Podcasts about sunday basket system

In this episode, I introduce you to Beatrix S. who lives alone after her husband was transferred to a nursing home where he could get care and supervision for dementia. Beatrix found Organize 365® years ago when Gretchen Rubin interviewed me about the book “The Paper Solution.” Her first thought was, “What, filing cabinets to binders? Prove it!” Beatrix had always struggled with paper. So she got the book, read it in a couple of days, and found herself joining the 100 Day Home Organization Program (which became The Productive Home Solution®) and getting a Sunday Basket®. Now she says she's hooked. In 2003, Beatrix reflected on her study and how cluttered it had become again. Please, you need to listen to this insightful poem she shares. She was a minister and has a great way of storytelling. You can hear it in this poem. It was clear imagery of the disarray her study was in.  It took awhile for Beatrix to wrap her brain around the Sunday Basket® System. She'd not been a part of Organize 365® long when she attended her first Home Planning Day. She also had a couple of unexpected life events, including her husband having a stroke and moving to a nursing home. Beatrix also thought maybe she didn't have anything left to declutter. It'd been a couple of years since she'd followed Marie Kondo's way of decluttering her closet. I pointed out that Marie Kondo is great for decluttering and Organize 365® offers great organizational systems. Beatrix had plenty to declutter and organize. Beatrix was most shocked with her bathroom and how much she'd crammed in there!  Through the years with Organize 365®, Beatrix has formed a support system of friends. They meet every month and she has found them invaluable with the tough season she is in. Life is good, she acknowledged, but she's deeply sad and fatigued with loving and caring for her husband. Her advice for others in a similar situation is to surround yourself with as many support systems as you can. Beatrix has more time now; time for friends, beautification, exercise, and planning. She was recently diagnosed with ADHD and it explains so much. Beatrix really wishes she'd had the Friday Workbox® when she was in ministry; she always struggled to finish projects. And she wishes she'd known how to organize paper. She's appreciative of the replays so she can get additional takeaways and the “teacher's approach” I take with the systems Organize 365® provides. We had a nice conversation about the evolution of school and how they support the ADHD brain/learning style.  Beatrix's advice is, “Start with the Sunday Basket®. If that doesn't work then just start with one drawer.”  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Productive Home Solution® Home Planning Day The Paper Solution® Friday Workbox® Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter  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. I am grateful that you are reaching out to share with me and with this community. You can see and hear transformation in action. 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!

You did it! You made it to the end of 2023. What lies before us are all the hopes, dreams, and possibilities of 2024. This is what I like to call the Golden Week. The week after Christmas and before New Years where you're culminating the end of a year and getting ready for the beginning of a new year. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, the last week of December is magical for everyone. For some of us, we're like "Bye bye 2023! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!"  What's the cost of not being organized? What's the cost of not making a choice about not making a resolution to get organized? The cost is usually time and money. Everything costs you time and everything costs you money. The first and easiest way that you can save money is by planning your food and meals. You use the Sunday Basket® System to help you meal plan. Use this Golden Week to reflect, make changes or pivots. Take 15 or 20 minutes a week and really start to think about your grocery shopping and meal planning.  How can we get a handle on our time? For me, I've always captured every single second of my time to try to get as much out of that time as possible; to be as productive as possible. Now my goal is to get more of my time back so that I can do NOTHING. Yes, you heard that right! I really want to see if I can stop working by 8 pm every night. I know what needs to be moved into daytime hours or completely eliminated. Very few people know where their time goes. Not me. I keep track of everything - every minute spent at work, on school, with Grayson, Greg, Joey, Abby...all of it. So when you look at your 2024, is there one way in which you want to focus on your money? One way in which you want to focus on your time? One way in which you want to focus on your wellness? How can you take the first step to do that? The Sunday Basket® helps you get through as many tasks as possible and plan for the upcoming week of what you anticipate to happen. You can go to organize365.com to try the free week of the Sunday Basket®. What do you want out of your 2024? Where do you need to improve your organization so that you can have more time and money? EPISODE RESOURCES: Sunday Basket® Free 5-Day Mini Course Sign up for the 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!

I find it challenging, interesting and exciting to try to break down how I plan and win at home and work, which took me two decades to figure out. It's like working backwards with little Lego bricks that you can replicate to build your own productive and organized house.  There are productivity courses and productivity gurus. For the most part, people who have learned to be productive have done so through a lot of trial and error, thinking, processing, and moving things around in their brains and in real life. Organization is essential for a productive life because if your physical space is disorganized, then it's harder to have enough mental capacity to organize invisible work - which is what productivity is. If your physical space is disorganized, then your productivity doesn't get enough traction to make enough of an impact in your life that you will persist long enough for it to become magical.  The Sunday Basket® is the first step to becoming a productive person, because it moves you from day-to-day thinking to week-to-week thinking. Even if you only do it for 90 minutes on Sundays, it's a monumental lift because the day to day of running a household and being a homeowner is pervasive. There's an inherent, unending task of being a household manager. You can't systematize your house to the point that there's no work to be done. You can reduce your expectations, the amount of stuff you own, the size of the house you live in, outsource your meals, cleaning services...the list goes on and on. But still there's only so much you can automate in your life. You still need to buy clothing and take care of your body (shower, brush your teeth, etc.), eat, sleep, and the like.  The final thing I want to reiterate is that the Sunday Basket® System moving you from day-to-day thinking to week-to-week thinking has a secondary benefit for your whole family. It creates this weekly cadence and this purposeful pause in requests and fulfillment of requests for yourself and your family. Being able to look at your finances on Sunday and then make decisions based on what everyone wants or needs helps you make better money decisions and also better time decisions.  Next week I'm going to talk about why email is the laundry and dishes of work. Oh my gosh! And then in a few weeks I'm going to talk about how to move into season-to-season productivity, both at home and at work. What does it look like to take the Sunday Basket® and turn it into seasonal productivity? What about the Friday Workbox®? Why would you even want that? Stay tuned!  EPISODE RESOURCES: Sunday Basket® The Productive Home Solution® Sign up for the 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!

