Organize 365 Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Friday Workbox with Jenn Dickel Oct 13, 2021

Show notes

Welcome to our new Wednesday series of transformational stories from our new Friday Workbox Certified Organizers! Organize 365® recently upgraded all of the Business Friday Workbox Systems and we are so excited to share the stories of the certified organizers who helped us make these improvements!

On Wednesdays, I normally 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.

Today, I am sharing my conversation with Jenn Dickel. Jenn shared about finding a Mastermind back in early 2020. She is back today to share her experience in our newest Mastermind to improve the Friday Workbox and become a Friday Workbox Certified Organizer. Jenn is a businesswoman and entrepreneur who loves to help others focus on improving their productivity.

You can find Jenn at Seasonal Navigation Organizing, on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.

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 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:

Paper Organizing Retreats

Organize 365® Certified Organizers

448 - Before: Clutter & Stress, After: YOU! Oct 08, 2021

Show notes

Most professional organization companies like Organize 365® want to show before and after photos. We all love to see a big change - we love makeover shows, decluttering shows, and even dating shows. Magazine pictures and Pinterest show some drool-worthy before and after photos, and many of us are striving to achieve that "after" look of perfectly aligned shelves, and color coded produce bins in the refrigerator. But, those pictures aren't reflective of real life. Those photo-worthy moments don't last when life is lived and stuff is used.

The real change that comes from getting organized is hard to put into words, impossible to quantify, and can't be demonstrated on social media. The photos we can take in our homes can sometimes show a partial improvement or a sample of the transformation. When you get organized, how you feel changes dramatically!

Listening to this podcast starts to shift your mindset toward living an organized and proactive life. You incrementally get better at using your time to achieve your own priorities. When you add on our courses and products, you add rocket fuel to your transformation.

Getting organized enough to feel different can happen in a weekend or a month, but your home (your outer reflection) will not look perfect. It's actually not about your stuff.

Before

We have all had at least one season of life where our feelings were the "before" of living an organized life. When you live reactively, feeling stressed, depressed, overwhelmed, and anxious is typical. When your life is driven by someone else's agenda and the obligations others place upon you, all you can do is react.

As I share in Organization is a Learnable Skill, during my most reactive times, I was afraid of letting other people down and not meeting external expectations. My emotions were just like a before picture of a disorganized kitchen. Thoughts were everywhere. I couldn't focus and I knew I was not keeping up. Even worse, I was unbelievably stressed and I wasn't meeting my own expectations. I didn't have capacity for anything more. My house, brain, and heart were all disorganized.

After

As I developed the Sunday Basket®, I got a grip on my life again. Taking 60-90 minutes a week to look ahead and plan, gave me much more mental capacity and less stress. As I have continued to be more proactive in my own life, I have more time for myself, for self-care, for my passions, and for building relationships. I also have more capacity to pour into Organize 365® so that I can help you get organized so that you can live out your unique purpose.

As you get organized and learn to live proactively, the way you feel inside changes. You are more calm and less overwhelmed. When unexpected events occur, you can adjust what is on your calendar, defer and delete the things that are no longer important, and handle what is actually happening. Your capacity increases - in almost every area of your life. You have more time for yourself, your relationships, your passion projects, and your life.

Show us your afters!

We want to see your after photos. Not the cluttered and then empty kitchen counter, though that is great too! The after is you, living the life you are uniquely created to live!

What is the essence of you? What do you love doing?

Maybe it's being with your family, reading a great book, hiking in nature, starting a business, writing a book, spending time supporting a charity, or something we haven't even thought about yet.

The more you increase your organization and proactivity, the more capacity you have for what you want to do. The possibilities are limitless. Each of us has a story that keeps expanding.

So, on Saturdays, we want to see your afters on Instagram! We'll be sharing some from the Dream Team, and we want you to share with us.

446 - Win at Home and at Work! Oct 01, 2021

Show notes

For our final podcast in the Friday Workbox series, I want to teach you how I am able to get so much done, so that you can use the same tools to transform your life.

I am a naturally productive person. My productivity is the result of my ability to plan. One of my gifts is my orientation to time. I have always been good at assigning an accurate amount of time to a task. As I moved from my to-do list to my Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox™, I began to schedule time to complete tasks directly on my calendar.

Every week, I take time to work through my Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox™. As I do so, I pull out the tasks that must be done in the upcoming week, determine how long it will take, and schedule when I will do them. I can immediately see if there are conflicts between what I need to do and the time available so that I can prioritize and make decisions proactively.

