Get More Clarity, Time, and Focus Now with Lisa Woodruff

Hi everyone, it is Dr. Christine Li And today, I have my beautiful and fun and talented guest, Lisa Woodruff, CEO and founder of the company Organize 365. On the show today, I have been a follower of Lisa's for several years now. And I've enjoyed everything that she talks about everything that she teaches. And the the wit with which she does things. She's just someone who loves life and exploring and everything organizing. So Lisa, thank you for joining us on the show today.

Dr. Li, thank you so much for having me, this is going to be such a fun conversation.

Yes, I know it will, because everything you do is. So could you start us off with just describing how you became a productivity and organizing expert, what is it about you your style of being what you've learned over the years, that makes you who you are today, the person who can coach hundreds, if not 1000s of people about how to make productivity, productivity easier in everyday life?

Wow. I've never thought about it that way. And you know, it's so true that like when you're doing what you're uniquely gifted and created to do, it doesn't feel like work. And it almost comes naturally. So I would say it started when I was younger. I was always an organized kid, I had severe asthma. So I would spend a lot of time in bed. And so I learned to do puzzles, all different kinds of puzzles. I'm very analytical, and I'm very inquisitive. I came from a couple of large families as a first grandchild on both sides. And so I was always around older adults and asking a lot of questions and observing large family interplay. And as I started my own family, and I was a teacher, and I figured out how people learned different skills, I started to realize that everything was teachable. And so when I was about to turn 40, and my world was imploding, and literally nothing was going the way it should have been going. I stopped and I took stock of my first 40 years of life, and thought, you know, how does my childhood and my 20s, my 30s and my unique gifting? How does that all combined together into what I want to do for the next 40 to 60 years? Like I'm gonna be 100 so how do I want to spend this time and I realized I was successful, or I got the job every time because I either was an organized person or I was able to organize someone else. And so I literally was like, Okay, my unique gifting is organization, and analyzation. So I started in in home professional organization, company and blog in 2012. And I just kept iterating like as I would have success, I would follow that rabbit trail, follow that rabbit trail. So truly it was just habit stacking and analyzing and continuing to follow what I thought was what makes me different and unique.

That's a great story. First of all, I didn't know about the asthma as the one of the roots of how you were became thoughtful and thoughtful about what was going on around you. But I also just chuckled inside because I think you you in your 40s decided you were going to project plan your life you were going to organize your life and optimize your life. So that's a great story. Thank you for sharing that. I also feel like I want to insert right here right now that if you're in a new phase of your life as a first time grandmothers, I want to congratulate them. Do you want to say a few words about entering this new chapter?

Yeah, you know, I'm going to turn 50. So Organize 365 is just about 10 years old. And I do think that you know, roughly every 10 years, we enter these new phases of our life and we just, we just go on autopilot through our life and if you can really stop and savor so it was an unexpected pregnancy. And I remember when we very first heard about it. I thought okay, this may be the only grandchild that ever enters our family this May you know, this is your chance to be a mom to your daughter who's going to give birth How do you want to be a mom while she is pregnant? How do you want to be a grandmother? How do you like what are the things that are important and I sat for weekend I really thought like how do I want to support Abby, how do I want to be there for the baby when he's born? How is our marriage gonna look Greg's in my marriage. Good luck as we moved into grandparent hood, and I think all of it is intentionality, stopping and thinking about what's the future picture that you want, and then making a plan to make that future picture a reality.

I love it and you've had years and years of experience of coaching people into that intentionality. I guess maybe let's start with the costs of not having The space and time and room in your life to be more intentional where you're feeling overwhelmed by stuff, you're feeling like you don't have time you're feeling like you're not good at any of these skills. What would you say to that really beginner person who's on this journey?

Well, I think we all recognize right away that there's a financial cost. Like if you pay the bill late, there's a late fee. But I think that more than the financial cost and and not to minimize money, but often becoming debt free, or figuring out your finances, or putting those things on a cadence is a real outward sign of what's happening inside. I think that more that people get through from organized 365 is not necessarily increased financial security, but immediately almost, they start to have less stress, more bandwidth to think they get their brain back, like being organized and stopping and thinking about what you want gives you your brain back in order to think and plan and prioritize. And then the money is an outward sign or the way your house looks is an outward sign, or, like how organize yourself sock drawer is an outward sign of what has happened internally.

