Organize 365 Podcast

In this episode, Lisa opens up about why she feels that women have so many responsibilities in the home, and how she's tackling them by thinking about her week differently. We are used to thinking of the week as Monday morning through Friday afternoon, and the weekend as Friday night through Sunday night. But what if the balance shifted, and our week was divided in true halves between our "work" life and "home" life? Would that create the sense of work-life balance we all seem to be craving? Visit Laura Vanderkam's website and check out her interview with Lisa to learn all about reframing the way you think about time. To get Lisa's Productive Home CEO Planner, join the 100 Day Home Organization Program or get everything with All Access. Be sure to check out organize365.com/dividing-week for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Episode 245 is the audio of a Facebook Live, where Lisa chats about all the fun and productive things we'll be doing, and the delicious food we'll be eating, at our very first Paper Organizing Retreat. Many people are able to organize their home and paper using our Complete Paper Organizing system or the 100 Day Home Organization Program (now available as an All Access bundle), but many of us thrive on community. The Organize 365 Paper Organizing Retreats will give you just that! In this episode, Lisa goes over the weekend's agenda and answers frequently asked questions about the event. If you're missing this one but want to join us for the next Paper Organizing Retreat, check out the live events page to get upcoming dates. We are proud to have Shred-it, the world leader in information security, sponsor our very first Paper Organizing Retreat. Be sure to check out organize365.com/paper-retreat-2018 for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Christine Miserandino's Spoon Theory pivots around the fact that some people, especially those with chronic illnesses, start with less energy than others. In this episode, Lisa breaks down this theory and how it applies to home organization. Lisa shares actionable steps for anyone to make progress in their homes--because having a chronic illness does not mean you can't live an organized, productive life. My two books, How ADHD Affects Home Organization and The Mindset of Organization address aspects of this issue as well. You can also listen to this episode of the Organize 365 podcast to hear my experience with ADHD. If you'd like to hire a professional organizer, in-person or virtually, find the list of Certified Organizers here. Be sure to check out organize365.com/spoon-theory for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

We tell ourselves all kinds of reasons why we can't get organized. Some of them are legitimate, others others are thinly veiled iterations of "It's hard" or "I don't want to." In this episode, Lisa strips down two of the most common legitimate excuses--chronic illness and young children--and uncovers a new way to tackle the 100 Day Home Organization program that doesn't involve small bits each day. If you've got one of these barriers, or if you're just a project-oriented person, you'll want to listen to this episode to find out how to modify the program to fit your needs. Be sure to check out organize365.com/get-organized-faster for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

In this episode, Lisa outlines what she calls "Golden Windows" of opportunity, life phases that bring with them circumstances that are prime for organization. Some Golden Windows happen just once in a lifetime, others happen several times a year. When these Golden Windows come along (or better yet, more than one at a time), we can capitalize on them and target that energy toward resetting and reorganizing our home. The directory of Organize 365™ Certified Professional Organizers can be found here. Listen to the podcast about Lisa's three new years for details on how she divides her calendar year, and learn about the 100 Day Home Organization Program and All Access, both of which follow those new years. Be sure to check out organize365.com/golden-windows for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

When we use our planner as our datebook, we may have an idea of the times of our appointments and commitments, but we don't align our weekly focus with the goals we actually want to accomplish in our lives. In this episode, Lisa explains her purposeful decision to not do laundry, and the deeper reason why she chooses intentionality over obligation. Lisa shares the problem with the readily available planners in today's market, and why the Home CEO Planner is different. If you are looking for permission to let go of the guilt and start intentionally focusing your time toward the things that matter to you, this episode will speak to you. Listen to Podcast 134 to get the full details on how Lisa divides the year into three planning seasons. If you want to get your hands on your own Home CEO Planner, join the 100 Day Home Organization Program. Be sure to check out organize365.com/planner-productivity/ for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

Grab the tissues! This episode was recorded live at the Organize 365 RISE: You Are Enough National Convention, held in June 2018. Lisa interviewed Dawn Carlson, a wife, mother of four, business owner, and new Certified Sunday Basket Workshop Organizer. In this interview, Dawn shares her story of transformation from depressed, struggling, frazzled woman to a confident, productive CEO with Organize 365. Using the 100 Day Home Organization Program and virtual organizing, Dawn took back her home and freed herself to do what she is uniquely created to do. Dawn gives us a glimpse of the real-life ups and downs of home organization, and brings us the inspiring message that YOU can do it. Dawn is a member of our All Access, a program designed to help you transform your home in one year. Interested in a live event with Organize 365? Check out the upcoming events! Be sure to check out organize365.com/240 for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook Group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program!