Every seven days, I make new decisions about what I will take action on. The reason a Sunday Basket® and Friday Workbox™ are so effective is because all of my dreams, ideas, research materials and goals are safely captured in my boxes. I may not get to those dreams as soon as I would like, but nothing is ever forgotten.

My secret sauce to productivity and success is the act of planning. I want to share with you how I use Planning Day and Workbox Planning Day with every new season as the ultimate task stacking habit.

Home

At home, Planning Day occurs just prior to the new cycle of the 100 Day Home Organization Program. During that week, I look at how I will use my time in the upcoming 17 weeks, set new goals, and deep review through any 2.0 slash pockets that have been on hold.

Work

At the end of each calendar quarter, I deep dive into my plan for my business. On the 13th week of the quarter, just before my new quarter starts, I use the last week to reconcile expenses, set new goals, update the social media agenda, and do a deep review of every business slash pocket I have created. Then, I execute that plan for the next 12 weeks.

Win

By being realistic about what I can complete in the upcoming quarter, I am able to actually achieve my goals and finish my projects. Anything that I will not have the time, money, motivation, or energy to address goes back into holding. Those ideas and projects are ready and waiting for their right time to shine. I know all of those slash pockets will be reviewed at the next planning day, and I can take action on them then if the time is right.

The better you get at planning and improving your productivity, the more capacity and impact you will create. You will win at home, work, relationships, and in your community. You will learn to live with excellence, ease, and enjoyment. Planning is the key to unlocking your ability to achieve your goals!

Friday Workbox with Tanya Blackburn Sep 29, 2021

Show notes

Today, I am sharing my conversation with Tanya Blackburn. Tanya is a professional organizer in Winston-Salem, NC. She is a Friday Workbox Certified Organizer who has experience in both corporate settings and as a small business owner. We talk about setting and meeting goals, finances, business operations, and the new slash pocket colors.

You can find Tanya at Prime Organizing, on Facebook, and on Instagram.

For more information about the programs and products mentioned in this podcast please check out these links:

Paper Organizing Retreats

Organize 365® Certified Organizers

I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

444 - Green (Administrative) Work is Not Optional Sep 24, 2021

Show notes

This week, I want to teach you all about the green slash pockets in the Friday Workbox System. Green slash pockets are for financial responsibilities and repetitive administrative tasks.

At first, I thought green slash pockets were optional. I worked in direct sales for a long time, and I realized that most direct sellers did not look at the financial side of the business. We had a passion for the products and companies we were representing, but did not pay attention to the money. Unfortunately, many of us were not making enough sales to be profitable, and it was also easy to spend money faster than it came in on new samples and gifts.

Creative Memories introduced me to the idea of looking at my business finances on a monthly basis. By keeping my sales and purchases organized, I was able to know every month if I was making a profit or experiencing a loss. This simple financial organization was the inspiration for the Organize 365® Annual Income & Expense Binder. Money in the door is not profit, and it is vital to update the financial situation of a business at least monthly to ensure your financial picture is realistic.

Not everyone owns a small business or deals with financial tasks as a part of their work. When not used for finances, the green slash pockets are repetitive administrative tasks that need attention on a regular basis. Tasks repeat at different intervals in different work settings, but consider what tasks you do over and over every day, week, month, quarter, and year. Creating checklists and systems for ensuring these repeating tasks are handled will improve your efficiency and productivity.

As you begin to reach your maximum capacity at work, I recommend hiring an administrative assistant or an executive assistant. These staff members can begin to take over these repetitive administrative tasks, especially those that are easy to explain and delegate. Training someone to handle your email, calendar, correspondence, and errands is an investment in leveling up your own capacity for your most important work. Having your checklists established helps ensure your assistant is cost-effective.

Despite having over twenty team members at Organize 365®, there are administrative tasks I must do every single week. I share more detail in the podcast, but I still need to ensure that every week I make time for email, errands and orders, checklists, and my Friday Workbox.

My Friday Workbox time is not optional. This is the time when I review all of my slash pockets and active projects, update my calendar, plan time to work on each slash pocket in the upcoming week, and update all of my meeting agendas. I need to ensure I move projects forward so our company stays healthy.

Effective and productive work is the result of good habits and systems. If you want to succeed at work, your green (administrative) work is not optional.

Workboxes with Adriane McGraw Sep 22, 2021

Show notes

Welcome to the newest Wednesday Podcast! On Wednesdays, I normally 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.

Today, I am sharing my conversation with Adriane McGraw. Adriane is a professional organizer in Fostoria, OH. She has experience in HR for a Fortune 500 manufacturing operation. Her business Paper & Progress is dedicated to helping small businesses and working professionals streamline their operations and systematize their success. We also share about how the Business Friday Workboxes have been made even better by the certified organizers mastermind team.