Beautiful. Um, I think as someone who has struggled with clutter myself, I want to just also add that I was reading the notes you sent to me before the show, and you wrote that you believe that not everyone is born, organized, but it sounds like you really believe that anyone can get to the point where they have their brain back where they can learn these skills, use them well use them as if they were almost born organized.

Absolutely. So no one is born with everyone is born with some unique giftings and innate talents. But none of that comes to the level of capacity that you are have the potential for without hard work, diligence, exercise and practice. So are some people born organized? Yes, some people are more inclined to organization at birth, I was one of those people I was not inclined to athletics. Now I know. I can run a marathon if I want to. It's going to take me longer, cuz I don't even run to do a marathon. But if I was challenged to or if I wanted to I absolutely 100% can it's just going to take me longer to learn the skill. All skills are learnable.

Yes, I completely agree with you about that. And I'm grateful for that, because I'm on my productivity journey and organization journey alongside my business where I do teach people how to use their time. And I think my own struggles in this area really just helped me to have a window into what other people are working with. Okay, so can we talk now about your famous sundae basket system, and I'm just gonna have you take it over, because it's a whole phenomenon, and I want to hear all about

it. So 20 years ago, back when my kids were six months old, and two years old, I was not paying the bills on time because I couldn't find the bill and paying the late fee. And it wasn't because we didn't have the money. We had the money. I just couldn't find the bill. Now remember, this is 2001. So yes, there were computers and there was email, but we weren't paying bills online. My children were adopted. I was doing direct sales and I was doing really well in my direct sales company. I was selling scrapbooks. So I had inventory. I had parties and I literally had a stack of papers on the end of my kitchen counter that was about 11 or 12 inches high. There were no paper clips, there was nothing in there like it was just literally stacks of paper. And Joey only took 20 minute naps and by the time he would wake up from a nap I had spread out the paper on the counter but not done anything actionable and then I just stuck it back up again. So one Sunday night, everyone went to bed and I was able to divide that pile into 40 actionable piles and it was 40 actionable piles. And because I was a teacher I grabbed these binder inserts which I call slash pockets and I put everything in an individual slash pocket and I grabbed a long burger basket and I throw it all in a basket and the next day when Joey took a 20 minute nap, I grabbed one of those slash pockets out did whatever was in it. And then he woke up and I was like oh this is gonna work. It's gonna take me about six weeks to get that caught back up to where I should be where I can be ahead of the curve. But this system of being able to grab a pocket and do something is going to work now since that time. 10 years ago I started Organize 365 I was teaching my in home organizing clients to do the sundae basket. I was so close to the sundae basket. I didn't realize that was the thing that was helping people get organized. And I finally realized about five years ago if your kitchen counter paper which is also your to do list your apps on your phone Your weekly planning time. If you don't do that every week, then you're always in reactivity that that whole week, and you lose so much time. But if you proactively spend time, it doesn't have to be Sunday, going through a planning time. And all of the things you know are going to happen in the next seven days, and having a place to put projects that can't be this seven days, but are going to be in the near future and not lose those ideas. That's the game changer. And within six weeks, you can get caught back up in your life move from reactive to proactive and save five hours every single week. So you gain about an hour a day during the workweek. And you get your brain back because you don't have to remember anything, because it goes in the Sunday basket. Now what we've realized this year, as different universities and academic institutions want to partner with us and putting the Sunday basket in place, is that what I've done is I've externalize the executive functioning of the brain. And I didn't realize that's what I was doing at the time. But that's why it works. And the reason why it works for everyone is because I was a Montessori educator, and I could teach algebra in eight different ways. And so if your kinesthetic or your visual or your like, it doesn't matter what your learning style is, it is covered in how the sundae basket works. That's why it's successful with most people that try it.

I love that explanation. And I always feel that whenever I've written anything down, it just ups my chances of taking care of it so much more because I can see it because I've moved my hands around it, I've made a thought I've created a thought around it. I love that explanation of why it works now, do you have a course to teach the system.