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, 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 get Organized! This week, I am sharing my interview with Carrie F. She lives with her husband and they have two teens at home and one away at college. She's a retired veterinarian. Paper was her greatest organizational struggle at home, especially after closing her practice. We talk about how she overcame her piles of paper by pressing through, starting with the current paper, and then working her way back through the rest of the paper. Is paper your nemesis? The Sunday Basket® System is the first step to getting your paper organized! 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® System The Productive Home Solution™ I look forward to helping YOU get Organized! 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!

There are four types of work that we all do at home. In this episode, I go through these four types of work in detail and discuss how to reduce the amount of time spent on the first three so you can do more unique purpose work. Housework We've talked a lot over the last couple of years about housework. As a part of our Organize 365® Research, I have honed in on and defined this type of work. There are three main types of housework: cleaning, tasks of daily living, and organization. You must clean your home to some standard you set, do all the tasks that make you a human, like showering and brushing your teeth, plus the things in your house must have a home. Housework is like a part-time job of 18-25 hours each week for the average household without children! Listen to these episodes for more about how I define housework: #422 - Defining Housework Part 1 - Cleaning #424 - Defining Housework Part 2 - Tasks of Daily Living #426 - Defining Housework Part 3 - Organization #428 - Defining Housework Part 4 - Maintenance #495 - The Process of Equitably Dividing Housework #497 - Housework: The Hot Mess Theory Part 1 with Jacqui Ioli #498 - Housework: The Hot Mess Theory Part 2 with Jacqui Ioli #499 - Effort: The 80/20 of Housework - Not All Housework is Equal Invisible Work This is the work that happens in your Sunday Basket®. I talked about this with Eve Rodsky. Invisible work is the mental load and related tasks to running a household. These are things like paying the bills and planning for holidays. This type of work doesn't fit into the housework category and we have a hard time labeling and quantifying it. The Sunday Basket® System helps with invisible work. The first six weeks of setup and habit-building can take a lot of time because you're setting up systems and processes. You have a set time to handle all these little one-off or recurring tasks. It might take you 90 minutes to 3 hours in the beginning, but then something magical happens. The time savings (and lightened mental load) that you experience during the week is exponential. The average Sunday Basket® user saves 5 hours each week! There is a second type of invisible work: emergency invisible work. Illnesses, scheduled changes, and childcare/adult care fall into this category. When you or someone else gets sick in your family, the world around you doesn't stop and wait for you. The regular work doesn't go away and the emergency itself often creates more work. There are also schedule changes that are really just a part of life and we have to just roll with them. Not everyone has the final category, but childcare and caregiving for adults is a full-time 24/7 job all on its own.  Hobby Work Angela Watson and I talked a lot about hobby work earlier this summer in relation to teachers. We naturally fill our time with work, but it's not all essential work. Sometimes, we do extra work to make ourselves feel better or make something look the way we want. That's hobby work. This often involves trying to be perfect or redoing work. When I talked to Jacqui, she called this overwork. Whatever you call it, it is robbing you of your free time! This is refolding the clothes in the drawer, matching the socks, folding the underwear, micro-organizing the toys, and over-cleaning. Unique Purpose Work The female head of household struggles the most to prioritize unique purpose work over all other work. Unique purpose work is the work that you're uniquely created to do. No one else can do this work except you. But, too many of us feel that we must have an "A" in the first three areas before we can move into unique purpose work. Your family will push back. Your internal thoughts will push back. It's easier to search the internet for a fun printable about cleaning and press into hobby work. The reality is this: The pain of not doing what you're uniquely created to do must become greater than the pain of continuing to prioritize housework, invisible work, and hobby work for you to choose to prioritize your unique purpose work.  How Do I Find What I'm Uniquely Created to Do? I'm asked all of the time: How do I find what I'm uniquely created to do? First, I suggest that you go through the Embrace Self-Guided Retreat. We've set it up as an on-demand experience that you can do alone or make a weekend of it with friends. The sessions will help you focus on yourself and show you how to begin to dream again.  Second, you need to understand that finding your unique purpose takes time. I told you when we talked about passive organizing that it takes 12-18 months of research before you get started on organizing. It's natural then that it will take just as much time and research to find what you're uniquely created to do. You need focused thinking time. At Organize 365®, our mission is to help you get organized so you have the free time to do what you're uniquely created to do. Take your time back through organization! Find what you're uniquely created to do and press into it! 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!

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, 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 get Organized! This week, I am sharing my interview with Loren S. She lives with her boyfriend and her 10 houseplants. Loren describes herself as a natural "piler" but implementing the Sunday Basket® System means that she now has fewer piles around her home. She and her boyfriend participated in the Adult Spring Break Blitz by cleaning out and reorganizing their linen closet together. Loren also introduced me to The Conqueror Challenge, which is an app that gamifies exercise. I do some teaching in my conversation with Loren about how to manage her Sunday Basket®. We talk about having only 5 slash pockets in each color and how to manage an ideas slash pocket for each color. Loren shares how she tried to DIY a Sunday Basket® for herself before committing and purchasing the Sunday Basket® System. She found the extra teaching you get with the Sunday Basket® System precisely what she needed to mentally grasp the system and be successful. Is it time for you to make the commitment and purchase the Sunday Basket® System? 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® System The Productive Home Solution™ Related Episodes Swiss Cheese Organizing - Organize 365® Research Findings - #481 I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!   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!

