to share the broken road that led her to exactly where she needs to be. But you will hear more about that in Part 3. EPISODE RESOURCES: Jesus Calling Book The Sunday Basket® 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!

Feb 13, 2023 • 17min
Pursuing a PhD 3: I Do Not Have 186 Hours - Week 3
Starting the PhD, I was as planned as you could possibly be. I even took care of all the possible health visits I could have before starting school just so I didn’t have to take away any time to do that once I started; now that is planning! This journey is not easy, but I prefer to be positive and upbeat, not sharing everything that’s not working. I don’t pay attention to the things that I don’t have control over, but I am going to tell you the things that have gone wrong in the first 3 weeks just so I can point back to this episode and be like, “remember week 3”, not everything is perfect. In preparing, I began by pretending, since I’m a pretty productive person, I could add in this extra 30 hours of work and nothing else would really be sacrificed. That’s not a thing because there aren’t 186 hours in a week, there are only 168 hours in a week. I’m hoping that the learnings that I take from this can be beneficial to you and whatever it is that you are adding to your plate and whatever you are striving to be as well. EPISODE RESOURCES: Follow my journey on Instagram - Check out the PhD Highlight Button Laura Vanderkam - 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Oura Ring 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!

Feb 10, 2023 • 29min
522 - Lisa's Organization Story 2007
The year was 2007. And I was ROADKILL. Unexpected life events had run me over. Divorce had unexpectedly hit my family. My father was in poor health. I was raising young children with medical diagnosis. I had attended one HUNDRED and ten doctors appointments. I came unglued. I reached my breaking point. There I was standing in my kitchen. Not making sense. Tapping on a cabinet. Greg swooped in and got the kids out of the house. As I stood there pleading with myself, “You’ve got to get it together, Lisa!” I went upstairs to my room to figure out why I felt like I was falling apart. At the time, I had a physical planner. I flipped backwards through my planner and realized a pattern. I was spending so much time at doctor’s appointments. I started to tally it up and found that in the past year, I had gone to 110 doctor’s appointments. Doctor’s appointments are not only time consuming, but they are expensive. So at the same time, I had become a “jill of all trades.” I was running my Creative Memories business, cleaning houses, organizing, tutoring, working for Scholastic book fairs and several other direct sales related jobs. No wonder I was falling behind and apart. When it rains, it pours. My Sunday Basket® became my umbrella. I was overwhelmed. And I was being pushed to new limits. But I wasn’t disorganized. I cannot even imagine what this phase of my life would have looked like if I had not already had my Sunday Basket® system and routine in place. I was not home much at all during this phase of life, but I always had my Sunday Basket® with me. Which meant I was able to still be productive while waiting at the doctor’s office or in the car pick-up line. This helped me keep up when life started moving way too fast. EPISODE RESOURCES: Free Sunday Basket® 5 Day Mini Course The Sunday Basket® The Warrior MAMA Binder The Paper Solution® 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!

Feb 8, 2023 • 54min
Transformation with Maggie C
show notes