Organize 365 Podcast

Organize 365 Podcasts
Organize 365 Podcasts
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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.

  1. 2d ago

    728 - Project Management: Deep work for Household Project Managers

    I want you to be able to set your sights on a few projects and actually complete them each trimester. So here's the way I get my projects identified, scheduled, and completed. I love a good project, always have.  What Are The Projects? First, let's define "project" in Organize 365® terms.  It's a massive to do list that gets done in a short amount of time.  So, for Labor Day, I shared all the things that had ended up on index cards that I wanted done on Labor Day weekend. I had garage tasks like clean off the garage counter, make room for a potential Christmas gift, drop off donations, fix the front door situation plus a few other things. Then Joey needed me to look at some stuff in his condo that I wanted to check off my list. Abby and I planned on redoing Grayson's room. And wanted to transition one of the storage areas to Abby. Those tasks were grouped into my four projects.  Be Prepared Once all of the projects were identified, I needed to make sure I had all the supplies I needed to tackle each one. Leading up to Labor Day I mentioned this too, you need to be prepared before Project Day. So for redoing Grayson's room, I thought through all of the supplies I needed and how I would get them to the house. I needed to check current supplies at the house, coordinate Greg picking up items from the office, order some pictures for the walls and bedding, and schedule the electrician to change the light fixture. It can really rob time away from your project day if you plan that day to get what you need and depending on store hours, it can really delay the project start time.  Also, a friendly reminder to start that housework early so you don't have to do that too on project day. Make Room on the Calendar It's time for calendaring!!  It's important to identify chunks of time that you will have for your projects and it's equally important to consider your usual energy at the time of those chunks.  There was one I was explaining and said "Actually I'll push that to Sunday so I can spend time with my family on Saturday." It's a good idea to mentally walk through project day and make sure it's right for you and your family.  And don't double book yourself. Don't just think you'll do the project in that chunk of time, schedule it. Write in the project on that day so you don't accidentally commit to something else at that time. You gotta budget your time like you do your finances because you really can't spend your money in two ways.  This is your way to be proactive with your time. I say you basically get 8 hours extra, not three days, when it comes to these long weekends? Here's how I broke down of the 8 hours I anticipated from Labor Day: Garage & Front Door 3.5 hrs Joey 2 hrs Grayson's Room 1.5 hrs Storage Area 1.5 hrs This is how you get deep work or projects done as a household project manager.  EPISODE RESOURCES: 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.

    728 - Project Management: Deep work for Household Project Managers

  2. Sep 11

    727 - Task Stacking: Get More Done in Less Time

    So how do you get project time? You must write all "I need to remember to do that" tasks down and have a scheduled time, routinely, to do them. Your brain will trust you and you, my friend, will have project time.  Capture Everything First you must capture everything you need to remember to do. I do this by a good brain dump putting one item per index card. Break up any to do lists, again writing one item on an index card.  I go through my email and text messages. This is cognitive offloading, taking the thing you need to remember and placing it in your environment.  You could do this digitally or email yourself or something but index cards work the best for me.  Plan of Attack I was vulnerable and read all of the to do's I need to do in this episode. And then I shared how I plan to complete them. There were a few things I needed to put in my google calendar, a few things I needed to print, and a few financial tasks. All on the computer and I estimated roughly 40-60 minutes for those tasks during my Sunday Basket time. That is task stacking. Do like tasks at one time, to save time. There are somethings that need to be done before Sunday and they will live on my counter like talking to Abby, my daughter, about a class for my grandson. Joey, my son, has some stuff we need to look at, at his house. So I will do that the same day we go to Verizon to get him a new phone and talk to them about my bill. Because I have clumped like tasks together, some get addressed and some get placed in my Sunday Basket, I am unlocking small pocket of time that when added up are project time.  Gain the Trust of Your Brain The reason you are always in panic of forgetting to do something is because you do not have a designated time set aside for all the tasks you are trying to remember.  First write them all down to free up cognitive capacity for new things that come your way. And second, commit to your Sunday time so you can gain the trust of your brain and quiet the chaos of your braining panicking trying to remember everything. Because even if you write the tasks down but do not do them, the brain will continue to not trust you knowing you will not actually address all of the items you wrote down. Learn the habit of task stacking so you can enjoy project time. EPISODE RESOURCES: 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.

    727 - Task Stacking: Get More Done in Less Time

  3. Sep 4

    726 - Time, Money, and the $300 Million Impact of Household Productivity

    You understand the value of money but do you concretely understand the value of your time? I'm breaking down how much your time is worth and the value of the time you are saving managing your house with the Sunday Basket®. The Value of Your Home in the American Economy As consumers, home small businesses, we contribute roughly 19-21 trillion dollars to the American GDP. That's 68% of 32 trillion dollars!!! Bet you thought it was all the big companies on the stock market - wrong!  Where we spend our money matters. Having a plan in place matters too. But do you prioritize making the plan of that spending?  The Value of You in Your Home Let's say in your 20's you can get a job for roughly $20/hr. And in your 50's for roughly $50/hr.   This is just for example sake.  Ok and it's been said many times that an hour spent planning is five hours saved in execution. So then I say, ok, you take one hour to process your Sunday Basket® which equals 5 hours of time saved due to planning and batching all the small administrative and managerial tasks into one chunk of time.  So, if you put yourself making $20/hr. You save $100 worth of time each week or if you like the $50/hr. better (or you give yourself a raise for improvement of implementation of the Sunday Basket over time), it's like $250 worth of time saved each week. $400-$1000/ mo.!! You are valuable! Six Weeks after you purchase your Sunday Basket® we start a clock. We estimate five hours saved per week per Sunday Basket® owner which over time has accumulated to 15.5 MILLION hours of time saved since the Sunday Basket® has been available.   I was like what is that in monetary value? It's $310,000,000 at $20/hr.  Can you believe that?  When you know how much your time is worth and the value of the Sunday Basket, you will make the time, 90 min on Sunday, to save time, 5 hours each week. One more component to the effectiveness of the Sunday Basket® is making the way you are spending your time visible.  You won't write down on your schedule to be in two places at once just like you can only spend money one time. It helps you to prioritize what goes in each time block and helps you to see if you need to reschedule in the event you verbally double book yourself.   Community Feedback A community member wrote in with her "ah-ha" about the Organize 365® Systems.  She noted that each system has periodic review maintenance. Like when we do prep for Planning Day. She pointed out how your brain gets little reminders of what you have and where it is during these maintenance activities.  Your brain doesn't have to worry because there's a weekly review with the Sunday Basket® and a review each trimester for the long term archiving of paper work and projects. So your mind stays soothed. Next week we'll continue in this 4 week series about task stacking.  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Paper Solution® The Productive Home Solution 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.

    726 - Time, Money, and the $300 Million Impact of Household Productivity

  4. Aug 28

    725 - How Planning Magically Multiplies Your Labor Day Weekend Project Time

    Labor day is next weekend, what projects will you be tackling? I'm sharing 4 steps to complete projects during these long weekends. Get ready to start planning what you will be doing next weekend.  It's Really Only One Extra Day You are really only getting one extra day, not a long weekend. Because you still have the normal tasks you do each weekend. Once you understand how much actual time you have then you can start to manipulate it. And a plan will help you to maximize your high energy times of the day. If I'm being generous, this long weekend will realistically result in 12 hours of time to complete projects. 4 Steps to Planning Your Long Weekend So the first thing you need to do is make a list. Start at your front door, walk through your house, and write down all the things you would do around your house if you were going to put it on the market next week.  I always encourage painting projects because historically paint is on sale for Labor Day. I'll be doing yard work and garage work as I shared in this episode to see how I am applying these 4 steps in my planning.  Then narrow down that list to what you will actually try to accomplish Labor Day weekend. Two stars next to the thing that you want to complete no matter what and one star next to the next thing you would like to accomplish. Simultaneously as you narrow down your list you will start making decisions. You may realize you need to clear out your car to transport something and you can decide where the things in your car, currently, will go so you can do this project. You will decide the colors you want to paint before you go to the store to buy it. Or maybe you need to ask someone else some questions to complete the project. Because I am looking at yard and garage work I am also considering the time of day and when it will be hot. Now that you have narrowed down the list and mentally prepped for the projects, you need to get the supplies you will need. Don't wait till the long weekend hits to get the supplies. You will use your high energy times at the store and take away time from completing the project. And lastly, eliminate normal weekend tasks. When I think about my yard work and garage work I want to get done Labor Day weekend, I think about my laundry and food related responsibilities.  I will plan pizza for Friday night as I watch Grayson play in the kiddie pool while I pick up sticks and weeds from the yard. We will use paper plates this weekend, what planned neglect can you implore? I will start my laundry Thursday night so I am not trying to switch the laundry on Saturday with my dirty hands from yard work.  I want you to even think about your Sunday Basket time.  This weekend maybe you can do double work to reduce your Sunday Basket time Labor Day weekend.  These four steps help you to realize the time you actually have. Reduce responsibilities eating up this extra day that you want for a project.  And reduce friction on project day. Plan your time and maximize your capacity.  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® Labor Day Checklist 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

    725 - How Planning Magically Multiplies Your Labor Day Weekend Project Time

  5. Aug 21

    724 - From Manager to Home CEO: How to Run Your Household Without a Team

    The past 5 episodes have identified all the invisible and visible work, and all of the thinking and strategic planning that needs to happen in the home CEO role. How do you get it all done without a team? Listen up!  How Do We Balance Our Roles? Now that we know all the roles and hats we are wearing, I'm explaining how to balance your manager role (Sunday Basket hat) and your CEO role of strategic thinking without a team. Your team is your Sunday Basket, Planning Day, and the Monthly CEO planning days. You make a ridiculous amount of decisions during Planning Day and then you run that plan. The balance comes from knowing your priorities and planning accordingly. AND knowing the energy of the year and your energy. If your energy is high in the mornings and you have free time for projects at night, that won't work. So knowing your project energy time can help you to move projects around and manipulate time to accomplish them. I caution you, you can't be everything to everyone all the time, so you need to decide your primary role and projects for each trimester and keep that focus. Fun revelation I had recently. I have always said the pink slash pocket is for the Sunday Basket, keeper of projects and managerial work.  Then purple is for Planning Day, long range goals and getting deadlines in place.  When I was thinking about The Productive Home CEO, blue kept coming to mind. Why? Well, pink leads to purple and purple leads to blue. Pink and purple lay the foundation to create the productivity that allows us to reach level 5, The Productive Home CEO level. Blue is a people or team. This level you are employing your Sunday Basket, Planning Days, and CEO Planning Days to get to green, the productivity and completed projects You Still Have To Do the Sunday Basket as a CEO? Yes, as the CEO you still process your Sunday Basket weekly. As the CEO you are overseeing your entire ecosystem and monitoring if the projects are still the right ones, if you have room for more or if you need to put a project back in the Sunday Basket®, do you still have enough finances to cover all the current projects, confirm the project is still relevant, and how does all of that affect all the people in your home? Because you can't do 342 projects well, you just can't.  The CEO identifies the projects then has to communicate, inspire,and monitor all the projects. This is How Organize 365® and I Are Using AI The long and short of it is we aren't. Or not in the way the rest of the world is.  I was so excited to offer this Lisa AI "hotline" to the community. But after exploring what's out there now and coming back to what we created, I have realized it'll serve as a database for everyone. At first I was a little disappointed but then it dawned on me that I want to be a teaching company. I'm ok with our AI not being generative because I don't want it to tell you what to do. I want to teach and I want you to learn these skills.  Please listen to this episode if for no other reason than to listen to an AI reply from someone who is part of the Organize 365® community. I may not understand AI but it sure understands what this lady has been learning from Organize 365®. She inputted what she wanted to think through in preparation for Planning Day. AI told her she's trying to create a home manager manual, a dashboard. Yes, AI, Yes! I read the actual AI reply in this episode. You gotta hear it.  It was spot on. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® Planning Day 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

    724 - From Manager to Home CEO: How to Run Your Household Without a Team

  6. Aug 14

    723 - Level 5 - The Strategic CEO - The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework

    It's time to start planning, strategizing, and thinking like a CEO. The CEO has the bird's eye view of all the moving pieces of the home. The Productive Home CEO leads the management and the work of her home through strategic planning and goal setting. No Business Can Grow If The Leader Isn't Growing Level 5 pulls you as the leader up to goals instead of pulling you down to tasks. As you get these systems in place you get lighter and have more capacity. That capacity allows for strategic thinking. This level allows you to self actualize instead of being stuck in Groundhog's Day just doing it more effectively and efficiently. The first way to grow in your leadership is in Planning Day. Strategically planning home maintenance, upcoming family events like birthdays, anniversaries, or any Golden Windows.  You know your family's celebrations and upcoming events but now to look at them as a CEO. Have children grown out of a tradition? How are the household finances? What's going on in e-commerce? What is the overall landscape of society and how does it impact your family? Thinking about these questions helps you to adjust and plan to make sure you meet their expectations.  I brought up the Holiday Blitz that you could apply to any annual celebration. Ask family members key questions to understand the expectations. You may be surprised with their answers and how much work you can take off your plate just by asking questions. The you fill in your calendar and identify small pockets of time to complete a Sunday Basket system, complete The Productive Home Solution, and with those systems in place use all that earned capacity to dream up possibilities for your home. A Perfect business example I gave is AI.  Everyone is using Chat GPT like their best friend, consulting it all day long. As the CEO, I pondered "How could I incorporate something like that for Organize 365®?"  Solution? We will be launching the Lisa Hotline. There will be one for community members that have the products that support levels 1-4 and one for members who attend the live events that support The Home CEO, level 5.  And I found solutions for keeping the hotlines proprietary to Organize 365® as to not let other AI large language models be able to use the information.  Home CEO's need to do the same, consider how to stay relevant and move the home forward. They need to consider the best use of human resources, finances, and the best ways to protect what they own.  How Organize 365® Can Support You The tricky thing about being the Home CEO is that you have to manage yourself to manage projects, have clear priorities, and know yourself enough to know what you have the capacity to complete.  All the work done at this level is supported by Organize 365® in live events because you manage A LOT!! Organize 365® wants to support you in your visionary role for the good of all the people in your home. We offer Planning Day which actually takes me 10 days because I start with a deep dive into my Sunday Basket, get all prepped, instruct you in Planning Day Prep for 2 hours, and finish with instructing Planning Day for 4 hours in webinar format.  Then you are planned for the next 120 days.  After you attend your first one, you can set up a subscription so you never miss one in the future.  And if that wasn't enough, I decided to offer a Home CEO day. This is a day mostly to make sure you, your administrative work and finances are being taken care of!  This is a Monday in the middle of the month, from 9-11am EST, where you will have accountability on the progress of projects you planned in Planning Day, make sure you have all the supplies for those project, make calls or complete other to-do's that you can't on Sunday, make sure finances are on track, and confirm you are in fact taking care of yourself. A home can't thrive if the leader isn't running on all cylinders. You take care of everyone else, you deserve to be taken care of too.   EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® Planning Day Monthly Home CEO Planning Sessions The Productive Home Solution 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

    723 - Level 5 - The Strategic CEO - The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework

  7. Aug 7

    722 - Level 4 - The Chief Information Officer - The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework

    Level 4 is going to free you from being your family google or siri. "Hey mom (or dad or you) what's the password for…?" This level frees you from being tethered to your house and instead empowers your family to know where to find the answers. We are breaking down all the invisible work we do with information management in this second and final level of invisible work you do as the Home CEO. Paper Is Powerful, Universal, and Essential We all have different ways of doing things. But I explained why paper is powerful. Yes, I know we are of the digital age but paper substantiates what you tell people. They see the print on the paper and all of the sudden believe you. OR it's that paper that helps you to more easily settle an estate. It's also paper in any of the binders (I'm getting to those) that you can drop off to a friend that may be caring for you or to a CPA or lawyer when you need to have them work on something for you. And it's the paper you bring with you when you suddenly need to evacuate your home. And that's where the binders come in, in 2017, people were asking what to do with their filing cabinets and I was having to say leave them. I didn't like that. This way you can take all your important information with you when a natural disaster forces you to evacuate.   Binders All those papers with all the pertinent information can't all go in one binder right? Right! The whole idea is to take information out of your brain and combine it with all of the archival papers. The Paper Solution® is a series of binders that replaces your file cabinet and digital storage in many ways to get information to your family.  There are 4 binders you get in The Paper Solution.  Household Reference Binder -  this is basically a manual for how your home is cared for. The routine maintenance you keep. If someone bought your house, you could hand this to them and they could pick up where you take off after the sale.  Household Operation Binder - This binder is a fun one full of all the holiday and vacation information. It's also the information for things like travel and big celebrations that happen annually.  If you were sick or something, your loved ones could still successfully have that celebration. Finance Binder - Peace of mind binder because all the information someone would need to care for your finances if you were sick or settle your estate is in this binder. All your investments, bank accounts, credit cards, subscriptions, passwords, all of it is in this binder. If you are a digital person, there are digital editable forms too. You still need to print off a copy and place it in the binder, just in case.  Medical Binder - This is the binder people have the most resistance towards. It can be exhausting explaining each visit what is going on and treatments that have failed. This binder helps the doctor get up to speed quickly so that you can use the office visit time to look at solutions instead of answering #allthequestions. If it is a long term condition I encourage you to write up an explanation. It's the cliff notes of what has been going on and what you are looking for as far as treatment or behaviors you have noticed. Don't be fooled thinking all of the digital systems share information. And much to my surprise, medical records only have to be kept for 7 years, so there's not much history either. This puts you in control of your medical care and information about YOU. **Also available are the Warrior Mama Binder and the Launch Binder. You will know you are fully organized when your family goes to ask you for information and you can direct them to the binder that has the information. EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Paper Solution® 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

    722 - Level 4 - The Chief Information Officer - The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework

  8. Jul 31

    721 - Level 3 - The Household Manager- The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework

    On to level 3, the household manager!  We are building in guardrails to pause, reflect, and think, without interruptions, about all the invisible work and get it all planned. For years I have stressed the importance of the Sunday Basket® and often say it's the first thing you should do in your organization journey. EXCEPT when we are talking about building these levels. For this framework you must first identify the housework you need to do and establish a cadence. Then organize your home in order for the household management in the Sunday Basket® to stick! The Sunday Basket® There are two options for the Sunday Basket®. You may get the Classic or Complete Sunday Basket®. I explained what is included with each option and I will give you the cliff notes that if you are more digital go with the Classic. Each week you can expect to spend roughly 90 minutes - 2 hours weekly after you have it set up and have established the routine. I can't make more people to help you with your household management and you can't make the people in your household do their "fair share." This safe holding place for your actionable papers and projects will free up about 5 hours for you to get more done!  When you delay decision making till Sunday a few things will happen. You will schedule your time better because you can think through your week and decide what you actually have time for. AND, the details may change or the task may just go away. While you are delaying someone else is still filling requests on demand and may say yes before you do on Sunday or "next week" AND they may start to realize you aren't the "go to" person anymore and there will be less pressure to always say yes. And don't tell me you can't. You have so much more say than you think you do. It may be overwhelming in the beginning but then it turns into a rewarding behavior. Deconstruct Your To Do List This is all the invisible work you do and don't really recognize will you hear these episodes or implement the Sunday Basket®. As the household manager you are constantly calendaring, weekly planning, coordinating, planning for learning, delegating, making returns then reordering, managing insurance, care for your cars, making sure you children have what the need for school, strategizing, buying, tracking, remembering, monitoring who's been to the dentist, doctor, had their annual eye exams, the invisible work list goes on and on. In your 20's it's like "This is easy!" because maybe you are only managing yourself and one car. But as your life grows in complexity so do your responsibilities. Now, as you remember you need to do all these mind numbing things, you should be writing them down on index cards. This is how you deconstruct your to do list. One thing on each card. You can move them around or delay each task based on importance. No need to keep rewriting your to-do list. This prevents your ship from sinking! What Do You Want?  You need to keep asking yourself, what do you want? When you delay your decision making you care in control of what you will spend your time on. I remember someone saying "Everytime you say yes to someone else, you say no to your family." And the other thing to remember when you are planning, strategically set time aside to accomplish the projects that are important to you. It's almost back to school time and the Sunday Basket® will help you really think about what you want and then you can plan how to get there. The Sunday Basket helps you to have a much more realistic allocation of your time, your talent, and your treasure. EPISODE RESOURCES: 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

    721 - Level 3 - The Household Manager- The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework
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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.

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