Coffee Chat - Back to School Blitz

If your heart is longing to get the Complete Sunday Basket® or the Complete Home Organization Bundle…this coffee chat is for YOU!  I am so excited to announce that now until July 18th, we’ll be offering a 20% discount on BOTH!! You just heard me in episode 665 talking about the time both will require, all the goodies included in each bundle, and the transformation that could be your life in one short year. If you have decided “This is the year for me! I’m doing it! I’m going to put in the time and effort and next year I will be living a totally different organized life!”, then now is your time!! Head over to Organize 365® using the links below and prepare to get started! EPISODE RESOURCES: Sunday Basket® The Complete Home Organization Bundle 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.

Don’t have kids? Not so fast, this is for you too. I use this every year for myself to get prepared for the 10 most productive weeks of the year that starts after Labor Day! This FREE Back to School Blitz will help you to better plan for the amount of time and money you need for getting the kiddos and or yourself ready for the next season of the year.  I offer this free blitz every year for you to take 5 days to think about your clothing, command center, your office supplies, personal grooming, and getting out the door.  It’s been a year since your kids have worn fall clothes, I mean do they still fit? Or maybe you have a couple of favorites that could use replacing. I have a landing space that has everything I need as I am walking out the door in the morning like things I need for an errand or something I don’t want to forget for the office, it’s my command center.  I love office supplies!!!! You have heard me say it a million times and this is the time of year I like to replace office supplies that I have been making due or stocking up on duplicates. I love sharp scissors in all the rooms. If you notice your kids are stealing things from your bathroom, this is the time to consider what they need for personal grooming at this stage in their lives. And what would best serve your family members and yourself to make getting out the door more smooth? A morning checklist? A new purse or backpack?  The videos and printables in this free blitz will aid you in getting prepared for going back to school and being prepared to slide into the ten most productive weeks that follow Labor day! EPISODE RESOURCES: The Back to School Blitz 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.

Happy Monday!  I am constantly asking myself “Knowing what I know now, if I had to start all over again from scratch, would I still design these programs, products, and services the same way? Or would I do them differently? This summer I answered this question by saying yes I would do something different and the Organize 365® team confirmed my ideas.  Changes with the Sunday Basket®  The Sunday Basket® is a combination of your gifts, strengths, and orientation coupled with your life experiences and the people with which you do that. I have decided to add the weekly tear pad that you see me use to organize my week in the videos. The monthly tear pad will also be included. How inconvenient it is to get the Sunday Basket® but realize you need to go back into the shop to grab a few add on items. Now you don’t. You will also get the pink, purple, green, blue tabs and the Sunday Basket® Bookmark.  Those are the product changes but I also decided to shift your mindset on the amount of time you will need to set aside each week for the Sunday Basket® which is 3 hours each week for roughly the first six weeks. You are learning a new skill set and watching the videos. You are no longer alone in this organizational fight and you have the Organize 365® community to help you iterate and improve the systems you are establishing.  Changes with the Complete Home Organization Bundle This 52 week course now includes The Productive Home Solution™, The Paper Solution, 4 Binders, 3 Planning Days, 2 year planner, Holiday Blitz Bundle, Embrace, Paper Solution Book, and Organization is a Learnable Skill book. It is a complete turbo charged bundle to again include everything you need to get your home 80% organized in a year without having to revisit the shop. (I explained why only 80% in this episode.) It is designed to help you eliminate the mental and physical clutter and get systems in place.  And again I decided to shift the mindset about how much time this is actually going to take you. I have been on a health journey and shared about how I have added practices into my week, devoting more time, but now getting the results I desire. And it’s the same with this system. Ask yourself, “Are you willing to put the time in now, to live a completely different life a year from now? And for one year, you will now look at sections of your home and watch the videos that apply to your and your current phase of life. Might be the same house but you may need to start using it differently. Week one starts after Planning Day in August.  The holidays are a big deal that require a lot of time and planning. For two months, I want you to utilize the Sunday Baskets® from the Holiday Blitz Bundle. One is for the holidays and one is for taxes. You will delay everything else in your regular Sunday Basket® till January. These additional baskets will give you a place to cognitively offload so you can be present in and enjoy the holidays.  And I felt it necessary to include Embrace. Embrace is designed to help you reflect on how you formed the idea of what a household manager came to be, decide what you want to keep of that description, and then uncover what are you uniquely created to do with all of the extra time now that your life is organized. EPISODE RESOURCES: Sunday Basket® The Complete Home Organization Bundle 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.

I’ve answered questions about the invisible work we are all doing and today I am answering questions about the visible work we do. A good example of visible work is everything you would do inside of The Productive Home Solution™. I explained the evolution of the program from it’s inception as 40 weeks One Home to the “exhausting” 100 day program where I realized not everyone has kids, to today The Productive Home Solution™. I have been refining this program for 10 years to help anyone be able to organize any home. It’s a 52 week cycle of organizing spaces that matches the energy of the year. Yes, the energy changes throughout the year. Remodeling Elizabeth is getting ready to remodel her kitchen and wanted to know the best way to leverage The Productive Home Solution™. I answered saying as items are boxed up, label where those items will go once the remodel is done. One box per cabinet. I also found it useful to set up card tables with laundry baskets as cabinets during the remodel.  Pro tip: ask for extra shelves for your cabinets! Another person asked for an alternative to the shoe organizers during the remodeling because her husband doesn’t like the look. “The organizers stay!” The alternative is more expensive and cumbersome. Plus, if it was all tucked away her family would constantly be asking where things were because it’s all out of place to begin with. You can see through the organizers and it’s for a short amount of time. “The organizers stay!” Email! You guys, we are all in trouble with AI. It is making email more and more difficult to maintain. In The Productive Home Solution™ there are TEN lessons on email alone! If you are “email upside down”, archive all you have now and slowly go through them. It once took me 8 weeks to go through a client’s email inbox!  A few additional quick tips that I was able to offer was use your email like a Sunday Basket®, delay replying, delete spam, print actionable emails or emails you have replied to, and hire an executive assistant if you can. At some point, you may even think about a Chief of Staff to help. We are doing all of this invisible/ visible work for our families on top of our paid work. Email is the easiest to step out of. But only you can comfort your child in the middle of the night. What can you outsource? What Can You Outsource As women we are wearing the hats of wife, mom, home school teacher (in this case from the question), and household manager. She wanted to know if she should focus on The Productive Home Solution™ or the Teacher Friday Workbox™ because she homeschools. There is a great compromise to be made here. Do both. Do the teacher planning and incorporate an hour of home school to The Productive Home Solution™ and while you are at that they could be working on some of the Kids Program. Also, to lighten the load get a housekeeper. Again, where are you needed and what can you outsource? A housekeeper was suggested for another person asking about how to best prepare for going back to school for her CPA exam. I replied to delegate and elevate your family members. She had a college aged child that could help with housekeeping or hire it out. Also stock up on everything you can before classes start. Take care of things like dr. appointments and upcoming maintenance on cars or anything else. Those are things you can do early because school has hard deadlines that aren’t flexible! Lower your standards of clean and communicate with your family about what to expect and things you will need help with because you no longer will have the bandwidth to do them.  You guys submitted such great questions. Catch the full episode to hear the more questions and solutions I provided.  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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Lauren H. who is married and has a blended family with three kids and two dogs. Her mother actually lives on her property too in a separate dwelling. Lauren has been listening to the podcast for past 9 or 10 years. Only in the last 5 has she officially started her organization journey when she had her son, her mom came to live “with them”, remodeling their home, a booming business, her daughter starting Kindergarten, and oh yeah covid for the perfect storm to make someone need to get organized. Paper had always been a problem for her and the other systems didn’t address paper. She was no longer in control of the paper and she needed a system to get things in order.  We had a great conversation about multigenerational housing, which was one element adding paper to her life.  Lauren’s mom has lived on their property for awhile now. It’s cheaper and she’s very able to live in her own place with Lauren close by instead of an assisted living facility she doesn’t want to be at anyway. That being said we talked about the peace of mind the medical binder provided for Lauren during Covid. No one could go to the doctor with their loved ones, this was a way to make sure the medical team knew about her severe corn allergy.  Once Lauren got all of the medical binders filled out for her family, she moved on to the financial binder. Lauren and her husband run a modular home business. The financial binders help them to keep track of all the business accounts. It felt so great when her husband needed a title for a trailer he sold and he knew exactly where to look for it. Lauren is thankful for her helpful and supportive husband. She thanked me for the message that yes women are doing more because actually they want to be running the show! They want to do all the household things but also be supported. Even in business it’s easier when there is one person in charge.  And because lifestyles are so varied, at Organize 365® we try really hard to have the conversation be dynamic to support all the ways we are running our households. When life grows, so does your paper and that’s why Lauren finally gave into putting systems in place because life kept growing and her paper was overwhelming. She loves that the Sunday Basket® is like her external brain. She has so much more space in her brain now.  She had very nice things to say about me, her “Organizing Big Sister”, as far as my teaching style.  And then she got very excited about planning. Planning provides her the opportunity to look at her life and her business. Lauren agrees that it’s critical to take time to plan. Take yourself out of the daily activities of home and the tasks at work and plan. She feels like when she’s planned out the next quarter, she can be more present during the days of that planned quarter. And she loves that with planning nothing sneaks up on her like November that is clustered with birthdays then followed by the gift purchasing holidays. She can plan for it. She can budget for it.  She only wishes she knew how to be organized and plan sooner! Lauren’s advice is, “Start with the Sunday Basket®. Get everything out of your brain. For 6-8 weeks get your mind and body in a rhythm of sitting down every Sunday and processing your Sunday Basket®. Then start one of the binders.”  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® 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!

We are moving on to the questions about paper management. You become responsible for more paper as you get older. It starts with car titles, insurance, and institution degrees. Then you graduate to information about your health, your home, and your growing family. Before you know it you may be caring for a parent or settling an estate. How do you control all the paper? Financial Binder  The Paper Solution has two steps to it. There is the great sort. You may need Sunday Baskets® to initially sort paper into according to which binder you will be placing it in. You will feel more confident knowing what paperwork you have, even though it’s not in binders yet. And then there’s placing all those papers in the appropriate binder. The first question was a little bit of a heavy one asking about filing personal papers for the event of your passing. It was easy to answer though, make sure you have a financial binder filled out. I created the Financial Binder after settling my dad’s estate. There were so many things I didn’t know I needed and I wanted others to know when it is time for them to settle an estate.  I was stumped when asked about a loved one’s social media. Anna mentioned she discovered that you can designate someone as your custodian upon death. And she’s seen accounts that indicate the person has passed. Check your social media settings. Completing the binders can be a huge gift to your future self but can feel overwhelming today. Just set aside 15 to 20 minutes a day or extend your Sunday Basket® processing time. You probably need roughly 120 hours to get through all of the paper and set up your binders. A good cheat is to attend a paper retreat here at Organize 365® or at any of our certified paper organizers retreats. You can get roughly 40 hours of work completed by attending. You may find your to-do list growing as you fill in the binders. So set yourself up to complete tasks from anywhere. That’s why I set it up in a basket, so it was portable. Switch your mindset to think of what you can do in the places you go so you can be the most productive in completing this gift to your future self.  This could be your plan B too for days you need to pivot. If you normally care for your child or parent and a doctor visit gets changed or your loved one is not feeling well, you could paper sort in place of those activities or at those activities. You never know how the day is going to go when caring for others. You could also be enjoying these summer days and paper sorting could be saved for rainy days. It’s a small shift in mindset of when and how you can get this paper under control.  Medical Binder “How much detail should go into the medical binder?” I have found it useful to have past blood work, tests, and any letter from a doctor regarding special permissions for a prescription or procedure. I gave three situations where without my medical binder, the course of treatment would have included medicine but due to paperwork I had, the course of treatment changed. The Value of a Checklist One person wrote in saying she spends a few weeks in Mexico every summer and how could she better plan for it. Good ole checklists. You create a checklist and each summer just update the list according to any changes in growth or what you need when away from home. You can store it in the Household Operations binder until you need it, update it, and place it back in the binder till next time. 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!

Happy Monday!  This Connections Episodes is all about Routines. Energy is a word that keeps surfacing in these questions and conversations within the community. We are busy ladies! So how do we establish and stick to these routines? It’s important to regularly evaluate your routines and determine if they are still serving you and your house for the phase of life you are in. Energy for routines and sticking to them regarding family  Right out of the gate Mary asked about sticking to routines now that her children are out of school for the summer. We all do better with schedules/routines. You don’t have to rush out the door anymore but you can still have a schedule. This way you and your family can have expectations for the day. The best part about being an adult, is that you can make the schedule anything you want.  It’s ok to have a few non productive days and enjoy the time with your kids. Most importantly enjoy your summer.  “I’m so busy doing everything for my family I feel like I never get to do what I want to do.” OR “I feel guilty being lazy when it’s so beautiful outside.” I say choose a day that you will what you want to do. For example, in the summer Greg golfs on Wednesdays so, I “project” on Wednesday. If it rains or golf is cancelled for some reason, I still “project.” OR you can say these are the projects I will do on rainy days. So go out and enjoy the sunshine but when you can’t,  pull out those projects you have been wanting to tackle. You could also designate times or nights when you, say, watch tv with your spouse. It’s important to nurture important relationships and it’s important to fill your cup too.  Sticking to your routines for you Another question was about having a plan for the week but not having the right energy for planned tasks. I had to throw out a little tough love. I want you to ask yourself “How bad do you want it?” I want my PhD badly so I have sacrificed time with my family and I have done the work even when I didn’t want to. If you want your home organized, do 15 minutes a day even when you don’t want to.  If you find yourself waning in energy in general, look at your diet and physical activity. I have always been an energetic person but I noticed by cleaning up my diet and increasing my daily movement, I have more energy. I explained how making environmental changes can help you in making dietary changes. And I talked about the 24 hour rule. I delay projects and I delay decision making until Sundays. Basically I don’t buy anything unless I know I can start it within 24 hours. Anna and I laughed about me learning about the Orgnaize 365® staff and their addiction with the “Save for Later” feature on Amazon. I said a lot more about it so please go listen to the full episode.  Rapid Fire Q & A “Lisa, What do you do with all of the completed puzzles?” “I donate them.” “What is a typical work day for you Lisa?” “What is a typical home day for you Lisa?” Listen to episodes 471- 474 I take you through each day! I explain my rationalization for what I do.  “Do you have a routine with Amazon ordering?” Back in the day I had to watch all our pennies. And I explained how I would delegate our money in combination with processing my Sunday Basket®. You may get a better idea for how to set up an Amazon routine for yourself by listening to those episodes.  Regular Review It is so important to establish routines so you have capacity for other aspects of life. Planning Day gives you a great opportunity to evaluate what you are currently doing, are your routines still serving you, are there things that have fallen off that you want to add back in or try in a different way? Every planning day you decide what you want you day to look like for the next 120 days. Planning day provides the opportunity to stop, review, change, and move forward.  EPISODE RESOURCES: Ep. 196 The 24 Hour Rule Ep. 469-479 A Day in the Life of (Weekends, Home, and Work) Ep. 521-525 How Lisa went from No Sunday Basket® to Sunday Basket® retailer  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.

I’m sticking with answering your questions about the invisible work we do. And today is all about the Sunday Basket®. I didn’t yet have a name for it. But I’ll never forget the sense of accomplishment from the first time I tried my idea out that became the Sunday Basket®. In 2012, Joey went down for his normal 20 min nap, and I, Lisa Woodruff, actually got a few calls made and checked a few things off my list. The more I did it the more I realized this was something all household managers needed. And now I had a plan to get control of my to do’s and paper.  Organization is a learnable skill. Delayed gratification = Productivity The Sunday Basket® is a box on your kitchen counter to “collect all”. On Sunday, you make decisions. One person asked “How do you know what to do first?” Reality check: you are not going to get all your to-do’s done. We are all overcommitted. When I go through my Sunday Basket®, it’s really a process of elimination; what is the least I can get away with doing.  When you only take care of the things necessary, you free up time for you. And this is why we use note cards! You don’t need to do the busy work of rewriting your to-do list, you just decide if each thing on each note card needs to be done by next Sunday or not and you put it right back in it’s slash pocket if not.  One person noted they spend all their time going through slash pockets and recreating their to-do list. I remember being worried, “What was I going to do when I completed my Sunday Basket®?” It’s important to know what you are freeing up time to do. How would you feel actually completing one of those tasks each week? Then two each week? Then what’s that big reward? Will you get more time with your family? Continue your education? Plan what you will do with all that extra time.  Sunday Basket® for now and later A Sunday Basket® can be utilized in many ways. I answered one question about using it for finances. You can have a whole Sunday Basket for finances where you track and plan your 401K, Investments, and projects or large ticket items that you are planning to purchase. I use my household manager one for monthly tasks including bills. I have a separate one for larger financial planning. Another person inquired about all the tips she’s saved and if putting them in her Sunday Basket® was a good idea. If it’s tips or instructions for something difficult to find each time you need to do it, print it off and place them in your Household Operations Binder. And/Or, you could have a whole Sunday Basket® devoted to projects, book tours, getting your PhD, recipes, and life hacks for “someday.” I recommend pink because that’s the color for you, the future, and dreaming. The Sunday Basket® is a great place to store ideas and you will know where to find them later.  Then when you have the time from only doing necessary tasks, you have time for something that doesn’t need to be done but that you have been wanting to do. We have the Sunday Basket® for your household manager role. And there is the Friday Workbox for work. They both help in similar manners but the slash pockets have slightly different functions. We offer bundles to help you make the most out of you purchase to maximize your organization and productivity results.  If you really don’t know where to start, you won’t break customer service’s heart to call and they’ll shop with you. They love to hear what you are working on and suggest the perfect products for you and the phase of life you are in.  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® Friday Workbox® 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!

In this episode, I introduce you to Carly L. is married with two children. Carly was looking for paper organization solutions and came across the book “The Paper Solution.”  Paper has always been Carly’s nemesis but  it was to a point where she couldn’t locate important papers. Her daughter would be starting Kindergarten soon and she knew she had to do something with all of her disorganization. Carly joked she was so disorganized that she missed the Black Friday sale to purchase the Sunday Basket®. Carly grew up in an organized home, but hers wasn’t. She described it as feeling a low level of constant anxiety humming. There was constant chaos of not knowing where things were. She thought other books and checklists were going to help her. But, in fact, Carly has gained so much empowerment from the books and the Organize 365® systems. She passionately explained how we are building lives here. She values how Organize 365® teaches people how to think about organizing. The skills you learn can evolve with the phase of life you are in . It’s not the picture perfect containers that will help get you organized. “Lisa did it and I can too.” If your kitchen cabinet isn’t working where it is and you want it in the laundry room, you just get out your tools and make it happen. That’s what Carly did because she remembered the story I shared of me doing the same thing. You have to make your house work for the phase of life your family is in.  Carly said things don’t get organized, you do and systems do.  Carly claims you can’t have the Sunday Basket® and not be productive. Carly uses her Sunday Basket® and she ordered the Holiday bundle that came with a Sunday Basket® for Christmas and one for taxes. Carly also takes care of her mother-in-law, and has a Sunday Basket® for her as well as a Medical Binder. When her father-in-law passed, her MIL didn’t know anything a household manager would know. She has poor English and it was difficult to navigate. Now, with the help of the Sunday Basket®, Carly can stay organized with all things concerning her MIL. Then Carly said, I’d like to request a Sunday Basket® for the military. I was excited to spill the beans early to her (in December when this was recorded) about the PCS box we recently unveiled.  We talked a lot about the relocation process and all of the paperwork. We talked about the marital roles the military expects.  Carly talked about how the Sunday Basket® helps a person to compartmentalize tasks. It’s like a personal assistant reminding you of the things you need to do and will be very helpful for PCS’ing. And she claims a Sunday Basket® will help your marriage. She found she was purchasing duplicate items and couldn’t locate important things. Their home environment is much more calm and she can be the partner she wants to be because she knows where things are. She doesn’t feel like she’s constantly playing whack a mole anymore. It’s functional organization, that you get from the Organize 365® systems, that serves us. She pointed out that even if you are tired, you can do a 15 minute organization task. Carly appreciates that you can jump back into the system anytime. She feels the planning days are magical.  Her family is thriving because of routines she has in place. She warned planning is one part but then you just gotta do it! She has gained so much self esteem from everything she has implemented.  Carly’s advice is, “Don’t give up on yourself. And if you fail,it’s just like a child, you’re gonna crawl, then you’re gonna walk, and the your gonna be running!”  EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Paper Solution® The Productive Home Solution® Home Planning Day 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!  

Ok, this is so much fun answering all of the questions that have come in. I decided to organize the questions in the same order in which you would experience in The Productive Home Solution®.  In the next 10 episodes, we are going to look at all of the visible work we all do. When it comes to getting organized we want to eliminate the overwhelm and disorganization and get to being productive and organized so you can do what you are uniquely created to do.  Decluttering comes first and it is getting rid of what you no longer need. Decluttering is like vacuuming, it’s got to be done over and over. Do not confuse it for getting organized. I’ve seen people over-declutter, then have regrets, and then not like being “organized”.  Someone asked “How do you know when you are done?” I say when you have made enough space to start moving things around in the space you are organizing, that’s good enough. You will find in that process that you find more things you want to declutter.  Getting organized is totally different; it’s getting your home to a functional state for the phase of life your family is in. Organizing your life is opening up more time to do what you want to do and being more productive. I’d like you to have realistic expectations and just know this will take you roughly three years to get fully organized. The more you do it the more you build those muscles.  After we all do our closets and kitchens, which seem to have some universal set up, we don’t know what to do. There are so many variables like our age, the phase our family is in, and where we live that can demand we use our houses in different ways, maybe untraditional ways. A question came in regarding items she’d decluttered. She wanted to get rid of some items but was struggling because they have financial value.  You have to decide to donate, have a garage sale/selling online, or toss the items.  I explained how I needed money so I held a garage sale and sold things online. There is a whole video about having a garage sale in The Productive Home Solution®. I advised her to start collecting these items somewhere near the garage. This makes it easier if you are going to hold a garage sale or if you will need to put these items in your car for donation drop off. I also talked about claiming your donations on your taxes.  And I discussed the mental hurdles of getting rid of items. I know for me it was difficult to admit I was not going back to the classroom, I was not going to be pregnant, and I didn’t want some handed down items. We have to admit that that chapter of our life is finished. I found holding onto those items made me reflective of the past and I really want to be future oriented. By getting rid of those items the negative emotions left and opened up space literally and figuratively for the future. Organization is future oriented.  And another person wrote in with questions about combining households and how much she was overwhelmed with all of the boxes in all the rooms, not to mention their storage unit and her  mother-in-law’s things, who has passed away. I suggested a few boxes a day. See if there are duplicates and decide which one to keep and which one will be donated or whatever. And never make someone get rid of things of a loved one until the person is ready. It usually takes 5 years for the attachment of the item to the passed person to become less or be gone. And then I addressed cleaning and organizing. It’s really hard to clean a cluttered home. You can lower your standards of what clean means. You need to declutter. And then you can consider a cleaning person if you want so you have more time to organize. Or you can take advantage of the free Household Manager 21 day bootcamp!  It was created so you could get a taste of getting organized. You start by printing out the calendar, pick your three weeks, and big black trash bag energy. This is to teach you how to declutter and organize a space. Give it a try and tell me about your transformation! EPISODE RESOURCES: The Sunday Basket® The Productive Home Solution® ^ Garage Sale Episode - Inside The Productive Home Solution® ^ Household Manager 21 Day Bootcamp 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!