So the Sunday basket is a system like you can go to Sunday basket, calm and listen to the Sunday basket. Many, many, many people create their own version of the Sunday basket, like you may have just thought, Oh, I have paperclips in a basket, I can do this myself, I'm totally fine with that. I'm a teacher, I want people to get the transformation and not just buy the product. But even people who create their own system will say when they finally get the system, which is only $97 the physical system that I sell, it comes with weekly accountability time, and we have a community group and there's just so much support around establishing that habit. It's a weekly habit that needs to be established, so that you stay in proactive living versus reactive living.

Yes. Okay. Here's where I am going to come in with the feelings. What about the feelings you mentioned, when your son was taking 20 minute naps and you realize, aha, this is my aha moment this is going to work. What about when we're feeling like, Oh, this is never gonna work? I can't last six weeks, or I can't stick with the habit. Or I'm always reacting things as things are always causing me to feel like I'm handling an emergency. How do you help people with that emotional layer of overwhelm?

Yes. So when you are saying that you write an idea down and it kinesthetically gets it out of your head, what I often will say is once you look at something on a written piece of paper, it takes the emotion out of it. So like if you are thinking in your head, I missed, you know, I missed taking my child to this birthday party because you forgot to write it down, then all the emotions from a simple missed calendaring activity become I'm not a good enough mother, I can't get my act together. There's no way I'm gonna be able to go into the workforce. Why did I think I could do this. And unfortunately, specifically for women, I'm a Gen X woman. So women of my generation, for sure, there's an expectation that we should be born organized. And we should just know how to do this. And if you can't keep the calendar and the house and whether you have children or not, and your job and everything all going together, all at the same time. There's something wrong with you. And if you need to read a book or hire a professional organizer or join a course, men in the past they're they're becoming more open to this now but but they've been raised to think that women just naturally can do that. Like they can naturally feed a baby, they can naturally organize a house without any external intervention. And especially if you struggle with ADHD, which affects all executive functioning, it doesn't come naturally to you. So not only have you do you feel less than because you missed a simple birthday party, but also you feel like you're not good enough because you can't figure this out on your own. Even if you get a whole weekend like like often people are like I'll just give you a weekend at home and you get your act together. Well, if you don't have the skill of organizing, then that doesn't help you because you haven't learned the skill and newsflash. The skill that you need changes every 20 years. So if you are organized in your bedroom does not mean you'll be organized in your house does not mean you'll be organized in your mid 40s. Like there's a different way that you organize your house every 20 years and so when you know the skill in one phase, you're naturally going to become disorganized as you move into the next phase.

This is fascinating for me. And I think you're directly talking to me and about me. So that oftentimes happens when I interview productivity and organizing experts. But it's it's also like a massage. Yes. So thank you for describing that. Because when I was preparing for this interview, I was thinking to myself, I think I was born disorganized, that it was so extreme that I would naturally complicate things and naturally put things in the wrong place actually, in the opposite place of where things should naturally have a home. So thank you for your empathy for people like me who don't feel like this is such an easy thing to master.

Well, and that's why I think people like Organize 365, because we're not Pinterest, perfect organization. And we're very much focused on giving you grace, like you can't learn when you're in a state of stress. So until you feel heard, and like, okay, yeah, that is how I'm feeling like, okay, so she understands me, and she says, I can get organized, okay, then what is the step to get organized? I think that's the first part. And the other thing I would say about when you said, where you put things isn't where things should go, I'll give you an out on that, where you put things so in America, well, in most homes, most American suburban homes were created in the 40s and 50s, after World War Two, because people started moving out to the suburbs, by middle aged white men. How I mean, like, Where was the focus group on how houses should be created, there was no focus group. And houses are an architectural houses are the last thing that will make a change I was I was talking to someone who's very knowledgeable in this and they said that society makes a change, and then families make a change. And then the last place you will see any change will be an architecture, because architecture is the most lagging indicator of any cultural change. So our houses really have not changed much in the last 70 years. So if you're wondering why things don't go where you think they should go in house, it's because it was designed in the 50s. Are you living in 1950s? life? No. So I often say you should look at each room and give each room a designation. That's why I call kids bedrooms, there are many apartments it is it is their entity of their entire life is in there, you should have a home office, your house probably doesn't have a home office, your living room is now the home office, call it the home office, like we're going into grandparent dumb. So one of the old bedrooms has a treadmill, a piano, a TV and my scrapbooking stuff. I'm calling it the entertainment room, it's upstairs, I'm not calling it a bedroom, I'm calling it the entertainment room. So call it what it is. And then all of a sudden, your organization actually will stick.