One of the most impactful books I've ever read is The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. This book taught me so much about consistency, well before Organize 365® was even an idea. We've reached a major milestone with this episode here at Organize 365®. This episode is our 500th Friday podcast episode. This doesn't count the extra episodes we've done over the years with Wednesday Transformations, Coffee Chats, and more. Counting those would bring us to well over 700 episodes in total and you've downloaded these episodes over 16 million times as of July 2022. Those numbers and that amount of content creation only come with consistency. In all these years, I've NEVER missed publishing a Friday episode! I was in my late 20s or early 30s when first read The Slight Edge and it stuck with me. I didn't fully understand back then the impact of a habit over time. You don't see that until you look back later. I knew I had to find ways to unlock more time in my life. I dived deep into how organization could unlock more time for me. Now, with the creation and implementation of the Sunday Basket® System, YOU have collectively unlocked 3 million hours and counting in YOUR lives! Wow! In this episode, I'm sharing quotes from The Slight Edge and things I learned from the book. Here are some of my takeaways: I had to see things in life not as being "to" me, but rather "for" me. Consistency beats talent. Most businesses take 10 years to really get started. Things will take longer than you want, but you need to look at time differently.  Stop looking for permission! Podcasts that take breaks don't last. I have higher self-standards now, but there are no "shoulds" and much more "grace" in my life. Focus on what you can change. Visionaries make people uncomfortable. I'm odd. You probably are too. There are fewer people to talk to as you move up. You have to live more in your mind than in reality to see the next big thing happen. It's time to stop filling your days with to-do lists and household tasks. Quit doing things that don't matter in the long term. Focus instead on being consistent in what WILL make a difference over time. Consistency beats talent, money, and pedigree every time. I'd love to hear how you're using your extra time to do what you're uniquely created to do! Join me on a Wednesday Transformation episode, tag me on Instagram (@Organize365), or share your story in our community app. Resources Mentioned in This Episode Book: The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson The Sunday Basket System® The Productive Home 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!

Jacqui Ioli is back with me on the podcast to finish the conversation that we started last week. Be sure to listen to her Wednesday Transformation to hear more about who she is and her story. Before you listen to this episode, go back and listen to the first part of our conversation about Jacqui's Hot Mess Theory of work and the concepts of overwork, underwork, rework, and workarounds. In this episode, Jacqui and I get into real-world examples of how you can eliminate overwork, underwork, rework, and workarounds, especially in terms of creating correct paths using the Sunday Basket® System. Many people have gotten organized using Marie Kondo's system of pulling everything out and going through it all until it's done. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well for the average woman, especially moms. It causes more chaos because you don't have big blocks of time to work with. The Organize 365® method gets you organized in 15-minute, bite-sized chunks of time that you can expand into larger blocks when the time and energy are available. You will still have some of the hot mess chaos between the stages of decluttering, organizing, and increasing productivity, but it will not be catastrophic to you personally and your life in general. The Sunday Basket® specifically helps you eliminate the four types of work that Jacqui discusses and gives you back time. Our research says you can get back on average 5 hours a week by developing a Sunday Basket® routine! Having a place to gather the actionable paper but also a time to sit down and process those papers and random thoughts gives you the space to develop procedures and eliminate the problem of no correct path.  Jacqui describes how she has a procedure for when she finds a pair of work pants that don't meet her needs. She has a correct path for removing those pants from her closet and home. Could you create your own Sunday Basket® System? Could you create your own curriculum like The Productive Home Solution™ to organize your home? Sure, but as Jacqui describes, it's faster and easier to buy the programs and modify anything to fit your specific needs rather than to create it from scratch. Eliminate the overwork! Jacqui also talks about signs and systems for taking care of an aging parent. If you're caregiving for an aging parent or another relative, you need to hear how Jacqui talks about vital signs for determining their capacity for caring for themselves. She also gives this great tip about creating a duplicate binder of their paperwork to keep at your home. What about paper versus digital? Yes, we went there too in this conversation! By all means, keep digital copies, and feel free to create complimentary digital systems. But, paper is powerful! When you walk into doctor's appointments or IEP meetings, you will save time, get more accomplished, and be taken more seriously if you can hand over a physical piece of paper. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jacqui. I loved hearing about her research and examples of how and why the Sunday Basket® system works to eliminate the hot mess chaos in your life! Be sure to visit the post for this episode because you can download Jacqui's slides from her presentation as well as some medical forms that she graciously shared with us and links to other things we discussed.

I'm calling it - this is going to be your most productive Fall ever! I can just feel it. We have all been riding all kinds of summer roller coasters and we are ready to settle into our fall routines. Remember - the things you do in August are going to set you up for the most productive 10 weeks of the whole year! As adults, we need orientations, too! We need to orient ourselves as to what's to come so we can prepare. We can prepare our mindset, our family, our home, and our organizational systems. I hope you'll enjoy this orientation replay: visit the orientation replay website to watch the video version We are also pleased to provide you with the below syllabus to go along with The Sunday Basket® Orientation: The Objectives of The Sunday Basket® System are to: Eliminate paper piles & to do list Learn the foundational skills of organization Build routines for paperwork, phone calls, paying bills and planning out your week Move from a reactive to a proactive life Save 5 or more hours each week Supply List: The Sunday Basket® Extra Slash Pockets (as needed) 1.0 2.0 2.0 Tabs, Highlights & Pencils in colors that coordinate with your Slash Pockets Portable Sunday Basket® - perfect for weekly slash pockets and the binders fit in the Portable Sunday Basket® Notepads (small and large) How Sunday Basket® Customers Describe Their Outcomes after 6 Weeks: I don't feel anxious anymore I feel like I can breathe My brain is able to think again My brain is quiet and not racing through all my forgotten to-dos all day I feel in control I am not missing things, paying bills late and unprepared I am making better decisions I am spending my money more intentionally I am more present for my life Want to find out more about The Sunday Basket®? Visit our webpage dedicated to all things Sunday Basket® Listen to The Sunday Basket® Podcast Playlist If you already have The Sunday Basket® but want to optimize your use of it: Check out the NEW course videos in your Dashboard Be consistent. Consistency is key. Even if you can't dedicate as much time as you would like to the process - short, consistent Sunday Basket® time is better than not doing it. Join the Organize 365® App Sunday Basket® Community Group for accountability, support and crowdsourcing at any time. Be sure to join us in the Organize 365® App every Sunday from 5 - 6:30 pm EST for The Sunday Basket® Club coworking time and ask questions! The question I received the most in today's orientation was - How do I purchase a Sunday Basket® as a gift? Do you have a friend or family member that would benefit greatly from The Sunday Basket®? We hear that a lot. You can absolutely purchase The Sunday Basket® as a gift. We created a simple process for this: Go here and purchase the Gift Certificate. We mail the Gift Certificate to you to give as a gift. The recipient will be able to pick their color, have The Sunday Basket® mailed directly to them, and have instant access to their Dashboard courses and the Organize 365® App. Take the time now to do the work that needs to be done so you can be present, proactive, and productive this Fall! Let's do this together!