You can find Adriane at Paper and Progress. She is also on Facebook and Instagram.

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®

100 Day Home Organization Program

ALL ACCESS

Workboxes

Paper Organizing Retreats

Organize 365® Certified Organizers

I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

442 - Blue Work Slash Pockets are All About YOU! Sep 17, 2021

Show notes

Today, I want to teach you how I think about the blue slash pocket topics in my Friday Workbox. At first, blue is for you. Then, as your business or role grows, blue becomes the color for your team.

In the Friday Workbox, the slash pockets build upon one another, and need to evolve in order, especially if you are the owner of a business. Pink possibilities become purple projects. Purple projects then inspire you to grow a team to help you meet your business goals.

When you first begin working, blue slash pockets are for your professional development, meetings, and your human resources records. You need to know and understand yourself first, before you can lead a team. After you know yourself, you can learn more and better understand your family members and work team members.

Learning and developing yourself and your team can only make your work better and more effective. As you better understand who you naturally attract and how you best deliver your message, your impact will grow. As you reach more people, you will need to add people to your team.

If you are a female head of household, it is best and easiest to add housework assistance to your team first. This can be a housecleaner, laundry assistance, child care, pet care, or car care. Freeing yourself from household tasks gives you more capacity for your work. In Organization is a Learnable Skill, I tell my own story of growing a team at home and at work.

Growing your team at work, especially if you are directly hiring people, is a new skill set that you will need to develop. If you are a business owner, when you hire employees or contractors, you will have to generate pink and purple work for those people and you will want to ensure their efforts are worth the financial expense. Blue slash pockets will help you keep your team organized, and will provide reminders to learn about your worker's styles for learning, feedback, and motivation.

As your team grows, your personal development should focus on growing your own skills in communication, overseeing workloads, and running meetings. Organize 365® also has some unique approaches to meetings. I share how we use one-to-one, daily huddles, department, and team meetings in the podcast - be sure to listen in to hear the details!

440 - Pink versus Purple Work Sep 10, 2021

Show notes

On the last podcast, I taught you about how to create a plan for your work. In this next series of podcasts, I will be taking you behind the scenes and sharing how the Friday Workbox system was organically developed from my own experiences. Today, I want to teach you how I think about the pink and purple slash pocket topics in my Friday Workbox.

I am the daughter of a salesman father and an entrepreneur mother. I also have been a classroom teacher, so when I look back on my own work history, I can see the ways I am different from other business owners. I am also highly analytical about how I work, and I am extremely productivity minded.

My earliest work included over twenty direct sales businesses. In observing successful direct sales leaders, they were good at selling their products, providing VIP customer service, and creating a team who also had these skills.

Because of my interest in productivity, I not only adopted these skills, but I focused my efforts on my most profitable customers. I had the same earnings and success with a team that was only 25% as large as the other industry leaders, and with only 20% of the typical customer base. I don't like to waste time, materials, or effort.

Throughout my working years, I am able to educate, sell, and support my customers. Over time, I have realized that I am successful in these things because I think of my business as having a total of four pillars. In this and upcoming podcasts, I will share with you how pink, purple, blue, and green colors correlate with different parts of your work and how they build upon each other.

PINK = POTENTIAL

When I turn to my Friday Workbox, all of the different ideas, dreams, possibilities, and potential goes into pink slash pockets. These are not commitments or goals, they are dreams and ideas. Sometimes, they become active right away, other times they take years to materialize. They are truly about potential; things that may happen in the future. Because the possibilities are endless, collect as many pink slash pockets as inspire you. By keeping my possibilities in pink slash pockets, I physically review them quarterly and update, add, dream, and rethink how they may apply to my business.

PURPLE = PROJECTS

In the Friday Workbox system, purple are the actionable, goal-oriented, deadline-driven, dollars-committed, projects. Once your pink item becomes an actionable project with a deadline, and other people become involved, it moves to a purple slash pocket. Most people can only take action and make progress on one to five slash pockets at any one time. As your team grows, you can increase your capacity by having other people complete purple projects at the same time and increase your impact.

Any kind of business or work requires both pink and purple working together. In some workplaces this is potential leads being upgraded to actual customers. In other jobs, this is article ideas turned into publications. Both together are required to sustain your business. Once you have a cycle of both, you can move onto the next step of work - blue. Check back next week for more on that!

Friday Workbox with Stefanie Ardoin Sep 08, 2021

Show notes

We are back from our 2021 summer break, and I am so excited to let you know that we have some exciting new episodes! Starting today, I will be sharing transformational stories from our new Friday Workbox Certified Organizers! Organize 365® recently upgraded all of the Business Friday Workbox Systems and we are so excited to share the stories of the certified organizers who helped us make these improvements!