Interesting. Okay, so I think the general principle is that you make your space catered to you rather than the other way around. And for our listeners, I want to encourage our listeners to follow you on social media, because Lisa really does give you I feel like I've seen the entertainment room. So at least it really is kind of an open book, and she's on the move on the go. She's just finished a book tour. So she just takes you with her. And that's also a lovely thing about you that you're organized enough that you have the bandwidth and the wherewithal to do that. So thank you for sharing your talents with us, your audience, and

I just like friends. So I love Instagram because I like watching other people's Insta stories. So I just share things on my Insta stories. And it's so funny when I see like a group of like 10 people in person. I'm like, Oh, this is a group I need to be like polished and professional. Yet I'll just share on Insta stories. Like I'm having coffee look. Grayson's one month Oh, look at the new bookshelves I did like, just literally like you and I are walking through my house like you're my best friend because that's how I feel when I'm on Instagram.

Yeah, it's a great space for that too. So, but thank you for being an entertaining and generous share on the platform. So that's what I wanted to say. Okay, let's shift a bit. Before the shift into organizing techniques. I'm going to ask one other question, what has been your experience in working with so many people on these topics on the connection between being organized, and physical health?

I do. One of my podcast episodes I do each week is a story from someone in our audience who's gone through the transformational journey of getting organized. And I always knew everyone could get organized sometimes I'm surprised how fast it happens. It really is a mental shift that then has a physical manifestation that takes a while to to happen. And the mental shift usually takes nine to 18 months so it's it's not unusual for someone to listen to the podcast for a year and a half. Then decide to do the program and then a week later they're like and I got so much done like because it is so mental But what I did not expect was when I said what do you have more of what do you have less of? I expected them to say less stuff, and I have more organization and time, that's what I predicted the answers would be. And that's not true. They will invariably say, I have less stress, I have less depression, I have less anxiety. And what do you have more of, I can breathe again. Like I cannot even tell you how many people say that they can breathe. And then also mental clarity. Like I do not have any errant thoughts anymore. Like as we're doing this podcast, there's not like, I have to pick up milk later in my head, my head literally is empty of all thoughts at all times, unless I'm talking to someone like I can focus so much better than I ever could, because everything gets written down. I did not realize that's what people would get from being organized. But it is it's it's less stress, less depression, less anxiety, more clarity, more time, more focus.

And then you can do more things. That's always a fun thing to write weird,

your capacity, like multiplies. It's, it's bizarre.

It's bizarre, but that's the fascination of time is that when you respect time and space, it respects you back and gives you gives you the gifts of feeling like you have so much more, which is why I do the work that I do with procrastinators in the same vein. And I just love seeing people feel less stressed, and feel like they can do anything, it's great to open up the view of what you can do. So I'm with you there.

And procrastination is so interesting, because I mean, I'm sure you talk about this all the time that it's usually rooted in the idea that you want it to be perfect. As you're gonna wait until you know that it can be perfect. But the sundae basket is such a great place to continue to put all the ideas of the things that you want to do one day, and then when you pull something out, you get it done. So you actually procrastinate on purpose using a Sunday basket.

Yes, but you develop a feeling of safety. It sounds like you're around depositing your thoughts here. So you can have that clarity, because you won't forget them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which is why my friend suggested your system to me several years ago. Okay, let's move on. And let's talk about how you would start to coach someone on first steps for organizing. And one of my thoughts was that maybe we could just talk about home offices, since sure people have because of the pandemic been forced, or, or guided into building home offices. Because our work life has been changed so much by the virus. So what have you been seeing? And how have you How have you been helping people to make the adjustment a little bit easier.

So we have a work box that's similar to the sundae basket, same size, same folders, same setup, and I teach people in business, and I learned this in direct sales was that there are always four functions that you do in your business. So direct sales is a great example like Tupperware Mary Kay, any of those companies, you have lead generating activities, those are pink, you have customers, those are purple, you have your team or your personal development that's blue. And then you have your green, which is your administrative and repetitive tasks that you need to do. But any business that you have, will have four functions to it. Once the pink if it's not lead generating it's ideas that you have. And then purple becomes what your customers or your team sees. As forward facing blue is always your team and your personal development and your growth to the next level. And green is always repetitive and administrative tasks. Understanding that all the work that you do is not the same kind of work is super, super helpful. Because once you start to identify in your work day, what kind of work it is, then you could start to reorganize your schedule based on your optimization, like I'm a morning person. So I'm going to do my deep work in the morning, I'm always going to do administrative and repetitive tasks Friday afternoon, or in the evening, in the afternoons on like a Wednesday or Thursday. I'm never going to do those Friday, Monday morning. But if you're someone that gets their energy, you know, around 11 or 12 o'clock, you may start off your Monday with all of your administrative and repetitive tasks. And by Monday, at noon, you're then going to plow into what your real real work is going to be. So I understanding that all of your work is not created equal. And even if you work for someone else, how you organize your week, you have more control than you think and you can start to move things around. So that's number one, getting that weekly organization done. And then the second thing is there is no such thing as work life balance, but there kind of is. I'm tired of people saying that there's not so people also say you can't buy time and I don't believe that either like because every time you get organized you get more time so I think we should throw that out. So there is no work life balance as in it's going to be identical. You are one human with one brain and you are going to be thinking about home. And you're gonna be thinking about work. And you're gonna be thinking about your life, those three things at all times. And so if you're in a meeting, and you think about something that needs to be done at home, instead of like trying to remember or stressing out, just write it down, throw it in the sundae basket, just like on the weekend, when you're not supposed to be thinking about work, but it's right there next to you, and you have an idea, write the idea down and throw it in your work box. And then that way, you can have one brain, but keep writing them down in these separate pieces. Now, these Sundae, baskets and work boxes perfectly fit on those IKEA cube systems, or you can get them at Target Walmart, any of those 13 inch cube systems. So something interesting, I was talking to a high level corporate executive who's now working at home probably indefinitely. And she said to me, I have a home office, and like I do shut down the computer. But I want to use that table that I'm using for the Office for crafting on the weekend. But everything's still there. And I said, Oh, well, what we should do is create a cube system, where you literally have your Sunday basket in a cube, you have your Friday work box in a cube. And yes, Monday morning is going to come out with your laptop. But then Friday, whenever you're done, you literally take your computer and charge it in the cubes and move your Friday work box over into the cubes. So that what was your desk during the week now becomes crafts for you and your kids or where you're going to do wrapping at the holiday times like it literally is not set up like a desk on the weekend. And that will help you create some boundaries as well.

I love it. Okay, I gotcha. So you help people working from home to really get a better sense of the work that they're needing to do. And then that helps to calm them down and helps them to develop systems of when they want to attack each piece of work or type of thinking. And I love this, I'm just thinking about how I can apply your thought processes into my own life. I'm sure my listeners are also doing the same. So this is so exciting. I also have another question because I've been watching you for so many years, your idea generation, the way you built your business and the fact that you've got different products and different schedules on the books and the book reviews. How, what is your philosophy about idea generation, and what is your personal practice for getting new ideas out into the world without procrastinating or without hemming and hawing too much.