In this episode, Lisa talks us through the story of Angela, a wannabe professional organizer who finds encouragement and motivation through Organize 365. If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a profitable, confident, productive professional organizer, this episode is for you. Organize 365 has launched programs to help you START your business, MARKET your business, and GROW your business. With the Sunday Basket Certified Workshop Organizer program, Angela transforms her business from a small hobby business to a money-making profession she loves. Snag that free checklist here! Want more information on launching your professional organization business? The Professional Organizer's Think Tank is for you. Want more information on adding the Sunday Basket Certification to your current business? We'd love for you to join us in the Certification Program! Be sure to check out organize365.com/238 for notes, links, and photos from this episode. Like the show? Leave a review! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram and join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365 or using #organize365!

We've reached the final episode of the Kid's Organization Series. I hope you've all enjoyed this mini-series so far and found the advice useful when it comes to organizing your bedroom – or mini apartment as I like to call them! In previous episodes, I've talked about organizing your clothes, closets, and rearranging the furniture in your bedroom. But now I want to talk about organizing your toys, collections, and how to save space if you're sharing a bedroom with someone else. Eliminate Your Nightstand If you share a bedroom with a sibling or a friend at college, every space counts. With two beds in the room, it's unlikely you'll have a lot of space to work with unless you're lucky and have a massive room for you both. If you've been keeping up with the podcast, you'll know that my son is preparing for college and we've been shopping for his new apartment. During one of my many Walmart visits, I came across storage headboards. Well actually, there were more like mini bookcases with shelving suitable for things like an alarm clock, picture frames, ornaments, books, and other small items. A storage headboard eliminates your need for a nightstand, giving you more floor space to work with. If you want to have a lamp near your bed, you can use a clip-on dorm lamp that can clamp onto your headboard. They are adjustable and you can angle it so that you can read at night without shining a stream of light in your roommate's face – phew! Cube Units For Bunk Beds If you have bunk beds in your room, a storage headboard is probably out of the question. But don't worry, I've got the perfect solution! IKEA are the masters of storage units! Their KALLAX shelving units are my favorite. They are available in a range of different sizes, but if you're looking for the perfect bookshelf for bunk beds, I suggest going for the 1 x 5 unit. It takes up very little space and you can easily attach it to the wall with a standard L bracket. You'll need to think about functionality over appearance. Most people will immediately assume that the unit should be facing outwards, but this isn't how I do it. I recommend connecting the unit to the wall sideways so that the kids can reach into the shelves from their beds. Reducing The Bedroom Clutter If you share a room, you MUST reduce the number of collections and toys that you keep because there just isn't enough room to spare. If your family has additional storage space or a family bookshelf, etc., then you might be able to keep some of your possessions there if you don't want to donate or throw them out. Cube units are easier to work with for organizing your bedroom because they're functional, long-lasting, and you can easily separate them if you like. A 2 x 8 unit, for example, can be stacked on top of each other with your TV on top. My daughter took a slightly different approach to her shelving units and, instead of putting a TV on top of her 2 x 8 unit, she put her hamster cage on top of it. It's not a regular hamster cage either – it's a hamster mansion! Organizing Books Is it just me or is every home overflowing with books? I was a preschool teacher and when my kids were young, we literally had EVERY picture book ever published. The house was covered in them until I finally decided to do something about it. My kids were never big readers. They preferred to play with toys rather than sit and read for hours. So, I took all the picture books and stored them in the loft. I then put their toys in their bedrooms and they were so much happier. If you've got a lot of books, you should think about donating some of them or moving them to where everyone else in the family keeps their books. I suggest assigning one of your cubes in your shelving unit for books – and that's it! Organizing Your Toys & Collections Everyone has a passion project. Your passion project is the type of toys that you're currently into. Whether it's PS4 games, Monster High Dolls or Lego, your passion project will probably take up at least four of the cubes in your unit. Toys are different from collections because toys are the things that you play with while collections are more personal and private. Your collection is special because it has a memory connected to it and, even though the rest of the family sees it as junk, you don't see it that way. There's just one thing to remember – your entire collection HAS to fit into one cube. You can store them in a bin, but once that container fills up – it's time to go through it! You should spread everything out on the floor and go through it piece by piece. Prioritize your collections and only keep the items that you still love. Everything else should be donated or thrown out because they're just taking up space that you don't have. Find A Display Area For Your Collections Once you've gone through the bin, you need to find a flat surface in your room where you can display your favorite pieces from your collections. I suggest putting them on a ledge or "floating shelf" that you can hang up on the wall with a nail or L bracket. This type of shelf comes in a range of sizes and is relatively inexpensive. You can find them anywhere, including IKEA, Target, and even Walmart. You can attach it to your wall and use it as a collection shelf. If you share a room with a sibling, get two shelves for your collections and stack them on top of each other. I hope you enjoyed this special Kid's Organization Series as much as I enjoyed making it! I've organized plenty of kid's rooms in the past. It's one of my favorite things to do because each child is different and their bedrooms reflect their personalities – I think that's fantastic! If you tried any of my suggestions, I'd love to see them! Follow me on Instagram for more great organizing tips, then share your photos with me by tagging me @organize365! View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/237

We're continuing our Kids Organization Series and following up last week's topic of redesigning your bedroom with an episode all about cleaning out your closets and organizing your clothes – it's exciting stuff, I know. But don't worry, a closet clean out doesn't take as long as you might think. As you continue to improve your organizing skills and return to a space you've previously organized, the process becomes much easier and quicker. If you haven't listened to my previous podcasts offering clothing organization tips, you can go back through podcast episodes 103 to 107 to listen. Have you caught up? Great! Let's get stuck into organizing your closet! Donating Unwanted Clothes Donations should happen on a regular basis. In fact, I would go as far as saying it should be a part of your everyday life. I go through my closet and reorganize the clothes quite often. So when I began going through everything recently, I didn't have much to do. There weren't many clothes that I needed to donate, but that wasn't the case when it came to organizing my kid's closets. I've always taught my kids the value of donating to those in need. When they were really young, like around six or seven years old, we would reorganize their room together and they would give me the things that they wanted to donate. Now that they're much older, they take the things they want to donate and put it in the donation area. So when it came to organizing their closets, a lot of the clothes were set aside to donate. This is not only a great way to get rid of all the clothes you don't want anymore, but it also frees up closet space and gives those clothes to someone in need. Organizing Hangers When I told my kids I was going to help them clean their closets, they were pretty excited about it. I started in my son's room first, and if there's one thing you need to know about his closet set-up, it's the fact that everything he owns (except for socks and underwear, etc.) is hung up in the closet. However, a large part of his closet consisted of empty hangers that took up way too much space. So, the very first thing I did was take all of the empty hangers and put them in a laundry basket. I made sure that all of the hangers faced the same direction because as you know, hangers love to get tangled together. Putting your empty hangers in a laundry basket is great because it gives you more free space on the rod and you can just grab a hanger whenever you need one. Keep Vs. Donate To keep or not to keep? – that is the question! One of the biggest decisions you'll make when you clean out your closet is deciding which clothes you want to keep and which you wish to donate. When I help my kids go through their closets, I hold each item of clothing up high for them to evaluate. They look at it and decide its fate with a simple "yes" or "no" response. It's a quick process of elimination and I go through the clothes super-fast for two reasons: I don't want this to take forever I know kids can get bored All of the clothes that they want to keep are hung up in the closet and all of the clothes they want to get rid of are put into trash bags for donation. Instead of carrying all the bags downstairs and into the car, I tie a tight knot at the top and take them to the top of the stairs and I roll them down! It saves a lot of time and energy because I don't have to keep running up and down the stairs – plus, it's just fun to roll things down the stairs! Sorting The Clean Laundry The next step is to go through all of the clean laundry items and sort out the pieces of clothing in the same way as we did before. This is where you'll look at each piece of clothing and decide if you want to keep it or donate it to Goodwill. While you organize your closet, you should keep in mind whether or not you plan on buying any new clothes soon. For example, my son needs new white long sleeve t-shirts for college, so we ended up donating his old ones because we knew that we were going to add a bunch of new t-shirts to his closet very soon. As we organized the clean laundry, I held up each piece and again, my kids answered either "yes" or "no." Anything that they wanted to keep went back into the closet. And anything they wanted to donate went into the donation bags – and yes, we rolled them down the stairs again! Organizing Closet Shelves My daughter's closet has multiple shelves that I built for her when she was much younger. Back then, she would use them to store her toys, but now she uses them to store her clothes. So when we were in the process of organizing her closet, we used the shelves to store other pieces of clothing that she didn't want to hang up including her leggings, workout clothes, soft shorts, etc. We hung everything else up in the closet and put the winter clothes on one rod and the spring/summer clothes on the other rod. We then took small bins or storage boxes and used them to store things like socks, underwear, swimwear, and things that she can grab whenever she needs them. And there you have it, the easy (and speedy) way of organizing your closet! I hope you have fun going through your clothes. And if you have a dresser drawer in your room, you can arrange it in the same way. But instead of hanging the clothes you want to keep in the closet, you fold them up and put them into your dresser – simple! Next week, I will be talking about collections, toys, and sharing your bedroom. :) Remember to sign up for the Back To School Blitz! View the complete post here: https://organize365.com/236