Today, I am sharing my conversation with Stefanie Ardoin. Stefanie is a professional organizer in Hilton Head, SC. She is a registered Health Information Administrator with over thirty years in the medical field. She is also an expert in both paper and digital organizing. She has so much to share with us about her own journey and the many ways she is already helping the Organize 365® community. We also share about how the Business Friday Workboxes have been made even better by the certified organizers mastermind team.

You can find Stefanie at Island Organizing. Her digital community is Paper & Digital Simplified. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

For more information about the programs and products mentioned in this podcast please check out these links:

Organize 365

The Sunday Basket®

100 Day Home Organization Program

ALL ACCESS

Workboxes

Paper Organizing Retreats

Organize 365® Certified Organizers

I look forward to helping YOU get Organized!

438 - Creating a WORK plan Sep 03, 2021

Show notes

Throughout September, I will be teaching you how to proactively plan your work, control your work situations, and make decisions about what your work is going to look like, now and in the future.

It is time to plan our work. I have always been a non-traditional worker, so we use a very broad definition of work at Organize 365®. I want you to make a plan for your work and make thoughtful decisions about how to manage this part of your life.

No one will ever get everything on their to-do list done. Getting a system in place to manage your to-dos will allow you to optimize your work and have more time for your life.

What is work?

Work is whatever you are doing for the majority of your Monday to Friday hours. Your priority for the majority of the week in this season of life is your work. It can be volunteering, caregiving, working a traditional job, or being an entrepreneur. It can also include being a stay at home parent, or a homeschooling parent.

There are many different kinds of work. Work is a mindset about how you approach your activities, and may or may not be related to what you do to earn an income.

Where do you work?

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed where we work. Because of our new experiences, now we all can discuss in-person work, remote work, and hybrid work. Where each of us works will likely continue to change over the coming months and years. I started Organize 365® at my kitchen table, moved into a corner of my bedroom, briefly used a spare bedroom, had an office in a loft space at home, and then finally moved to the Organize 365® office.

No matter what kind of work you do, you need to consciously decide where you will do your work. Many homes do not have a dedicated home office. Some work requires working in different locations on different days. However, establishing where you work is vital to effectively getting your work done.

No matter where you do your work, you need a consistent place to capture your work papers, ideas, and to-do items. For your household, the Sunday Basket® handles all of your home paperwork. At work, the solution is the Friday Workbox.

What hours do you work?

I love working. I love creating impact through my work. I have never been successful setting work hours for myself, but I have learned to set non-work hours so that I have time and energy for my home and family. I set aside Sunday as a day when I do not do work, and I lavish my attention on my family. This is my approach, but yours may be different.

You may be in a season where your focus and priorities are on parts of your life outside of work. In those times, you may need to fit your work hours into firm boundaries. In this situation, determine when you will start and stop your work day. Be clear about what can be flexible and what cannot change. Try different approaches to your work hours and determine what is best for you at this time.

Where will your work supplies be put away?

No matter what your work situation is, you need to have a place where you can put all the parts of your work away. This is especially important if you are working from home or working from multiple mobile locations. Just like in kindergarten, at the end of the day, your workspace needs to be clean.

The Friday Workbox is designed to hold all of your active work papers, and to keep them organized so that you make consistent progress towards your work goals. When you have your Friday Workbox, a computer, and a phone, you can work anywhere. This is a system that is easy to grab, ready for you to easily access your work and take action, and safe for storing your work when you are done for the day.

As more people are working and schooling from home, it can be hard to be done working for the day especially if our work is out in the open. Putting everything into the Friday Workbox (including the laptop) and putting it away, allows your work space to return to the other functional purpose. Putting away things we are not actively using improves the family enjoyment of our spaces.

I am a multi-faceted, multi-passionate person. I know many of you are too. Over time, I have found that having a separate box to store the pieces of a project or job helps me to organize my brain. Prior to using boxes to store my projects, I had multiple unfinished projects in the open around my home. It was overwhelming, and I did not make as much progress as I thought I would by keeping these things visible.

At the end of each work session, develop a transition routine. Check your email one last time. Close your computer. Drop any notes for action items or reminders in your Friday Workbox. Put your papers back in the Friday Workbox. Put your Friday Workbox away and enjoy your non-working time with the others in your home.

If you need more help getting your Friday Workbox system started or optimized, we now have Certified Organizers who are specialists in the Friday Workbox System. They are specially trained to help you as an individual, or can help you get the Friday Workbox installed in your workplace. For more information, please check out our directory.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected