514 - The Productive Home Solution™ with Tanya Blackburn

This week on the podcast, I am joined by Tanya Blackburn, who is the director of our Productive Home Solution program. Hi, Tanya.

Hi, Lisa.

How are you?

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

So, I'm super excited to have you on the podcast. There are a bunch of things we're going to cover today. One, we're going to talk about you. How you came to Organize 365, get people to know you a little bit, your family of origin, where you are now, where you'll be living soon, all those details. Second, we're gonna go into the education team in general. You and Monique and Michelle and Steph are the education team that run the app and the coworking times and all of that, kind of like how that even came to be. Can you believe we've only had the app for a year? The app is right.

Yeah.

Wow, we've come a long way one year with that app. So how that app came to be, how the education team came to be, what we've grown inside the app and what we expect to grow. And then we're going to really deep dive into the Productive Home Solution. So for those of you who've made the investment and you are going through the Productive Home Solution course, or you want to re-go through it because it's a lifetime membership and you've had it for 5 years and you're ready to do it again. Where do you find the information? How do you go through the information? How is Tanya there as a resource for you? What can you expect? What support can you expect to get from the Productive Home Solution? And can we please talk about the playbook and the workbook that go along with it? So that is a lot to cover in this podcast. But as you know, I talk like I'm in the Olympics of talking, so shouldn't be a problem. And I'm sure Tanya could pace right along with me. But Tanya, I wanted to start first. How did you find Organized 365? Remember?

Yes, back in 2019, fall of 2019, I found you through Get Organized HQ.

Okay.

And I think a couple of months later I bought all of it. I was all in with all the things. Everything. So yeah.

Including certification? Did you do the certification then?

Within 4 months, I did.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. And tell us about your family.

Okay. I live with my husband of, let's see, 11 years this year, and our twins who are 8. They're in 3rd grade, a boy and a girl. And one dog. And we're fostering our in-laws, my in-laws' cat right now while we are in transition because we are moving.

Yeah. So you're moving from where to where?

We're moving from North Carolina to Florida.

Nice. Yes. More south.

Yeah.

So you joined the certification program and then you came to one of the book signings on my summer of book signings where I created my own book tour for myself. And then you came to the one and only mastermind that I haven't had in Cincinnati in March of 2022. And then you joined the Organized 365 team.

Yes, it was. I guess it was all in all, like, about, what, 8 to 10 months, something like that.

Yes, very quick.

When we're ready to make decisions, we make decisions.

So, yeah, clearly by the moving, I can see that. Yeah, no, that was your thing until you're like, we're thinking and we're moving. I'm like, oh, all right then.

Yes. Yeah.

So what were you doing before you came to Organize 365? Why did you start your own business as a certified organizer? And then why did you ultimately join the Organize 365 team?

Okay, so originally I lived in Michigan. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. And right out of high school, kind of like started my advertising and editing career. So I was in post-production editing for a lot of television commercials for the Big 3, which is the auto industry, in case you don't know. And so I did that for about 10 years. And then when I moved down to North Carolina, I did a complete switch to accounting. So I worked for In a bunch of different roles in the accounting department in a in for a company that overhauled airplane propellers, which was really interesting. But I really started thinking about what my passion was, and I was the kid who grew up like reorganizing their bedroom on the weekend.

So.

Just, I've always really been interested in organizing and I love office supplies. I love anything that's like a pen or a highlighter or anything that's related to office supplies. And so I just found myself like really feeling a pull towards doing the certification and having that be something that I thought eventually would be maybe like my encore, another encore career. But I really, really loved and still love organizing and working with people and helping them and really getting to know them. And so when the opportunity came to join Organize 365, I jumped at the chance.

You did jump. And now, for those of you who have not been on the Organize 365 team, it is fun. Like, it is really fun. And also, because I'm a teacher and like, I want to know what you're uniquely gifted and created to do. You get a job offer at Organize 365 and you start out in one role, and then we pivot. And we pivot and we pivot until we find like your unique role inside of Organize 365. Like when you joined the team, I did not know you had worked in video editing before. So now you're doing video editing for us. And by the time this comes out, maybe the kids video will have come out. I'm not sure. No, actually. So if you're in the Productive Home Solution, we are recording this November 2nd. You're going to see this as a video real time, and then we're going to put this out on the podcast sometime in December. So in December, the kids video will be out. And in November, I just like ruined the surprise, didn't I? Well, we met with a family that has 4 kids in Kentucky, and I organized them this summer and we created a reality TV show. And so Tanya and I have been editing this reality TV show that'll be coming out sometime in December. So like, again, when you were hired, I wasn't planning on making my own fake reality TV show, and I didn't know you knew how to edit. And now here we are, like, in production of this little fake TV show, which is gonna be so much fun and kids are gonna love it. And they're gonna be able to see other kids getting their bedrooms organized so they can organize their bedroom as they go into the new year, which is just like Fun. Like, it's just fun. But also, Pat likes to say, we pivot around here so much it looks like we're dancing. That's the best line I've ever heard, and so accurate for Organized 365. Like, we're always like, well, let's try this. Well, how about this? And I think it's because I'm a teacher, and I'm just always trying to figure out like, all right, well, it's working, but how could it work better? How could it work faster? How could we make more impact? How could we Have this reach more people, and not just more people inside of the programs, but more transformation from the person in the program out into their family and their communities by them having more time and less stress and doing what they're uniquely created to do. It's like gonna lift up at least 10 people around them. So every person that gets a Sunday basket and every person that gets in the Productive Home Solution impacts 10 lives is how I look at it. And so it's really a, as you press into what you're uniquely created to do and focus on improving yourself, you improve the lives of everyone around you. So one year ago, a little more than a year ago, we decided to create our own app, which at the time was really risky. Like not a lot of people were doing it yet. And a lot of people liked that we had the Facebook groups and I had kind of like left Facebook. Like I was just like over it. Just because it just sucked my energy. I don't know. It was just too overwhelming to me. Anytime I went in there, I spent hours in there, and I didn't like how I felt when I came out of Facebook. And more importantly, we had a lot of people that were in the Productive Home Solution that were not on Facebook. And I thought, well, this is ridiculous that you have a program that's supported on a platform, A, that I'm not on anymore, and B, that people don't want to be on for whatever reason. It doesn't matter why. If your membership is associated with something that you don't partake in, then you don't get a full benefit of the membership. So that was another big reason why we decided to go with the app. And in true Lisa Woodruff fashion, we didn't just, you know, like take an out-of-the-box app and just like put our stuff on it. No, we had to like custom code it and all the things and tie it into the store and tie it into the dashboard and tie it into our email campaign so that everything, the app and the website and our email all talks to each other. So when you make a purchase on the website, it unlocks things on the app and vice versa. So it's a huge undertaking. And you were not on the team while we created the app, were you?