So interesting. So I write every idea down. And I don't use journals, because then I can never find out where it was like that I'd written it down. So I write them down. And if I do write it down in a journal, I literally tear it out. And I put it in slash pockets. So you can have as many pink slash pockets as you want, I probably have 50. So for an example, I have a pink slash pocket that's called a TV show. I've had it since before I even started Organize 365. I have notes 15 years ago about this TV show that I wanted to have, and we're getting closer and closer to an actual pilot. But every time it's usually like three to five years later, I'm like, oh, maybe I should look at the TV show. Again, I'll pull it out. Like I have a script that I wrote 10 years ago in this slash pocket. So don't limit your brains ideas, give them a place to live in reality, so that you can see like some of these dreams are going to take 2030 years to manifest. And you can keep going back and seeing your own ideas in there. But then you must limit the amount that you are executing on. And there's two ways to execute on more ideas at one time, you can have an unlimited amount of pink slash pockets. But I say you can only have three to five, purple, three to five purple are the ones that you're making actual real things. And so those three to five are the ones we're actually going to be putting dollars and calendar appointments behind until they come to fruition and they have a gold deadline. Now how you get more than three to five is that you increase your capacity of your team. And then your team can each have three to five. So and it is it is it took me a long time to be able to manage well, an assistant to take everything off of me that she could so that I could turn more pink into purple. And then after we had done that about two years, that's when I hired seven people in seven weeks. And we literally took all of the ideas that were in my head and made them reality in 18 months because I had no physical products. And then I had basically what you see today at a 90% level we've taken everything to 110% since then, but it was three full time people and five very part time contractors. And so I leveraged their skill sets of writing and design and systems and community you know, Facebook groups and things like that.

Amazing. I didn't realize it was kind of a build up and then let's execute it all but I love that it started with a pink and a purple pocket and you're brain. And so I just wanted to ask that question to help people who are listening, to get inspired and to latch on to their ideas. Don't lose hope. Don't kill your good ideas, let them flow, they can exist, even if they're never made, just make sure you put them somewhere safe and believe in yourself because you can make really big things happen. Okay,

you know, Bill Gates has a really cool quote that I like to quote a lot. And he says, most people overestimate what they can do in one year in business and underestimate what they can do in 10 years in business. And about to celebrate 10 years, I could say that's 100% true, I have modified it for myself. And I say that most people underestimate what taking a full 365 days to focus on getting organized will do to transform the next 10 years of your life. Like, you could do that as a company owner, but most people won't be company owners, you can do that entire your entire life. If you take one year, and really focus on implementing these productivity tricks and tips that you're getting from this podcast. It's going to impact the next 10 years of your life. It's not like oh, this is gonna save me 10 minutes tomorrow, it's gonna save you 10 minutes every single day for the rest of your life. Like, it is worth focusing on your organization and productivity, like you're in a college course.

Think even more than your college corny, like your life. You're lucky. Yes. Okay. One last area focus is your most recent book. And can you tell us how the tour went? what the topic is? And how what you learned on the tour to?

Oh, sure. Okay. So during the height of the pandemic, in the summer of 2020, I launched a traditionally published book, the paper solution about how to organize every piece of paper in your house. And of course, I did not get to do a book tour for that. So in 2021, I wanted to do a book tour. But my publicist didn't want to do a book tour. So I self funded a book tour. And I don't know I'm kind of crazy. I like had imposter syndrome. So I thought, well, in order to do a book tour, I need to have another book. So we wrote another book. And this is actually my fourth book. And it is the book I wanted to write first. But it's it's a memoir, it's like my story of getting organized. So organization is a learnable skill is the name of the book. And it is the story of how I went from completely disorganized at 39 to organized with the start of the Organize 365 company at the end of my 14th year. And you may say But wait a minute, Lisa, didn't you say you were born organized? Yes, I was born organized. But remember I said, your organization changes about every 20 years. And I found specifically for American women, this is almost 100% true. The year you turn 40 is a very, it starts very chaotic, and it ends with complete liberation. Like you make such a transformation from 39 to 40. I don't know how to explain it other than if you're over 40, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's so true. And you just shed a lot of what you didn't need, that was still hanging on, and you fought and you find the unique carats of things that were really cool in your 20s and 30s, that you want to carry forward with you. And you turn that into something really cool. Usually by the time you are 50. And so this is the story of how I was overweight, depressed, we were so broke, and I quit my job, my teaching job, the last week of December, in my 39th year, and then I started like, how do I create an income and reclaim my home and my marriage and my kids and myself? And what does that truly look like? I mean, you'll get organizing tips out of the book. But it's not about how I organize my sock drawer. It's about sitting on the floor of my closet, organizing my pantyhose again, to put them back in my Vera Bradley bag to go in the bottom of this drawer and then thinking to myself, when was the last time I put pantyhose on and then trying to put the pantyhose on and they didn't fit my 40 year old body. They probably didn't I mean, they were like from when I was 16. I also had slips in there because my mom used to sell slips like you were under skirts. And I was like, when would I ever wear these and first of all, they didn't go around my middle. But other than that, like when would I wear the magnet? I'm looking through my closet and realizing I don't even own flippable clothing. I didn't buy that kind of clothing anymore. And I'm not that prim and proper. And I didn't have like nobody talks about how do you organize your closet when you don't have enough money to buy any clothes and nothing fits in your closet. And that's where I was realizing that I had like for two pairs of jeans and about four or five tops that fit that actually fit. And that was it. my closet was full of stuff that didn't fit me and wasn't going to fit me and I didn't have any money to go buy other stuff. So that's the story like how do you go from that to realizing that you are organized and productive, productive at the end of the year and the emotions that you go through As you, you know, another one was going through all of our Christmas stuff. Why was I so depressed every time I had to put the Christmas tree up when I used to love that, and it's because my parents had gotten divorced. And then my father had passed away and, and I didn't have the Christmases that I had growing up. And I felt like I was failing my kids, because I didn't even know what traditions I was going to do at that point. It's really the organization is a emotional journey that you go on, to let go not only a physical items, but also of past hopes and dreams or futures that you thought you were going to have that you realize now are not going to be your future. And then as you let that go, you're opening up a space for things you didn't even realize were a possibility of what could be coming in the future. And it takes about a year.

