Organize 365 Podcast

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally 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 get Organized! This month, I have a special treat for you! Normally, you get to hear the transformational story of ONE member of our community. This month, I want to share some of the very special breakthroughs of women just like you as they attended Embrace 2020. You can learn more about the 2021 Embrace experience at organize365.com/embrace

The older you get and the more #adulting you do, the more you realize there are taxes for everything. There are almost as many kinds of taxes as there are kinds of insurance. When I was younger, and taxes seemed easier, I used to do our taxes myself using TurboTax. Now, our finances are much more complicated, and we use an accountant to file our taxes. However, I have a process that lets me get my paperwork ready in three to four hours total! When I was an in home professional organizer, I saw many people request extension on their personal income tax filings. Not because they didn't know how to do their taxes. Not because they didn't have the money to pay the taxes. All because they did not have their tax documentation in order.They have to get their paperwork under control in order to complete their taxes. I want to help you become proactive instead of reactive in approaching your taxes, so today I am sharing some of my own processes for making taxes easy. I always work on my taxes in February (usually during the Super Bowl). Back when I was a Creative Memories consultant, I learned to organize my business taxes using the IRS Schedule C categories. First, every January 1, I add a green slash pocket to my Sunday Basket® labeled "Taxes" to keep all of my incoming paperwork together and organized. As I have shared before, I recommend you make your decisions in advance whenever possible. Establish habits and routines to reduce decision fatigue. Here are my lessons to make tax time easier. If you have a business, figure out how you will categorize expenses related to Schedule C categories. A few years ago, I made a cheatsheet of my categories and how I group expenses to keep my categories uniform from year to year. I also recommend making checklists for yourself of annual tasks (writing down mileage for vehicles) and for the papers you are expecting in the mail (income, mortgage, bank, investment statements). Keep up with recording your expenses monthly. I recommend the Organize 365 Income and Expense Binder as your one place to keep your receipts, documentation, and to track your expenses. This way you will know how your expenses are affecting your profitability every month and can adjust as needed. Record your income monthly. This will help you to recognize the many ways you are generating income in your business and you can adjust where you spend your energy so that you are focusing on the most effective parts of your business. If you spend a few hours each month, then at the end of the year you can do your inventory counts and be ready for tax time. The Organize 365 Income and Expense Binder is what I have used in all of my businesses to keep track of income, expenses, and mileage. If you do not have a similar system set up for your business finances already, you can purchase this from our shop at https://organize365.com/product/annual-income-expense-binder I am excited to share my simple system for income taxes with you. However, I am not a tax advisor or accountant, so these are my personal thoughts. Please do not use them as tax advice and consult your own professional for information about your specific situation.

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally 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 get Organized! This month, I have a special treat for you! Normally, you get to hear the transformational story of ONE member of our community. This month, I want to share some of the very special breakthroughs of women just like you as they attended Embrace 2020. You can learn more about the 2021 Embrace experience at organize365.com/embrace

Today, I want to talk with you about diversity and inclusion at Organize 365. I have always been intentional and purposeful about creating an inclusive and diverse company over the last nine years. Organize 365 is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I get to see the great work that Procter & Gamble does to actively work towards diversity and inclusion. I have learned so much from their approach to building intentional depth and breath of their employees. As we grow and expand, we will continue to strive to represent the beautiful colors, thought patterns, races, and religions of the world. While race is one important facet of diversity and inclusion, I also want to share some other ways that Organize 365 strives to build a team of people who represent all different kinds of diversity. In the podcast, I share many of the ways we are already diverse some of which include generation, family structure, and awareness and empathy for people with special needs. I am also delighted that the Organize 365 community is wonderfully diverse and so inclusive of all who join us on the journey.

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally 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 get Organized! This month, I have a special treat for you! Normally, you get to hear the transformational story of ONE member of our community. This month, I want to share some of the very special breakthroughs of women just like you as they attended Embrace 2020. You can learn more about the 2021 Embrace experience on our website.

As we get ready to celebrate February as Black History Month in the United States, I want to share some of the history I have learned about the differences between Black and White Americans owning houses in the US. I am doing my best to use preferred terms and inclusive language, so I am asking for grace as you listen. I am always open to learning new things, but I also want to use this platform to share information about the US history with people who may not have learned these things in school and who have not yet added this topic to their learning journey. During the Summer of 2020, I dove into reading and learning about the historical differences between the experiences of Black and White Americans. I am a lifelong learner. I love history. I love to learn about different cultures. I love to learn about all people all over the world. I am learning about myself, my home, and broadening my horizons by learning about the experiences of others in the world. As a White woman celebrating Black History month, I want to be respectful, and I want to share information that would be relevant to my primary topic of organizing your home. I also want to acknowledge that my experience is different than that of African Americans, and I thought back to all the things I have been reading and learning about home ownership. I believe that the more we understand the differences that shape our lives, the better we are together and the more empathetic we are towards one another. In my history studies last summer, I began to learn how many White people were able to gain college educations and grow their wealth because of home ownership. I was initially shocked to learn about some of the differences I describe on the podcast. My family of origin had very different experiences, and by learning about the history of US housing, my eyes were opened to the reality of the differences in the US. I want to share some of the fascinating, eye-opening information I researched last summer. Links to several of these resources are below: Black Wall Street - Podcast The Color of Law - book by Richard Rothstein NPR interview with The Color of Law author Richard Rothstein The Banker - Movie In the podcast, I share some of my own learning, insights, and a raising awareness of my own biases and assumptions. I offer you some resources to do your own research and learning. Knowing each other's stories will bring us better understanding, and better conversations. I want all of us to leave more educated. What unites us is far greater than what divides us.

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally 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 get Organized! This week, I share my conversation with Zetty M. She lives with her husband and three daughters (9, 11, and 14). They have been a nomadic sailing family for the last five years, but are now settled down in Wisconsin for the next nine years while the kids finish school. She shares how she has transformed her home and life along her organizing journey. And, she started her own business! I hope you find this conversation as inspiring as I do! You can find Zetty at https://zippypt.com 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. For more information about the programs and products mentioned in this podcast please check out these links: Organize 365 The Sunday Basket® 100 Day Home Organization Program ALL ACCESS Workboxes Paper Organizing Retreats I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

As we head into 2021, I want to talk with you about moving from a reactive life to a proactive one by resetting your daily routines. In 2020, many of us picked up some bad habits and time wasting activities that snuck into our schedules. I am working on recapturing my time for purposeful activity, and I want to share my thoughts and strategies with you. My evening routine is the shortest of all of my routines, and it is my least consistent routine. I like to use this time to focus on my hygiene and care of my body. I take a hot bath, do some skin care, and take my vitamins. Before the pandemic, I used to do something productive before doing these getting ready for bed activities. During the pandemic, I spent that time on my phone - on social media, reading about news events, reading hundreds of emails, and following different internet rabbit holes that were not particularly productive. For the next 120 days, I am focusing on incorporating habits of planning my outfits for the week on Sundays. I want to plan my food for the next day in advance. I also want to get back to reading physical books. Projects from my updated slash pockets are also things I may include in this time. I am focusing on writing out my notecard with the next day's schedule and plan each evening. Think about what would make the biggest impact for you in the next 120 days. You cannot do it all. But, when you pick what you want to do, you can focus on doing those things with excellence. Do not take on too much - pick small easy things. Find ways to remind yourself about these changes, and see how it goes.

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally 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 get Organized! This week, I share my conversation with Anna D. She lives with her husband of 25 years and shares two dogs with her adult daughter. She found Lisa from the ADDitude webcast. Anna began her transformational journey during some major unexpected life events. She settled her sister's estate, remodeled her mom's house, and was dealing with her own ADD. She shares her story of learning to thrive despite chaos. I hope you find this conversation as inspiring as I do! 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. For more information about the programs and products mentioned in this podcast please check out these links: Organize 365 The Sunday Basket® 100 Day Home Organization Program ALL ACCESS Workboxes Paper Organizing Retreats

As we head into 2021, I want to talk with you about moving from a reactive life to a proactive one by resetting your daily routines. In 2020, many of us picked up some bad habits and time wasting activities that snuck into our schedules. I am working on recapturing my time for purposeful activity, and I want to share my thoughts and strategies with you. When I consider daily routines, I look at the morning, afternoon, and evening time periods. I am going to discuss each of these and share what I was doing pre-pandemic, how 2020 dramatically changed these times of day, and what I want these routines to look like in 2021. I actually think afternoon routines are one of the most important and often overlooked transition periods, especially for women. I first introduced my 2017 afternoon routine in Podcast Episode 193. You can listen to that if you want more information about my morning routine before the pandemic of 2020. As you adjust and adapt your routines, I really recommend small changes. Small changes over time are more successful and create more lasting change than big sweeping changes that are difficult to sustain. Afternoon routines are the transition from work or school back to home and family time. It is the bridge from your daytime activity to the dinner hour. The afternoon routine is one you have to be conscious about setting up, especially if you want to be deliberate about what you do during this time. Depending on your phase of life, the afternoon routine can include dinner preparation, cleaning up the house, checking kids homework, and sometimes driving to and from activities. But, it is the change over from work to house life. For many years, I did not actually stop working at a typical time, so my afternoon routine was a pause to just get my family on track. However, as Organize 365 has grown, I worked to develop the habit of stopping work at a reasonable time to give my family my full attention. I delighted in my habit of spending time with Greg every day. During the Pandemic, Greg and I both began to work later everyday. We both worked a lot more and did not end at our normal times anymore. I did run to Culvers almost every day to give myself a commute and some alone time. Over the summer, I began to spend more time at the warehouse and continued to work more than my basic 40 hours a week. In the Fall, I began to work more at the warehouse and office. I still need a transition from work to home and some private, quiet, alone time for my thoughts. I want to keep the transition, but I no longer enjoy eating all this fast food. Updating my pink slash pockets has already given me more motivation and desire to work on my own projects after my work hours. This is a more desirable way to use my time than driving to get fast food. And, we are spending more time sharing meals together as a family. Of the three routines, this one is the most nebulous for me, and the one that is still in process. I am not fully sure how I am going to achieve these changes to my routine, but I am giving myself grace as I figure this out. So, as you figure out what you want to adjust in your afternoon routine, be patient and observe what is working and not working right now. Do you want to spend time with family? Is this a helpful time to tackle your 100 Day Home Organization Program task of the day? Do you need to focus on your food and nutrition? Do you have hobbies or personal projects you will focus on? I would love if you can share your afternoon routine ideas in the Facebook group or on Instagram and tag me!