I was a contractor.

So you were a contractor then? Oh yeah, this is the other thing I do. You become a contractor, then you become an employee. I forgot about that. Okay, so Monique was an employee at that time, and Steph was a contractor becoming an employee at that time, and then you followed quickly thereafter. So, but Monique really worked with the Organize 365 team in Cincinnati to build that app. And as we were moving things from Facebook over to the app, we had the ability to then say like, okay, well, if we were starting over, cuz we were starting over, how would we create these communities? What would we want? What information would we want in there? Like Monique was brilliant because I was like, hey, just get the one, get the app and launch it. And she goes, Lisa, we don't have information in the app and all the information's still on Facebook. Like, people are just going to bounce in the app and then bounce right back out. I was like, good point. So they created all kinds of content that went into the app. So by the time you guys got in the app in November of 2021, there was lots to do in there and everyone was in there and we had the badges and everything matched and all that. Well, over the last couple of months, we've cleaned everything up because since November of last year and this year, Like we've changed logos, stuff like that. We've gotten it all cleaned up in the app. And it was kind of like the team played flock ball, like 5-year-olds on a soccer field. Like, okay, we're all over in the Sunday Basket Club. We're all over in here. We're all over in here. And we just kind of went to wherever people were talking. We were there and we were responding. And slowly over the last 5 or 6 months, Monique has really become the expert in the Sunday Basket Club. Steph is really shining inside of the Workbox Club. Michelle joins, um, Monique inside of the Sunday Basket Club, and you have kind of like settled on your little nest here in the Productive Home Solution.

Yes.

But we never really formalized it. Like, we did formalize it on the team, but we didn't formalize it with you in the app. Like, we're like, hey, by the way, this is Tanya. She's running the show around here. Here's who you ask questions to. And I think that because Monique has been around since like the origin of Organized 365, Like everybody just goes to Monique because, well, Monique's been around since forever and we know she Voxers with Lisa, so she probably knows what Lisa's talking about. So we'll just go straight to Monique. And so part of this video inside of the app and the podcast is to just introduce everyone, Tanya, to you. I mean, you, you are the orchestrator and the director over there inside of the Productive Home Solution group. And you have— I ask you the questions because you know the answers more than I do about what's going on inside the Productive Home Solution group. So let's talk about Um, this year of change. Thank you everyone for sticking with us. Um, at the time of this recording, so those of you that are listening real time, we've just come out with our playbook, just the sneak peek because it's not even completely done. And someone put this huge long message in the app and it was just like water to my soul this morning. I woke up at 6:30 and I started reading it. And you know, when you see a really long message in the app, at first you're like, How did we screw up now? Like, what did we do wrong? What do I have to go fix? Who do I have to call? You know, like, how are we going to make this right? Like, and I just start reading and reading, right? And basically this person was saying, okay, I started way back before there even was 100 Days, and I've gone through all of this, and I can see how every time I was getting stuck, Lisa, you kept making modifications and improvements. And kept moving me along. And, and thank you. Just thank you, first of all, for typing all that out. But also thank you to all of you that are in the Productive Home Solution. Most of you didn't join the Productive Home Solution. You joined the 100-day program or you joined All Access or I mean, you joined 40 Weeks One Whole House or like you didn't start with Productive Home Solution. Now, people just listening to this on the podcast, if you're listening to this on the podcast, this is why there are so many names to this program is because we have a podcast. If we didn't have a podcast, we would easily be able to type in for the 100-Day Home Organization Program and change that to the Productive Home Solution in all of our blog posts, in all of our printed material. Like, it's really easy to change that. It is extremely hard to make those changes inside of an audio recording. And when you have like 800 audio recordings and then you're interviewing people on the Wednesday podcast, of course, that's not the name that they went through. They're still in 2024 going to be saying, I went through the 100-Day Home Organization Program. And, you know, because that is what it was called when they signed up for it. So when you have a podcast, it's literally an audio diary. Like, you have an 8-year audio diary of my verbal processing of how we at home use our homes and how the pandemic came and changed how we use our homes and just inflation and all these things. Like, it is literally like a historical record of the study of how people use their homes. And it's hard for me. We did get most of the 40 Weeks, One Whole House out of even the audio. But there is no— I'm not even gonna try to get the 100-Day Home Organization Program like that. There's no way. It's— it would take so much time. It's just not even worth it. It is much faster and easier for you to realize that teachers evolve their teaching over time based on the students in their classroom and what's going on in the world. You wouldn't expect that reading is taught the same way now as it was in the 1970s. Like, everything has to grow and evolve, and in our homes we are growing and evolving all the time. And also, in my defense, no one else cares. No one else has cared for more than 18 months to do any kind of research or study on how our needs inside of a home as humanity evolves and changes over time. No one, unless they're selling you a container or a cleaning product. And even then, they don't really care about how your family's changing. They don't. And so, yeah, it's going to take me a while to figure it out because you're virtual and I'm here and I'm trying to go, how are they getting stuck? How many of them are getting through? What is working, what isn't working, and it's, it's the Wednesday podcast, the emails, and the comments inside of the app and social media. That's how I know where you're succeeding and where you're getting stuck. And then I just tuck that in my head as a teacher, and I'm like, okay, I've heard this here, I've heard this here, I've heard this here. Here's a great example. We're coming out with a new tear sheet. We came out with this one, which is the weekly planning sheet, in October. I think we came out with this in October. We're coming out with a new one in December, which is a monthly one, and then there's a— it's, it's a month view, and then behind it is like a checklist. And when we were going to put the little boxes in there, because it's undated, for you to write your little number in the calendar, I remembered in the back of my head that one of you said to me like years ago, when I had put little checkboxes in a box, they said, don't put it over on the left-hand side. Because then when I'm making my list, I have to indent my list for where your boxes— make it on the right-hand side. Like, I'm listening, you guys. I'm listening like it is my job. And I'm like, okay, when we make the calendar, make sure that we put the date on the upper right-hand corner so that when they make their little list on the left-hand side, they don't have to indent it. Like, I am studying you like it is my job, because it is my job. Like, I remember— I don't remember who tells me things, But I remember what you tell me and I remember your life circumstance. And then I match that with other people's life circumstances. And so the Productive Home Solution is incomparable to anything else that is out there because there is nothing else that is out there. Here, Joe. This podcast is interrupted by Joey losing his AirPod. I was listening to it also. I could hear it over here. I was like, why is there a noise coming from a desk? I love you too, honey. So the Productive Home Solution, we're gonna leave all that in because you know what, you're all working with kids and dogs and cats too. Um, the Productive Home Solution is going to continue to evolve and change, not to the extent that you've seen in the last 12 months. That was a lot of change. I know some of you are like this because I'm changing things. I'm sorry and thank you for sticking with me, but also it's a lifetime membership, so I'm going to keep You wouldn't be happy with a lifetime membership if it was still the 100-day program that you bought 5 years ago.

I mean, no. Can you—

if you were around, do you remember what that was? It was not good. I mean, it was fine. Was not what it is today, and it's not what it's going to be in the future. So we want to really talk about how Tanya is going to take over the Productive Home Solution. She already did in the app. Maybe you didn't know. Because I didn't bring it out on the podcast. But she is gonna take over really building this community, and everything starts with the Sunday basket. So if you see what we've done in the Sunday basket, we have a certification program. We're not gonna have a certification program for the Productive Home Solution, but we have a certification program. We have the coworking time. We have the physical product. So there's, there's so much richness built into the Sunday basket. Then the Friday work box is so planned out because we have planning day. So Planning Day really gave that extra to the Friday Work Box. There's a certification program for that. There's a coworking time for that. There's an education and there's a business component. And now here in 2024, I have to look— or 2023, I have to look and see what year we're in. 2023 in Cincinnati, we're gonna start going into companies and doing HR programs and adding in the Sunday Basket as a wellness opportunity. And then in 2024, we'll be able to move that beyond there. So these 2 programs Have been around and in my head for a really long time. And I have been using a Sunday basket for 20 years, and I have been using a Friday work box in business with employees for 18 years. Like I've been, I've been using these for so long. But the productive home solution—this is taking a traditionally in-home certified organizer working with you in your house, or the other comparison could be like these challenges that you do for a weekend or 30 days, and you download just a whole bunch of printables. And you check off everything. There's nothing like what we're doing. And so we are looking at what's working and we're continuing to move and evolve. So Tanya and I have been talking over the last couple weeks about what does that look like in order to support you more inside of this app community. We know that the course content is correct. We know that the playbook and the planning days are really gonna move you forward. It's the community aspect that we're now discussing. And so, as we're discussing this, some of the things we've tried in the past that have not worked are the Q&As. Like we've done— remember I used to do them back in the 100 days? We do the Q&As. They kind of work, but really a much better thing for you is the Wednesday podcasts. Like the Wednesday podcasts are a more fuller picture of someone else's transformational journey that is like in 3D. Versus me trying to do a one-off Q&A, or Tanya trying to do a one-off Q&A. So we are not going to be bringing back the Q&As, but we do want to create some kind of a like a coworking effect inside of the Productive Home Solution, knowing that you're all in different time zones and you all have different pockets of time where you're putting in the Productive Home Solution. Is that— I mean, is that what you would say, Tanya?

Yes. And also, we, we have a lot of people who are working on different areas. So some people are in personal spaces, some people are in storage spaces. We're doing it, and most of the people, the customers that we've talked to, are with us with where we're pacing and where you're pacing and what we're sharing. But some people are doing a totally different area. And so just trying to have a Something that works for most of everyone who's, who's, you know, doing the program at this time, trying to figure out what that is has been a little bit of a challenge for us, but we like challenges.

Yeah. And part of it is totally my fault, like 100% my fault, because when we were first moving from the 100 Days to the Productive Home Solution, I was like, great, let's have people. And I figured out the Swiss cheese organizing and like, okay, it's personal. This— I thought, this is great. Everybody come in with personal and then move to this and then move to this. And you could be on your own path. And for a hot second, we made 4 groups in the app. And like the next day I was like, get rid of them, get rid of them, get rid of them. And you all were like, oh good, because we were completely confused. I'm like, yeah, I was like, this is just never gonna work. 3 years from now, could we have it that way? Maybe. I mean, way back when, before the 100 days, we had a 40 Weeks One Whole House Mastermind. Again, whenever I say I'm doing a mastermind, you should really do it because I usually only do it once. Anyway, it was a group and you got to pick up based on your generation. So we had a millennial and we had a Gen X and we had a baby boomer group for the 40 Weeks, One Whole House. This is before you, Tanya. Did you even know this?

No, I did not.

It was so awesome. So there were 30 people in it. Those 30 people are still around. And basically we did the 40 Weeks, One Whole House. So this is before there even was a 100 Days. And I had 3 different Facebook groups, and in each Facebook group I would give the task of the week. But then I did the task of the week based on if you were in your 20s and 30s, 40s and 50s, or 60s, right? It was so cool.

So cool.

And honestly, that's probably gonna come around again, because hello, I'm a teacher, and you just circle like— so if you're like, oh, I want that, yeah, we'll stick around like 3 to 4 years from now. I'll probably have it. But right now I don't have the capacity to make that content. We don't have the team in order to pull it off. But I, I think that would be great. I think that would be great. So right now, what do we have right now? Right now what I've realized is you can always chart your own course. You can always pick any, any day, any week out of the whole entire system, and it will totally make sense. Nothing is tied to something else where you have to do step 1, 2, 3. You can just cherry-pick anything that you want. It will make sense. You will make progress. But since it's just Tanya and I, and I'm gonna go get my PhD, we need to think about what can we consistently deliver. And, and this would probably be the number one question I've always asked myself in Organize 365. If I want to make a change What is it that I can consistently deliver week after week, month after month, year after year? If you haven't noticed, I've never missed a Friday for the podcast. Like, I just never have. The only reason we take these teeny breaks on the Wednesday podcast is because not enough of you are applying to be on the Wednesday podcast. It's not my capacity, it's your applications. So that is a gentle shove to go sign up and be a Wednesday podcast guest. You get to talk to me for like 45 minutes. It's so much fun. And then everybody gets to hear your story. It's awesome. So Definitely do that. So I like to do things that are going to be consistent. So if I think about the capacity of the Organize 365 team, the information that we have, and the students that are enrolled in the Productive Home Solution right now, I think that the best, most consistent thing for us to do is to all pace at the same time. Which means that if you're listening to this real time, we're starting in our storage room. If you're listening to this on the podcast, January 1st, we're going into family and communal spaces. So the month of January we're gonna be in the kitchen, and then we're gonna go through your whole first floor of your house if you're in a 2-story house, or whatever those rooms would be in the size dwelling that you're in. By the time we get to summer, then we'll go into paper, have a little bit of personal and a little bit of storage, and then we'll get back to our personal again when we get to Labor Day. And that's just gonna be the cadence that we're gonna run for the next couple of years, because I wanna see Can we get you to check off, I'm personally organized, I'm storage organized, I'm family and communal space organized, I'm paper organized, in 1 calendar year, 18 months, 2 years? How long is it going to take when I have it this organized? And then the second thing that we're doing, which you can thank Tanya for, is we have really reorganized the dashboard. So let's talk, Tanya, about the difference between the dashboard And the app. So the dashboard is on the website. The app is an app where you do the community. So you talk to your friends on the community and you check things off your checklist on the website. What can they find inside of the website and inside of the app?

So on the website, you go to the organized365.com website and you will log in. Up in the right-hand corner. Once you do that, your dashboard is in the same place. You click, click on My Dashboard, and in there you will have all of the courses that you have purchased. So for the Productive Home Solution, there'll be the entire course in there. There's a teal slash pocket that says Start Here, so that gives you all the beginning information. And then after that is your personal organization slash pocket, your storage organization slash pocket, your family communal spaces, and your paper. So it's all laid out in brightly colored slash pockets, just like you would expect. And so you sign in there and you get access to everything. The best thing about the dashboard is you can actually check off those tasks as you watch the videos and you do the organizing so that you can keep track of where you are in your organization.