That is so beautiful. You're so wonderful. I think I've never heard I've heard you know, you're shedding your past. But I don't really think I've heard as much that you're really opening up for the new, I think we always kind of hope for that. But you really are and that you're also leaving behind future things that aren't going to happen. So I like that piece that that's something I think that that you've shared with me that I've never heard before, and is really kind of important. I'm definitely tucking that away. So thank you so much for sharing your time, your stories, your life story. With us and your amazing techniques, I feel like I have a much greater understanding of what you actually do with your clients and the genius of your system. So thank you. For all of that. Do you have any final words or tips for how our, our listeners can make time for themselves and make time for success?

Well, thank you so much. Um, I've really enjoyed this interview, I just enjoy any time that I get to connect with other humans, I was talking with my team, we went out to dinner, one of those hibachi grills, you know, where they see eight people. And there were six of us. And we were sitting next to another couple and I immediately like pulled them in the conversation, it turns out, they were able to connect me with what I needed in my business next and, and the team was like, like, I can't believe that you met these people. And I said, You know, I have never once had a conversation with another human where it wasn't mutually edifying. Like where it wasn't like a great conversation, I don't care who they are, where they live, whatever. I've never had a one on one conversation with a human, that wasn't awesome. But when we don't have one on one conversations, or take time to listen and reflect and think about, you know, our purpose and other people's purpose and how we can work together and we start just reading and observing other people, then we start to draw lines are like they're organized, and I'm not or that worked for them, but not for me, and I don't have $97. So I can't do that system. Like you start to create all these stories that you tell yourself. And so I would say just go have a conversation with someone today like you some time, don't fold your laundry to shove the socks unmatched in the door. And instead, go talk to a neighbor or talk to someone that you're sitting next to on the bus or in the grocery line at the store, talk to another human and realize that we are all on this journey together. We are better together. People are amazing. Like, I love people. I just I just love people.

I love people too. And I know what I'm going to do after this conversation, I'm going to go to that pantyhose drawer and do a little excavating. So thank you for those stories. I know you have a free gift for our listeners, you want to tell us about that, too. Yeah, so

if you want to get started on your own Sunday basket at home, we would love to have you do that you could just we have a seven day mini course that will help you collect your paper and start organizing it and start thinking like is a weekly planning system? Would that really work for me? And I'm sure we'll have the link in the show notes.

Yes, absolutely. And how can our listeners also watch you on social media and follow you in the interwebs?

So if you like podcasts, which you're listening to a podcast, Organize 365 has a podcast we'd love to have you come listen to that. And I am most active on Instagram. That's where I share the most again under Organize 365 we're Organize 365 on all social media channels.

Okay, wonderful. So let's go out and do the decisions we have to do. Make room for our futures and our best selves and our best lives and get more time for ourselves. Thank you so much, Lisa. You're an awesome guest.

Oh, thank you for having me. Take care.