Organize 365 Podcast

Thought leaders have thinking time. There is a difference between remembering and thinking. Thinking is that time when you mull through all your thoughts and plans. Maybe you merge them to find a solution to a problem or see where one decision could benefit your family or home. A visionary, a thought leader takes time to think to better plan the trajectory of their organization even if it's just for their home.
Mission Vision Values
In 2012, after I'd been in business for 5 years, I took advantage of a 5 hour flight to CA and the returning flight to think.  It was on those plane rides that I solidified Organize 365®'s mission statement which is: Organize 365® helps you get functionally organized in one calendar year so that you can do what you are uniquely gifted and created to do.  Then I identified our values being positivity, abundance, proactivity, and that everything is easier in community.  
The old theory was that it took 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.  And if we use a 40 hour work week, it takes roughly 5 years to accomplish said 10,000 hours. And I've observed that, generally speaking, every 5 year cycle we use our experiences and lessons learned and apply them to our lives. When I wrote "Escaping Quicksand", I shared all of my lived experiences to help others escape their own quicksand with the lesson and mindset shifts I've made along the way.
Ain't Nobody Got Time to Think
In your 20's and 30's you are so busy doing that you never really take time to stop and think. Then you hit 40 and life has gotten away from you. You put your foot down and decide to simplify life and start saying no to stuff. No to projects you don't have time for, no to people that are energy vampires, no to requests on your time. And in my 40's is when I took my life back. I wrote all about it in "Organization is a Learnable Skill". I shared all of the emotions I was going through at the time. I needed thinking time. But first I had to get my house in order. 
When All Is Accounted for I Can Think
I started with the Sunday Basket®. A safe place to store all my thoughts till Sunday or till life demanded I addressed them.  I hate admin work just as much as the next. But it has to get done so I can keep my car and the lights on in my house, ya know? And the Sunday Basket® helps me to exhibit delayed neglect of requests. Often, the request will take care of itself or the circumstances have changed so the request has changed. And each minute before completion of whatever the task is, is more time to think about the answer and listen to my intuition. So why do we resist the Sunday Basket®? 
You may say the Sunday Basket® is too regimented or like another thing you have to do. And I hear you BUT, I'd rather have time set aside to do those things once a week than those piddly tasks taking up any of my project time or thinking time. Because I don't like that even more! So the Sunday Basket® holds everything safely for me and gives my brain peace so I can think. I know everything is completed or accounted for due to the Sunday Basket® and now I can think expansively. I love my time with me. No input from family or my team, just me, myself, and I… thinking.  
EPISODE RESOURCES:
The Sunday Basket®

Escaping Quicksand

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

Joey 2 hrs

Grayson's Room 1.5 hrs

Storage Area 1.5 hrs

This is how you get deep work or projects done as a household project manager. 
EPISODE RESOURCES:
The Sunday Basket®

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

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

The Paper Solution®

The Productive Home Solution

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

Labor Day Checklist

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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