Jacqui Ioli is my guest today on the podcast. If you're not familiar with Jacqui's story, be sure to go back and listen to her Wednesday Transformation episode. I asked Jacqui to join me to talk in-depth about why the Sunday Basket® works and how the concepts spill over into your work with the Friday Workbox®. Jacqui has been a registered nurse for 40 years and a nurse practitioner for 25 years. She went back to school in her 50s to get her Ph.D. in nursing education and research. She's brilliant! (And talking with her makes me want to get a Ph.D. even more!) I know you're going to love hearing how she explains these concepts. Jacqui got into research because she wanted to figure out why work was such a mess for the outpatient nurses she was supervising. She found grounded theory research, which is simply the basic way people solve day-to-day problems in a particular setting. She applies her knowledge of grounded theory to my theory of organizing: Declutter, organize, and increase productivity. After some insight into how a medical practice operates, we dive into types of work as well as the concept of invisible work. Invisible work is everywhere at home and at work! Making the invisible work visible allows you to reduce it, systematize it, and talk about it. Next, we dig into Jacqui's Hot Mess Theory of work. The Hot Mess Theory consists of four different types of work that are happening simultaneously. These are: Overwork Underwork Rework Workarounds In this episode, Jacqui fabulously explains these four types of work in detail and how they relate to the Sunday Basket® and your work life.  Overwork is too much work or too many steps. Jacqui explains this in terms of dusting. You could dust daily, but is that necessary? Could you stretch out dusting to my standard of six weeks or maybe every four weeks works between at your house? In this area it is important to ask two questions: Where am I doing too much? Where can I delegate? If you are overworking, you are also underworking. Underwork is working below your level of skill and training. If you say that it is just easier to do it yourself rather than delegate a task, you are both underworking and overworking yourself at the same time. This brings us to rework. This is work that wasn't done right the first time and must be done again. At home, this can be related to looking for something that you lost. The Sunday Basket® rescues you here because you can use it as the holding place for those important and actionable items. In terms of paperwork, where can a task be automated that has to be done over and over again? In housework, why are you refolding clothes or reloading the dishwasher? Let good enough, be good enough! Doing rework leads back to overwork. Workarounds happen when you don't follow the process or there is no correct path. You don't have time to think when you're in the midst of overwork, underwork, and rework. You then end up taking the workarounds because there's no correct path. The Sunday Basket® System and Friday Workbox® routines give you the opportunity to process the work, iterate, and create the correct path. These systems help you reduce barriers to your work and you make forward progress!  Jacqui and I just kept talking and talking so we split this conversation into two parts. she will be back next week to talk more about her Hot Mess Theory. Be sure to check out the full show notes on the website for this episode to get the download of Jacqui's slides from her presentation.

Over the last several weeks, we've been talking about the history and importance of Home Economics. Listen to all of the episodes in this series: The History of Home Economics In Lisa's Family - #492 The Secret History of Home Economics Part 1 (1800-1940) - #493 The Secret History of Home Economics Part 2 (1940 - Now) - #494 I left you last week with the promise of the story of how my house didn't fall apart while I was on the book tour last summer. This story really begins in 2012. So, back in 2012, I started getting organized. In Organization is a Learnable Skill, I share this story and how I went from being overweight and depressed to organized and starting a company. What happened next was the realization that I could teach this skill of organization through a podcast and courses. The problem? Well, about 5 or 6 years ago, I found that I was out of time. With everything I was doing at home, I only had about 6 hours a day to devote to Organize 365®. I tried working until late at night. I tried working on the weekends. My family wasn't happy because they only saw my working hours and it looked like I was always working. I just didn't have any additional time in my days to grow my business and I didn't have the finances to hire any more people. In this episode, I want to share with you how I worked myself out of jobs at home to make time to do what I'm uniquely created to do! At that time, my kids were in high school and I was driving them 25 hours a week. I was doing all of the household chores except taking out the trash and mowing the lawn. So, I made some decisions. I abdicated everything related to cooking, except doing the dishes. Greg took this area on. I delegated the house cleaning to a housekeeper. For a period of time, I even hired out most of the laundry to our local dry cleaner. The Sunday Basket® and my weekly Sunday Basket® routine took the load of many of the invisible things. The routine running of the household takes place during my Sunday Basket® time. Bill paying, holiday planning, date night planning, vacation planning, reordering prescriptions, making doctor appointments, placing online orders, scheduling car maintenance, and more. Anything related to running errands, I place orders to be shipped or picked up instead of running around town. As far as organization is concerned, there wasn't much left. My husband and kids handled their own personal organization, I was personally organized, the storage area was organized, and my paper was organized. These things only needed maintenance. That only left family and communal spaces. Because I have a house cleaner, all that's left is for me to just make sure that those spaces are picked up regularly.  When I left for the book tour last summer, Greg was sure that the house would fall apart without me. But, it didn't! Everyone continued to do the things they do and they figured out how to handle the dishes. Every member of our family is now capable of making a meal, cleaning, and doing their laundry. They handle their own personal and paper organizing needs. I have worked myself out of these jobs! What job can you start working yourself out of so you have more time to do what YOU are uniquely created to do? The Productive Home Solution™ and the Sunday Basket® System can help you take control of your home and paper starting today! The Sunday Basket® System alone can give you back 5 hours a week of your time!

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, 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 get Organized! This week I am sharing my conversation with Lauren S. She lives with her husband and 4 kids. She has a daughter who is non-verbal and wheelchair-bound from a genetic condition. Lauren shares the chaos of the last couple of years from two job changes for her husband to issues with access to services and changes to special ed teachers for her daughter during the pandemic. She decided that she could not continue to live in survival mode permanently! She joined The Productive Home Solution™ and jumped in with both feet. This self-proclaimed creative who struggled with organization decided that organization is a learnable skill. She made organizing her part-time job and plowed through the 100 Day Home Organization Program and more in less than 100 Days! Lauren pushed past grief and faced the emotional paperwork for her daughter to create her Warrior Mama Binder in time for an IEP meeting as well as boxing up belongings of her late brother for safekeeping that had been taking up space in her home office. The community app and the Sunday Basket® Club were essential to her success especially when she struggled with figuring out what her next step should be. Can you relate to Lauren's story? Do you have a special needs family member for whom you are the primary caregiver? Are you tired of living in the chaos of survival mode? Regain control of your home and paper with The Productive Home Solution™ and the Sunday Basket® System like Lauren did! 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® System The Productive Home Solution™ The Paper Solution® Warrior MAMA Binder I look forward to helping YOU get Organized! PS - Be sure to share YOUR unique way of using #myextra5 and tag your post on Instagram so we can share your wins!

Last summer while I was on The Paper Solution®  book tour in Chicago, an attendee recommended that I read The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger. It sounded interesting so I grabbed the audiobook.  Oh my! I couldn't listen fast enough! When I got home, I had to have a paper copy of the book to take notes and dive deeper.  Over the last year, I've been digesting and contemplating what I read in this book. I'm now ready to share my thoughts and reflections over the course of several podcast episodes this month.  First, I want to talk to you about my latest reflection on my family of origin and how this reflection has created a greater understanding for me of the role women in my history have had and then next week we will dive into the content of the book. In this episode, I share about the families on both my dad's side and my mom's side and the difference between the two in terms of average life span, education, and family practices. I go into depth about my mom's side of the family where we have a long history of women going to college and becoming entrepreneurs. The Secret History of Home Economics helped me understand why each generation in my family thought about and experienced a different college and work experience - even with the same college subject degree!  This was the foundation from which I went to college, became an entrepreneur, developed a love for travel, and now understand home economics. I also share with you the origin of my "grandma name" that I hope Grayson will use once he starts talking! - but so far I respond to anything!! What was your family of origin like? What is your background in understanding home economics? History is SO fascinating! There is an economy at home and work to be done at home that is valuable. At Organize 365®, we're figuring out what that work is, defining it, and eliminating Swiss Cheese organization. The journey begins with the Sunday Basket® System to organize your actionable paper and continues to organizing the rest of your home with The Productive Home Solution™. Then you can take that success into your work with the Friday Workbox®. Join me as I teach you the skill of home organization and make visible the invisible work that is done at home!

A few weeks ago in my regular Facebook LIVE on Tuesday mornings for the women in the 100 Day Home Organization Program, I started to expound on and articulate how I have moved into a new level of using my Sunday Basket. The first thing you need to know about Sunday Basket 3.0 is that it is not a physical product. Lisa, what do you mean it's not an actual product? You got me pumped up for nothing! Hold on! I say it's not a physical product because it's an evolution of the original Sunday Basket System you already have. If you're not familiar with the Sunday Basket Club or the Sunday Basket System, let me explain real quick… A Mini Lesson On Sunday Baskets The Sunday Basket is a system for processing ongoing household projects and developing a weekly routine of collecting, processing, and maintaining it all in one place. You start with a basket. Well, it's more of a box but kind of looks and operates like a basket, hence the name. You can buy the Complete Sunday Basket System for $97.00 and receive all the necessary workshop materials you need. This includes two sets of slash pockets called the 1.0 and 2.0 slash pockets. With the 1.0 slash pockets, you get red, orange, yellow, green, and blue slash pockets. Everything you put into these slash pockets are things that need to get done this week. So, any errands, events or bills, etc. that need to be completed this week will go inside the 1.0 slash pockets. The 2.0 slash pockets are monochromatic and include five pink, five blue, five green, and five purple slash pockets. With the 2.0 slash pockets, each color represents a category. So, purple is for anything household related, blue is for family members, green is for financial, and pink is for your own hopes, dreams, projects, and goals. When Sunday rolls around, you take everything out of the basket and sort through what you'll do this Sunday and what can wait until next Sunday. Eliminating Things From Your Sunday Basket When your home is organized, you'll generally have a lot less to do in terms of organizing. Another gift that leading a more organized life will give you is TIME. Time to do a puzzle in the evening, give the dog a second walk around the block, and time for yourself. But, when you have all this free time, many of you talk about feeling guilty. It's like if you're not doing something "proactive" and productive, you're lazy or even selfish (which is crazy!). One rule of the Sunday Basket System is if it can wait until next Sunday, it must wait until next Sunday. But, what if something in the basket can always wait until next Sunday? Do you keep it moving onto the following week for months or even years? Well… you can if you want to. But if you want to get it out of the way, I suggest picking a time during the day or week to work on it and do it then. The more you live an organized life, the fewer things you'll have in your Sunday Basket. If you become a seasoned pro like me, you might not even need all the slash pockets in the Sunday Basket anymore. But getting to that stage of eliminating things from your basket will take time. And, as each task is completed and each week you're organizing more and more, you'll receive an extra gift of time each week. So, what does all of this have to do with the Sunday Basket 3.0? The Sunday Basket 3.0 is about eliminating things out of your Sunday Basket that are no longer serving you or that you just don't want to do anymore (or ever). Deciding What To Do With Your Free Time When you are in the process of eliminating your to-do list and moving to the Sunday Basket, you develop the habit of writing down every idea that you have in your head onto index cards. You're also continuing to defer those things until the following Sunday when you can. This process helps you to make the decision if you're going to do it at all, and if so, when. For the most part though, you can knock out a lot of your index cards on Sunday. You may have to set time aside to do some of the things during the week and then anything that can be put off until later goes into your 2.0 slash pockets, which are for projects. If you're in a stage similar to me where your kids are grown up and everything's pretty much taken care of, you'll have all this time you don't know what to do with. Can you relate? If so, here's a little challenge for you… Think back to when you were a teenager. What did you like doing? How did you spend your free time? I hope you can come up with something because let me tell you, I can't. I always wanted to be a mom. I got a teaching degree because I knew it would help me when I did have kids. But, after I got married, we realized we couldn't have kids. So, we adopted. My entire life has been about wanting kids and being a mom. And, I did it all. But now the kids are grown up and my "mommying" is kind of over. So, now what should I do with my free time? I have no idea. Well, that's not totally true. I like doing puzzles. Yes, I'm like a retired old lady, but you know what? Those guys in the retirement homes are up to their eyeballs in puzzles. They have a library, and they get their dinner made for them each day. Plus, they're surrounded by their friends, and they don't even have to go outside if they don't want to. To me (a.k.a someone that doesn't like nature all that much), that sounds like a dream. So, yeah… I guess when “I grow up,” I want to be retired and doing all the puzzles in the world. The Sunday Basket 3.0 So, when you reach the stage where your house is organized, and you've entered the Sunday Basket 3.0 era, it's okay to have projects in there that you have no intention of doing. Just get rid of them. You don't have to stick to the same projects you wanted to do before you got organized. Heck, you don't have to pick up the same projects you wanted to do yesterday! It's OKAY. Just because you had a passion for something before, it doesn't mean it has to be your passion for the rest of your life. Passions aren't always forever. Sometimes, a passion hangs around for a season and then it transitions into something new. And, that's okay! So, the next time you go through your Sunday Basket, and you sort through your 2.0 slash pockets, ask yourself if you still have the passion and desire to do that thing at all. If not, it's time to say goodbye and move on! No guilt necessary! Are you in the Sunday Basket 3.0 stage yet? Let me know over on Instagram or Facebook and tell me, what are some of the things you like to do just for the fun of it? Any puzzle fans out there? View the full post here: https://organize365.com/sunday-basket-3-0/

A few weeks ago in my regular Facebook LIVE on Tuesday mornings for the women in the 100 Day Home Organization Program, I started to expound on and articulate how I have moved into a new level of using my Sunday Basket. The first thing you need to know about Sunday Basket 3.0 is that it is not a physical product. Lisa, what do you mean it’s not an actual product? You got me pumped up for nothing! Hold on! I say it’s not a physical product because it’s an evolution of the original Sunday Basket System you already have. If you’re not familiar with the Sunday Basket Club or the Sunday Basket System, let me explain real quick… A Mini Lesson On Sunday Baskets The Sunday Basket is a system for processing ongoing household projects and developing a weekly routine of collecting, processing, and maintaining it all in one place. You start with a basket. Well, it’s more of a box but kind of looks and operates like a basket, hence the name. You can buy the Complete Sunday Basket System for $97.00 and receive all the necessary workshop materials you need. This includes two sets of slash pockets called the 1.0 and 2.0 slash pockets. With the 1.0 slash pockets, you get red, orange, yellow, green, and blue slash pockets. Everything you put into these slash pockets are things that need to get done this week. So, any errands, events or bills, etc. that need to be completed this week will go inside the 1.0 slash pockets. The 2.0 slash pockets are monochromatic and include five pink, five blue, five green, and five purple slash pockets. With the 2.0 slash pockets, each color represents a category. So, purple is for anything household related, blue is for family members, green is for financial, and pink is for your own hopes, dreams, projects, and goals. When Sunday rolls around, you take everything out of the basket and sort through what you’ll do this Sunday and what can wait until next Sunday. Eliminating Things From Your Sunday Basket When your home is organized, you’ll generally have a lot less to do in terms of organizing. Another gift that leading a more organized life will give you is TIME. Time to do a puzzle in the evening, give the dog a second walk around the block, and time for yourself. But, when you have all this free time, many of you talk about feeling guilty. It’s like if you’re not doing something "proactive" and productive, you’re lazy or even selfish (which is crazy!). One rule of the Sunday Basket System is if it can wait until next Sunday, it must wait until next Sunday. But, what if something in the basket can always wait until next Sunday? Do you keep it moving onto the following week for months or even years? Well… you can if you want to. But if you want to get it out of the way, I suggest picking a time during the day or week to work on it and do it then. The more you live an organized life, the fewer things you’ll have in your Sunday Basket. If you become a seasoned pro like me, you might not even need all the slash pockets in the Sunday Basket anymore. But getting to that stage of eliminating things from your basket will take time. And, as each task is completed and each week you’re organizing more and more, you’ll receive an extra gift of time each week. So, what does all of this have to do with the Sunday Basket 3.0? The Sunday Basket 3.0 is about eliminating things out of your Sunday Basket that are no longer serving you or that you just don’t want to do anymore (or ever). Deciding What To Do With Your Free Time When you are in the process of eliminating your to-do list and moving to the Sunday Basket, you develop the habit of writing down every idea that you have in your head onto index cards. You’re also continuing to defer those things until the following Sunday when you can. This process helps you to make the decision if you're going to do it at all, and if so, when. For the most part though, you can knock out a lot of your index cards on Sunday. You may have to set time aside to do some of the things during the week and then anything that can be put off until later goes into your 2.0 slash pockets, which are for projects. If you’re in a stage similar to me where your kids are grown up and everything’s pretty much taken care of, you’ll have all this time you don’t know what to do with. Can you relate? If so, here’s a little challenge for you… Think back to when you were a teenager. What did you like doing? How did you spend your free time? I hope you can come up with something because let me tell you, I can’t. I always wanted to be a mom. I got a teaching degree because I knew it would help me when I did have kids. But, after I got married, we realized we couldn’t have kids. So, we adopted. My entire life has been about wanting kids and being a mom. And, I did it all. But now the kids are grown up and my "mommying" is kind of over. So, now what should I do with my free time? I have no idea. Well, that’s not totally true. I like doing puzzles. Yes, I’m like a retired old lady, but you know what? Those guys in the retirement homes are up to their eyeballs in puzzles. They have a library, and they get their dinner made for them each day. Plus, they’re surrounded by their friends, and they don’t even have to go outside if they don’t want to. To me (a.k.a someone that doesn’t like nature all that much), that sounds like a dream. So, yeah… I guess when “I grow up,” I want to be retired and doing all the puzzles in the world. The Sunday Basket 3.0 So, when you reach the stage where your house is organized, and you’ve entered the Sunday Basket 3.0 era, it’s okay to have projects in there that you have no intention of doing. Just get rid of them. You don’t have to stick to the same projects you wanted to do before you got organized. Heck, you don’t have to pick up the same projects you wanted to do yesterday! It’s OKAY. Just because you had a passion for something before, it doesn’t mean it has to be your passion for the rest of your life. Passions aren’t always forever. Sometimes, a passion hangs around for a season and then it transitions into something new. And, that’s okay! So, the next time you go through your Sunday Basket, and you sort through your 2.0 slash pockets, ask yourself if you still have the passion and desire to do that thing at all. If not, it’s time to say goodbye and move on! No guilt necessary! Are you in the Sunday Basket 3.0 stage yet? Let me know over on Instagram or Facebook and tell me, what are some of the things you like to do just for the fun of it? Any puzzle fans out there? View the full post here: https://organize365.com/sunday-basket-3-0/

Let’s be real. Not every item in your home will spark joy as soon as you see it or pick it up. And, it doesn’t have to. In this episode of the podcast, I explore what we should do with the items that don’t give us any real joy in our lives. But first, I’ve got a question for you… Have you ever read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo? It’s a great book that encourages readers to transform their homes into a clutter-free zone using the KonMari Method. As an organizing nut, I’ve read this book from cover to cover. Although I enjoyed it, I don’t think its paper organizing solutions work for American women. The KonMari Method challenges you to keep the things you really love and get rid of the rest. Literally. While this method might work for some, it doesn’t work for people like me who have a lot of stuff and no time to stop and think if an item sparks true joy. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for keeping items that have real meaning and decluttering the things that don’t have much of a purpose. But, what about paper? In her book, Marie’s key principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away (I know, I had to hold myself up after reading that, too). There’s no way we can get rid of ALL our paper. I can’t function as an American woman, business owner, homeowner, wife, and mother without paper. I just can’t. So, we’re going to dive into this further and figure out just how much paper we can get rid of and how much we can keep. Let’s jump in! Sorting Your Papers 85% of the papers you have in your house are shreddable. That leaves you with 15% that you’ve deemed important or necessary enough to keep. So, let’s take that 15% and start a complete paper organization overhaul, shall we? Unless you’re a passionate organizer like me, sorting your papers probably doesn’t fill you with feelings of joy and happiness. Instead of picking up a paper and asking yourself if it sparks joy, ask whether it is useful. If you don’t have any use for it, it’ll meet its grim fate in the shredder. If it does have use, it can be organized into binders. Should You “Go Paperless”? Is going 100% paperless a good idea? And, is it even possible? The short answer is no. Yes, you can go digital with lots of different things in your personal life and/or business. But, paper is never going to stop. It’ll always find a way to slip back into your life, whether that’s in the form of a letter, tax return documentation, or your kid’s art pieces! Although it seems like the world is taking everything digital, there will always be a place for paper. You can try to go digital. But sooner or later, you’ll need somewhere to organize your papers. Take a young couple as an example. Yes, they’re all into technology and the "Cloud." But, when they have their first child and he/she returns home from school with a backpack filled with drawings, they want to keep them all forever. Three kids down the line, they’ve got stacks of old drawings and no storage space for all the paper they’ve accumulated! If you’re in a similar situation, have a binder for each child. Then, choose 100 of your favorite drawings and keep those. You don’t need to keep every little thing your child creates. Sure, your kid might be the next Picasso, but how many pumpkin pictures does one family need? Save the ones that are the most useful. They’re the ones that make you feel good and are laced with happy memories. If you need help sorting your kid’s school papers and art, check out our Kid’s School Memory Binder. Organizing Your Reference Paper Actionable papers and reference papers have different usefulness, profitability, and portability, which means you’ve got to organize them differently, too. I recommend that every family have four specific binders: 1. Financial Binder 2. Medical Binder (for each family member) 3. Household Reference Binder 4. Household Operations Binder (Each of these binders is also available for International use. You can find the International versions over in our Shop.) All your reference papers can go into one of these binders, where you can access them easily and update as and when required. You can’t haul a filing cabinet around with you. But, with all your papers neatly organized in binders, you can literally just grab and go. Organizing Your Actionable Paper Actionable papers are things like bills, receipts, forms, and things that require some form of action. Reminders like changing air filters, giving your dog flea and tick medicine, and so on all come under this same category of "actionable paper." The problem with this type of paper is that it just gets everywhere. You’ll find them on your nightstand, on the kitchen table, and even tucked away in your car’s glove compartment. So, how can you organize all your actionable papers? The answer is with the Sunday Basket System. Keeping all your actionable to-do lists, bills, reminders, and so on inside your Sunday Basket gives you complete control over those papers and helps you develop a more organized way of thinking. Don’t Let Paper Control You! I honestly can’t imagine a world without paper. Technology is great, but there’s nothing like writing things down and having a physical copy of the things that are important to you. Remember that paper doesn’t have to control you, you control paper. If you’ve tried any of my suggestions for paper organization, I’d love to hear from you! Share your stories or snaps with me on Instagram and don’t forget to join the Facebook group for more great organizing tips! Tag me in your posts @organize365 or use the hashtag #organize365!

Join The Planning Woman as she talks about how to de-clutter or organize your home in just a few minutes a day. She shares 4 strategies that will help you to get started today!Sunday Basket System https://organize365.com/product/paper-only-course/

The past year in the life of the Sunday Basket  has been a whirlwind! I wanted to pause and clarify the differences between the Sunday Basket Workshops, the Sunday Basket Club and the Paper Organizing Retreats. Why do we need a Sunday Basket anyway?! What do you do with your mail when it comes in your door? What about the ideas that flood your head while you’re driving your kids to school? How about prescriptions, coupons, “to do lists”? I promise you are spending more time managing these things than you think. The Sunday Basket System is the answer to eliminating that to do list and freeing your mind from constantly trying to keep up with the hamster wheel of ideas that flood it daily. If you haven’t started your Sunday Basket yet, you can purchase the Complete Sunday Basket System here. The purchase of the Complete Sunday Basket comes with a virtual “on demand” training you can access on Organize 365 in your dashboard. I just updated those training videos last week. Additionally you can listen to the Sunday Basket podcast here to learn more about the Sunday Basket and follow along as you set yours up. Where did the IN PERSON workshops come from? The Sunday Basket Workshop was designed after my passion for Creative Memories workshops, where women would come from all over Cincinnati (and in my backyard) to laugh, drink wine or lattes, listen to 80s music and put photos into albums on the last Friday of the month in my home. It is my vision that we will have Certified Sunday Basket Workshop Organizers in every major city in America teaching and helping women organize their paper and be freed from the guilt and burden that piles of unorganized paper brings. If you are looking for a Sunday Basket Workshop Organizer in your city or town to help you get organized, please check out our Certified Organizer Directory! How about the Sunday Basket Club? Because the Sunday Basket became so popular, and because I love community so much, when the demand came to have a “Sunday Basket Club” on Sundays where I would go through your Sunday Basket with you, I wanted to say yes, but I was overwhelmed with the prospect of having to teach that EVERY SUNDAY. However, two of our all star Sunday Basket Workshop Organizers volunteered to run it … so I said yes!   The Sunday Basket Club has a 90 minute Facebook Live time where you can go through your Sunday Basket with Monique Horb and Ryan Lanier EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY. The Sunday Basket Club is a virtual weekly workshop kind of like “co working” as you go through your Sunday Basket. But it is more than just your Sunday Basket papers. Everyone in the Club also has the basic 4 binders I use to ditch their filing cabinet. To gain access to the Sunday Basket Club, you can sign up for the Complete Paper Program or All Access. You can learn more about and/or purchase the Complete Paper Program here. You can learn more about and/or purchase All Access here. Last but not least, Paper Organizing Retreats. Lastly, let’s come full circle. The Sunday Basket Workshops started because of the good ol’ Creative Memories days. And even though you can learn about the Sunday Basket System and Workshops from our Certified Organizers, or participate virtually by buying it on demand from Organize 365, and you can go through your Sunday Basket weekly in the Sunday Basket Club; like I said, I like community. And I LOVED hosting Creative Memories workshops and my famous “Winter Wonderland Retreat”. So naturally, Paper Organizing Retreats were born and I am LOVING hosting them and so excited about all the progress I have seen women make in this weekend away to really focus on and tackle those paper organizing projects. So join me, my team and our Certified Organizers at an upcoming Paper Organizing Retreat in April! You can learn more and/or register here! We would LOVE to help you get your paper organized and most importantly, give you a BIG HUG! PS Have you thought about becoming a Sunday Basket Workshop Organizer? The program is OPEN! But only until February 10th! Hop on over to Sundaybasketcertification.com to learn more and/or sign up! We would love to have you on the team. :) 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! View the complete post here.

The Sunday Basket System If you are brand new to my site, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Lisa Woodruff, a professional organizer and productivity expert. I have another podcast called Organize 365, and it’s been going strong for almost six years! This podcast is only 1 episode long. The Sunday Basket® Podcast is an actionable podcast. I hope to inspire you to take action in order to get your household paperwork organized. Where The Sunday Basket® Idea Came From Going back 18 years ago, when my kids were 6months and 2 years old, I was running a couple side businesses that equated to full-time jobs. I was a wife, mom, caretaker, homemaker, cook, laundress… sound familiar? I had a lot of paper. Plus, I had an addiction to these beautiful baskets made in Ohio called "Longaberger." You can already see where this is going! One particular evening, I decided to tackle the 12-inch pile of paper on my kitchen counter. The paper stack was disorganized and there were a lot of actions for us to take within that stack of paper – including bills to pay, adoption paperwork, invoices to send out, orders to place, etc. The first action that I took was to sort the paperwork into piles. I had 40 different actionable kinds of piles. I found I’d been paying bills late simply because I didn’t know where they were. Being disorganized can be demoralizing and you start to question yourself. It can feel like your life is out of control. This is how I felt with my 40 piles of paper. I was overwhelmed, but I knew what I needed to do. I created a plan to tackle each pile of paperwork one at a time. Well, that was 15 years ago and that’s when I consider the Sunday Basket® System to have been created. During the 15 past years of having a Sunday Basket®, I’ve gone from having just a few bits of paper in it, to having an overwhelming pile of paper. It ebbs and flows, but I always have one. In essence, it was a basket that I sorted through on a Sunday. Sunday has always been the day of the week for me when I manage to get some time to myself and I have the most energy. Let Me Help You I am a teacher by trade, a professional organizer, an Amazon no.1 bestseller, and I have taught thousands of women how to organize their homes online and in my local city of Cincinnati. I am going to help you create a system in your household for organizing your paperwork so that it never has to be overwhelming again. Get your Complete Sunday Basket with On Demand Workshop here!

This podcast was originally aired in 2014. The content of this podcast has now become the Sunday Basket System. You can learn more about the Sunday Basket System at https://sundaybasket.com/. You can purchase a Sunday Basket System here.