Organize 365® Research Playlist Organize 365 Podcasts

Today, I am bringing back the Organize 365 lead researcher, Sarah Dyson. We are sharing about our soon to be published literature review scheduled to be in the The Journal of the Arkansas Psychological Association. 
We share how we needed to define a shared language in order to collect data and discuss solutions. The submitted article is titled The Role Women play in the 21st Century Home and Gender Equality- A State of the Art Literature Review. As soon as it is available, we will share a copy of the publication on our research page at organize365.com/research.
My initial hypothesis was that women were doing more work at home than men. Interestingly, those are not the results of our research! Members of younger generations share housework far more equitably than we expected. Gender roles have changed and we need solutions for all genders, all age groups, and all types of households. Organize 365® is adjusting based on this information. 
The literature review covers four major topics in the home: cueing and goal attainment, gender roles, female entrepreneurship, and future research. Listen in for a sneak preview of all these topics.

In this podcast series, we've been talking about essential organizing. You can catch up on this series by listening to these episodes:
Organizing Personal Spaces Organizing Family & Communal Spaces Organizing Storage Spaces This week, we are moving to organizing your paper management in our quest for functional organization in your home. You know how much I love to talk about paper organization! People are FINALLY coming around to the fact that paper is not going away, and it needs to be organized. You could organize your paper first or last, and you could also choose to only organize portions of your paper. 
We found in our research study that 54% of people have piles of paper everywhere. Only 18% of people have a system in place for organizing that paper. In addition, 70% of Millenials perceive a reduction in stress when their paper is organized. You see, we all have paper. You could have less paper, but you're never going to be paperless. 
Paper is different than other areas of your home. It's different because 85% of what you store in your filing cabinet you will NEVER need again. The remaining 15% is paper that you do need and you need to be able to find it when you go looking for it. You only go looking for these important papers when there's a problem. Binders are the solution! Trust me, your future self in crisis will thank you when you have your paper organized and can find what you need.
But here's the other problem you will run into with paper: Only about 20% of what I suggest that you put into your binders is actually in your filing cabinet or it is actually paper at all. The other 80% of what needs to be in your binders is either on the computer where only you know how to find it or it is stored in your brain. If something happens to you, how does anyone else take care of anything in your home or for your family?
In this episode, you'll find encouragement for why and how to get your paper organized.
Are your papers organized? What is keeping you from organizing your paper?
Mentioned in this episode:
Podcast #420 - The Weight of Paper
Paper Organizing Retreats
The Paper Solution® Binders

This week we are moving from personal organization to the next area of organization: family and communal spaces.
These are the areas that you will want to organize first because people see them when they come into your home, but they are the hardest areas to organize and maintain. I know, there can be judgment anxiety over these spaces. There is also a tension between wanting these spaces to look good but also being able to live in them comfortably.
In our research study, we found that only 14% of people say that they have their family and communal spaces organized. Why is this? Well... 
How often have you spent so much time cleaning and organizing just to turn around and find that space trashed again? I'm sure you've been through these seasons or you might be living in one of those seasons right now! Sometimes, it's like shoveling snow in a snow storm!
As you can see, family and communal spaces are hard and that's why I recommend that you start with organizing your personal spaces. Build your organizational muscles and habits there first. When you do get to the family and communal spaces, start with your kitchen. You'll feel a difference when you know where everything is in your kitchen and when you know that everything in there is purposeful. After the kitchen, move on to your other shared spaces: the family room, communal bathrooms, dining room, front hall closet, and cleaning supplies. 
Listen to this episode for more encouragement and inspiration for tackling the organization of these hard-to-organize family and communal spaces.
What makes these family and communal spaces so hard for you to organize and maintain? Do you have toddlers? Teens? Lack of time? Too much stuff? 
Ready to get these family and communal spaces organized? Learn more about The Productive Home Solution™ and how the program can help you reach that goal. 

I’ll be honest: Organization is optional. While cleaning and tasks of daily living are not optional, you CAN survive without organizing. Even though this next-level step of organization is optional, when you do choose to do it, it is a current investment of time today for a future exponential return on time later.
Organization always pays you back in time and sometimes money.
You can't make anyone else be organized, so you have to start with yourself and your personal spaces. Organization must become a habit starting with these personal spaces. It needs to be something that you do regularly, spending 15 minutes a day or an hour once a week working on building your organizational muscles.
The best place to begin? Your closet! You are 100% in control of your clothing. After that, you can move on to your portion of the bathroom space and bedroom space, your wallet or purse, and your transportation.
Remember: This is NOT about perfection. Organized means that everything has a place and everything is in its place.
When it comes to organizing these spaces, there are no rules. I'm not going to come judge you and your space. Make it how you want it to be!
In our research study, "Organization is Not an Optional Hobby for Women," we found that 62% of women reported that anxiety prevents them from organizing their personal spaces. I just want to hug you and tell you that this doesn't have to be stressful.
In this episode, I share more about what personal spaces are and some encouragement and instruction for building your habit of organizing in these spaces. There are also some changes coming to the 100 Day Home Organization Program in the fall based on this research that I share too.
Are you ready to get personal space organized?
Read more about our research studies here.
Ready to start organizing? Read more about The Productive Home Solution™ here.
Want more inspiration? Listen to my morning, afternoon, and evening routines episodes to hear more about how I use and organize my personal spaces.

What does it mean to be organized? How do you know when you’re done organizing?
No one has ever officially defined "organized." I decided I would define it. We started by conducting academic-level research using our surveys. You can read more about Organize 365® Research and the finding on our Research page.
For most Americans, organization happens as Swiss cheese organizing.
You’re a little organized here and a little organized there. You can’t confidently say, “I AM organized,” because you think that being organized means perfection while not being organized is hoarding. You don’t have language for what happens in the middle of these two!
We need to consider the idea of done rather than perfect.
In this episode, I share many statistics and findings from our research, which is all leading us to change the way we present and teach the material in The Productive Home Solution™. 
If you just get through the first 42 days of the 100 Day Home Organization Program, you will have 80% of the spaces you use on a daily basis organized. You CAN call yourself organized. But many of you don’t FEEL organized. It doesn’t fully check off any single category of organizing as complete for you. It just marks a couple more spaces in your Swiss cheese organizing. I want to see you get to the point where you can say that you are personally organized or storage organized or paper organized, etc. You get to pick and choose which areas you want to tackle and master and declare organized in your life.
Coming in the fall in The Productive Home Solution™, you will be able to pick an area, focus on it for 5 or 6 weeks, and then declare that area of your life organized. You’ll work in baby steps to mark a full area as done so you can move on to the next area you want to organize. 
But what does it mean to be organized? Both men and women declare their home organized when… You’ll have to listen in to find out the answer!
Learn more about and join The Productive Home Solution™ here.