Yes, and so they're, they're color-coded. I just love this so much. We just made this change. So if you haven't been over in the dashboard in the last couple of weeks, go check it out. It's adorable. So the teal slash pockets are kind of like get started, or your informational slash pockets. It's also where planning days are. We'll talk about that in a minute. But then the, the personal is pink, and the storage is purple, and the family and communal spaces are blue, and the paper is green. And inside of the Planning Day Workbook and the Productive Home Solution Playbook, which we're gonna talk about in a minute, they're all color-coded too. So you literally are working through these 4 categories of organization that we've identified in our research that Americans have Swiss cheese learning in. So you can get all of your pink tasks done, all of your purple tasks done. So when we do pink, so personal organization, we start that on Labor Day. And we go until the first week in November, but we haven't done car organization yet, and we haven't done Embrace yet, and those are both Pink Slash Pocket activities. Those we're going to do in the summer, but they will live in your Pink Slash Pocket. So you may say, beginning of November, after you do the Holiday Blitz, you may say, I don't have the energy, or I don't want to do storage organization. So I'm going to keep going in personal organization. I'm going to go find Embrace, which is an add-on, and I'm going to do Embrace. And I'm also gonna go find the car organization. I'm gonna finish up and make sure I have everything done in pink organization, because I wanna end 2022 with all my personal organization done, and I'm gonna do storage organization at some other time. So you can make that decision. So anything pink in the playbook is gonna be in the pink slash bucket, purple, blue, and green. Now, as we're doing this this way, on the fly a month ago, I switched this from, I'm gonna take you through what is the existing 100-day program and have you pick if you're doing communal spaces or whatever, to we're restructuring this into a 52-week curriculum. Well, there are some things I noticed immediately as I reorganized it into a 1-year program. Okay, I wanna teach you a lot more about how to use your calendar and how to plan your week. And how to plan months. I just told you a minute ago we're coming out with a new, a new tear sheet for months, because we're not going to have a planner anymore. And as soon as I created it, I was like, oh, they need a whole bunch of lessons for this. They'll end up in personal organization. I will be teaching them next fall, but I already know what they are, and I'm going to record them in December, and they'll be popped in your dashboard probably the beginning of 2023. But I won't actually teach them until September of 2023. This is not disorganization, lack of planning, or not knowing what I'm doing. This is teaching. This is what every teacher has ever done. This is what every parent has ever done. Oh, we just had this birthday party and we forgot to have a trash can outside. We need to have those baby wipes so we can wash kids' hands off so they don't have to trample through my house next year. I'm writing that down in the note. Like, this is real life. If you are a growing And a growing, changing, and evolving person, you should always be making things better. So the Productive Home Solution is not done and set in stone. It is a living, evolving course, and you should expect that there are always going to be new things there— changes, iterations, things that are made better. We rarely take things away, so usually we're just gonna keep layering on. And one of the things that we've been layering on, which is super, super fun, Is somebody in the app actually went through and found all of the videos that I did ad hoc, like the fake Lisa TV shows of going through my closet and packing for travel and getting ready in the morning without any makeup on and showing you my whole morning routine. All of those videos are on the website in the dashboard. So when you're like, okay, I'm gonna do closet organization, let's just say you wanna do closet organization. and you go over to the website, not the app, go into the website, and you log into your dashboard, and you go to personal organization, and you go to the closet. There are 7 lessons to click on to do your shoes and do your pants and do that. But above that is another category. And I'm just gonna look at the dashboard real quick. Oh yeah, I'm in it right now. And it says, it just says Primary closet, and then in parentheses it says start here includes Lisa's real life unscripted reality videos. There are three of them in there. I mean, it's like three episodes of a very, very unedited reality TV show. But the great thing about is is one of those of my closet is like from five years ago. So you could see like okay, this is the Lisa of five years ago. And now if you've been listening to the podcast. It's kind of fun to go back and see that. But my closet was a little different then than it is now. So some of these reality TV videos are back when my house is a little bit different. Like in the laundry room is another great example. I just created new laundry room videos because they were just outdated. And every once in a while I'm going to do this. We're going to— Tanya's going to be like, hello, these have to be redone. Okay, fine. So I redid them, but then I said, but don't take away the first video of the laundry room. Because it's so old that you can really see what my laundry room was like before I had this washer and dryer and this dresser. And like, it's a completely different laundry room, even though it's the same laundry room. So that is a fun way for you to be able to get some of that co-working time where you're like, okay, I just want to feel like Tanya and Lisa are doing this with me. Go ahead and go into the dashboard and click on that— not the task, but that first one, that primary closet, or Doing the bathroom or whatever. That is where any extra videos, any old blog posts. So the old blog post that I had in 2013 is in there, which is hysterical because there's a picture of Greg going through his closet, which you should know that's the last time he went through his closet. We've been married 27 years. He's gone through his closet twice. That's physical evidence that he did it in 2013. The time before that, I don't know what it is. So the man, you know. It's almost been 30 years. It's about time for him to go through his closet again. I think he doesn't do it very often, but like, I step by step talk about how I went through my closet with my husband. That kind of stuff is in the dashboard. You may not realize how much of that content is in there. And then there are a whole bunch of podcasts. So in that same one for the closet, like, if you just go over there and check it out after you see those videos, first of all, you could download the old printables out of the old planner. But then there are 5 podcasts. There are 5 podcasts here: Decluttering Your Primary Closet, Organizing Your Primary Closet, Increasing Organization with Your Primary Closet, Primary Closet Organization, and Why I Still Don't Have Clothes to Wear, Podcast 186. So I mean, there's a lot. You could have a whole Saturday watching all of this content if you want more content.

Yes, right, Tanya. We're constantly adding things to that. I mean, It's, it is evolving. When we find a live that you do or that I do or that anyone does that will fit in one of those places, it's added, it's added there. So we're constantly adding.

Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of content there. Virginia is new on our team and she created the ADHD Awareness Month monthly printable and every single cell in the month was clickable. I'm like, what is all this? She's like, this is all of the content that you've created. Over the last 10 years on ADHD. She's like, do you realize that you've done 10 articles for Attitude Magazine? I was like, yeah, but I didn't— nobody knew that. She's like, well, I found them and I put them all in here. And you've done 6 videos for ADHD Online, and you did these podcasts and this book and this post. And she found them all and she put them all on there. And so the team is doing a lot of that too. Like, we have all the content we need. It's just not always where we need it to be. So we are really working on how do we Provide video content of real organizing if you want to see that. Older podcasts that are of what you want to organize today if you want to see that. The actual tactical, like, watch this 1 to 2 minute video and do this one activity for 15 minutes if you want that. And oh, okay. And then also focusing you. So we want to focus you. So one of the things we started with back in September when I realized I've made too many changes, nobody knows where to go and nobody knows what to do. I said, Okay, I will make a focusing video of the week and we will send it out by email. Now we've been adding it into the app, which is fine, and we've been putting it in the dashboard, which is also fine, but it really is created for email. So this email comes to you like end of the workday on Thursday Eastern time, and that is purposeful because as Laura Vanderkam says, 8 AM Monday to 8 PM Thursday is half of the week, and 8 PM Thursday to 8 AM Monday is the other half of the week. I want you to get that email and that quick video, and then you watch that Thursday night or Friday morning, and then you're thinking about it Friday while you're still doing whatever your, like, day job is. And then by the time you get done with the end of that day job, like, it's been marinating in your head. You're like, all right, I'm ready to go. Like, I'm ready for this assignment. And then Saturday morning, Tanya, you're going to start dropping something in the app. What is that going to be?

Well, I'm going to make sure that we're focusing on whatever the, the area is of the week. I'm gonna make sure that we— I share with you any hashtags that you can use, where you can find any additional content, all of the things that you need so that you can then get to work.

Yes, and she's gonna show you a little bit of behind the scenes in her Family, please.

Yes, yes, I will. Yeah. And probably this is gonna be a good time because I'll be moving. So I'll be able to show a little bit of, you know, packing up and storage and those kinds of things, which is great for this time of year because we're about to go into the storage area.

Yeah. And Tanya has twins that are 8. My kids are 21 and 22, and I realize you may not have kids, or your kids may be Not in any of those ages, but I'm looking forward to some of Tanya's videos that have younger kids in it. I really had fun organizing those kids where you're going to see that video in December and show you some of those bedrooms. Part of my limitation right now— I know you're gonna be like— Is that my house is organized. It's the biggest problem I have. My house is organized and I'm technically an empty nester. So, and I don't really have any of Grayson's things to organize quite yet. As I find things, I do, like I'm baby-proofing, but I'm not really doing much organizing yet. Um, so I need better subjects, which leads to— we're also going to be sharing with you sometime later this year Michelle's basement. I flew out to Boston and organized Michelle from customer service in The Sunday Basket. We cleaned out her basement like it was a full basement organization clean out that was super, super fun. I would love to do more of these kinds of things. I'm not sure that's gonna be possible now that I committed to a PhD. But who knows? I'm also crazy, so it, it might be possible. And I think seeing other people, their perspective on organizing, like you can hear it in the Wednesday podcast. But for right now, seeing Tanya's house with 2 kids that are 8 years old and moving is going to be another perspective. And of course we love When you share your photos, like, I know sometimes you're like, oh, I don't want to share. But you know, if you share a photo and you're like, uh, this looks terrible, and everybody's like, no, you're doing so great, we love you, and it's awesome. And we're, you know, like, everybody's cheering. And when you have a really, really, really big project, which I think is Diane from Arizona is going through like that huge organizing, like, I love every time she posts a picture and update, people are like, oh, remember when it was so much worse than this? And like Just really loving on and encouraging each other. Like, we can't do that as much as you can for each other, and you're so, so, so good at doing that. So thank you for that. I think the other thing I want to make sure— I said this in a video that went live in the app, but I want you to hear this on the podcast as well if you are not seeing this video in the app— is that whenever you see Lisa Woodruff Reply to something in the app. If you have an email from Lisa Woodruff, if you DM Lisa Woodruff on Instagram, it is actually me. Like, no, nobody on the team pretends to be Lisa. That would be exhausting, first of all. But nobody pretends to be Lisa. Everyone sends emails from their own name. Even Pat, if she replies in my email, it'll be— she'll sign her name Pat. Like, she doesn't pretend to be Lisa. And if you see anything posting in the app from Organize 365, that's from the team Organize 365. But if I like your post, if I type you a comment, if I post, It's actually me. So, I just want to be clear that nobody's impersonating Lisa, and it really is me talking to you and supporting you and encouraging you in the app. But Tanya has more time and Tanya has more bandwidth inside of the app than I do. And so, we are, we are both there to encourage you as you go through this journey.

Yes. And we love when you share all of those things, photos, stories, It's just, it's really encouraging to us too, to know that we're supporting you and helping you in all the ways that you need. So please keep sharing.

Yes, yes, yes. Okay. And as this podcast is coming out in December, we have 2 big things happening in December. So if you're watching this video on the app, this is what's coming in December. And I told you guys about this yesterday in the app, is we have a new planning day workbook. I've given up the ghost. We are not a planner company. Wait, I just finally am— there's so many companies that make really great planners, and all the different kind of planners, and all the different dimensions and thicknesses and designs that you love. I was giving myself continual migraines trying to figure out how to meet everybody's wishes in an Organized 365 planner, and I was like, okay, I'm done. I'm not, I'm not doing a planner at all. We're gonna have these tear sheets. So we have a monthly one, we're going to have a— we have a weekly one, we're going to have a monthly one, and we're going to continue to make these tear pads where you can actually plan out on paper in your Sunday basket with Monique. That's how that's going to work. But there were some good things that we used to have in the Productive Home Solution Planner, which were the workbook pages that helped you get through the different sections. So we have created 2 separate products. One is The planning day workbook, which is the beginning part of the planner, if you're familiar, that goes with planning day. And planning day is going to be December 30th, December 31st.

Yep, 31st.

Thank you, Tanya. December 31st. It's a detail. Um, so we are going to plan together on New Year's Eve day, which of course I love. Greg's like, you're going to work? Yes, I love it. I love it so much. We have 4 hours and we're going to go through this whole workbook. And we're going to really plan out what you want your January to May to look like and how you're going to tackle the Productive Home Solution for you. And so, because the workbook is essential for Planning Day and there is no planner component, we're no longer selling it à la carte. It just comes with Planning Day. So you either buy Planning Day with the workbook à la carte because you haven't bought it in a while, or You are part of the subscription plan, and you get the workbook as part of the subscription plan. Everybody who shows up to planning day will have the proper workbook materials for the class that I'm going to be teaching. And one of the things we've been doing in both the Workbox planning day and the Productive Home Solution planning day is that I'm really getting Steph and Tanya to participate with me. So I love going through the, the different portions of planning day and getting both Tanya's input and Steph's input when we do the workbox one, because they have different perspectives and they may more better match your stage and phase of life than I personally do. Plus, if you've been coming for a while, you know what I'm going to say. So that is going to be December 31st. So if you're signing up for planning day, it's going to come with a workbook. The workbook will get shipped to you on December 8th. And if you have just recently bought the Productive Home Solution, or you buy the Productive Home Solution before December 8th, the planning day workbook is going to get sent to you. And then on the 9th, 10th, 11th, it'll get sent out right as soon as you buy the Productive Home Solution, because planning day is included the first time you purchase it, and then you can purchase additional planning days after that. Anything you want to add about planning day, Tanya?

Planning day is where I really took the program and just—I mean, that's where it was like—I don't know—exponentially better for me. Like I loved the Sunday basket and the work box that I had. I mean, just all everything. But planning day is like next level, and I just love it so much. I'm—I call it the Super Bowl of planning. I just.

Yes. And we have 3 of them for the home and 4 for work. And, and I, I mean, I know it's weird. Like, I understand that I'm not normal. Like, I've never pretended to be a normal person ever. And I know it is unusual that you would take 3 different days out of the year to plan what you're going to do in your home. But as I said earlier, nobody else is thinking about you like I'm thinking about you. No one else has figured out how to be organized and productive at home like I haven't been able to teach you through the internet. And in order to do that, like, I need my students in class for just 4 hours every 4 months. I don't think that's too much to ask. Just give me 4 hours every 2 months. It's like 1 hour a month, and I will just put rocket fuel in your plan. And just really, every time you come, it's a whole new learning. It's like, it's deeper and deeper. You can never learn everything there is to learn about planning. Like, planning day will always be richer and even more insightful the more you attend it. I don't know how to explain it, but it is true.

And, and you always get something new because you're, you're constantly, you are constantly changing. Like if you're growing in your productivity and you're, you have a family and your family has grown, I mean, just all of those things really add so much benefit by planning.

Yeah. Yeah. And so that is Planning Day. It is a live event. You have a workbook. We go through the workbook. The replay is available for about 25 days, and then the replay goes away. And then 3 months later, we'll have another Planning Day. It's optional. You don't have to do it like you sign up for it. And then we'll explain about the subscription plan also when we get to Planning Day this year. But you should know that we are gonna let the subscription plan be open for everyone that's in the Productive Home Solution. So this is a change. In the past, you had to sign up for Planning Day on the 31st, and then you'd be offered the opportunity to join the subscription because you get the workbook free. And then you couldn't join the subscription plan unless you attended the most recent Planning Day. But after we went through all the different possibilities as a team, we're like, well, they've all already experienced Planning Day, so why can't they just join the subscription anytime? So that's true. So now January 1st to the 24th or something like that, you will be able to join the subscription plan even if you don't attend planning day on the 31st. So for those of you who've been in it for a while, that is a change. Okay, so now let's talk about the playbook. Yes, the playbook. Playbook, Lisa. The playbook is The reason why we haven't had a playbook up until this point is because the playbook is so massive. It's so hard to think about how do you make a textbook for organizing your house? How do you put everything that was in the 100-Day Home Organization Program and all of the blitzes and the binders and the From Hot Mess to Organized Storage course, which is what used to be called, and the moving ebook? And I mean, how do you put all of that into a physical book like this. It's a lot. So I have been playing around with it, and let me just tell you, I just about broke a graphic designer, but she's come back to life. I mean, come on, we can do this. She's like— because she also— this is the same graphic designer that did the workbook for Planning Day and also did our, our planner for the Workbox Planning Day, and she thought those were big projects. And I was like, Wait till we get to the playbook. And now she's like, oh my gosh, how many pages is this gonna be? And I'm like, a lot of pages, a lot, a lot of pages. She's like, wow, you have a lot of content. I'm like, yes, I do. So the playbook is your textbook for the Productive Home Solution. We are coming out with the first edition that will ship on December 8th. So if you're watching this in the planning day in the Productive Home Solution group, Currently we have the playbook on a preorder at a discount, and then December 1st it'll be full price, and then those will all ship out on the 8th. So they will be done, they will ship out on the 8th. And if you purchase the Productive Home Solution before November 1st, 2022, you do not have a playbook. This is a brand new thing. It's part of the price increase. Unless you bought it as part of the ADHD Awareness Month bundle. It was included in there, so nobody has it. Everybody needs to purchase it if you want it. It's optional. You don't have to have it, but it's going to be great. And then the questions are already coming. Do I purchase this every year? You don't have to. Like, you don't have to purchase the playbook every year. It may or may not be new every year. I don't know. We're having this as the first edition. Um, there probably will be changes every year, a little bit here, a little bit there, but not a lot. But if you use it as a workbook, because it has all of the planner printable pages are in there, new pages, tells you when to print out the Blitz printables. We have these new planning pages that are inside of the playbook that correspond with planning days. You can plan out all 4 months inside of your playbook. The bookmark that used to go in the planner fits in the new playbook, so you can have that. That'll remind you to do your Sunday basket routine and keep your place in the planner. Um, yeah, there are— there's just a whole bunch in there. And if you use it as a workbook to guide you through the course, then you might want another one. It's, it's not a very expensive book, um, for the amount of return that you're gonna get, and it will keep you focused. That's why we're creating a playbook. The dashboard has everything you need in it. All of the videos, all the podcasts, all of those things that we cannot put in the playbook are in the dashboard. Because you guys know I'm a paper person. I am totally a paper person. And so I want to have a manual that I can flip open to whatever week we're on, because it's spiral bound, and just leave it open and leave it in my Sunday basket so I can pull it out and do whatever the worksheet is and flip the page and keep going. And I can go to the dashboard. For those of you that have been doing this 3, 4, 5, 6 years, you don't need to watch me do a silverware drawer again. You've seen it 9 times. You see the silverware drawer, you just check it off your list and you keep going. You don't have to even go into the dashboard. And so the playbook is going to be awesome. I cannot wait to have it in your hands so that you guys can give us the feedback and tell us where we could use to make some improvements and how it really does supercharge and make it easier for you to stay on track and keep going. So, Tanya, anything about that?

I just can't wait to see it.

I know, I know. I won't even let the— like, they got to see it yesterday in the video that came out in the Productive Home Solution. Nobody on the team had seen it before then, so they're all watching the video so that they can see what it is, because I have it just between this graphic designer that's not even on our team and myself. So no one has seen it other than the COVID They're like, what is in there, Lisa? What are you putting in there? Like, oh, all the good stuff. Yes. So I just wanted to come on here and really, uh, introduce you to Tanya.

Hi.

And hi, she's Tanya. She's in North Carolina, she's moving to Florida. And you will also see Tanya if you are coming to any of the paper organizing retreats, because the binders are part of paper organizing retreats. So Tanya's there representing the binders, and Monique is there representing the certified organizers and the Sunday Basket. So we will be having paper organizing retreats in Cincinnati in December, in Missouri and South Carolina in March, and we haven't scheduled any beyond then. But those are also our certification events. So that's where you can get certified, and that's where you also can come and do a paper organizing retreat. Tanya will not be in Cincinnati in December, just Monique will be here, but she will be in Missouri and South Carolina. So you can come and meet her and get your binders organized then at the paper organizing retreats. And then you can expect a Thursday afternoon email that gets your juices flowing about how we're going to switch into another area. So this Thursday, at the time of this recording, will be about the Holiday Blitz. We're getting ready to go into the holiday blitz. If you're listening to this on the podcast, it'll probably be very soon. We're going into the Out with the Old blitz and we're finishing up the storage room. And then in January, we're going to go into those family and communal spaces. And then early Saturday morning, Tanya will drop in a video to focus you on what we are all collectively organizing that week. These videos are being dropped in, not live. Like, I love to go live. It's Fun, but I know that your life should not revolve around when I go live or when Tanya goes live. And when you're organizing your house, it's not the same as doing the Sunday basket or the Friday work box where you've set aside this time and we're all doing it at the same time. It's catch as catch can, like wherever you can, you're gonna grab this time to get organizing. And so we want you to have the resources that you need when you need them. But if you comment below those videos, Then we will like chat with you all weekend long about what you're doing and what you're organizing. So we're super excited about these changes. Very few changes are coming in the future. This is the program now. We're all gonna do it together. 52 weeks. This is where we are.

Yes. So glad you're all with us.

Yes, this is gonna be awesome. This is gonna be amazing. And as a teacher, I'll be watching you, and I'll be listening. For, uh, how we need to pivot next and keep moving on dancing together.