Professional organizer Lisa Woodruff describes her Sunday basket system: a single basket where you collect papers and to-dos each week, then sort what matters. Once that works, add specialized baskets for work, projects, caregiving, shared household tasks, or kids' forms, but master the basic one first.
Chapters
Everyone needs a Sunday basket. I know, you guys, I'm totally obsessed with this Sunday basket thing. I have shared with you one Sunday basket, creating one Sunday basket where everything, all of your to-dos, things that need to go on your calendar, bills that need to be paid, anything that would end up on your kitchen counter ends up in a basket. You empty it all out on Sunday, touch every piece of paper, every slash pocket, and decide, can this wait until next Sunday? And then put it back in. We are going to go to Sunday Basket 2.0 today, and I'm going to talk about having additional Sunday baskets and Sunday baskets for other people in your life. However, I want you to hear me. If you've not mastered using the Sunday basket, I don't want you to jump to this step because what's going to happen is now we're going to be trying to keep track of multiple Sunday baskets. And on those busy weeks, I know what's going to happen. is you are going to decide to either not go through any of the Sunday baskets or only one of the Sunday baskets, and that's when the whole system falls apart. So the second Sunday basket that I ever created was my work Sunday basket. Now, you guys know me pretty well, and you know I usually have my hand in a couple of cookie jars. So when I say work Sunday basket, it's all of the different jobs that I have— professional organizing in Cincinnati, Blogging, podcasting, helping other people become professional organizers, now doing the Sunday Basket Workshop licensing program. Like, these are all work Sunday Basket related tasks. Now let's talk about a project basket. So a project basket, I don't have it very often, but when I have a big project going on, I'll pull out another basket just for that project. Like, let's say we're getting ready to go on our family trip to Florida. I'll pull out a Probably a laundry basket usually for that. If you are a caregiver or you are handling an estate, that person or that estate needs its own basket. Now, how the Sunday basket works between my husband and I is I slide things over to his side of the counter when they are his, and when I'm tired of looking at them sitting on the kitchen counter, I put them in his Sunday basket because I know that he's seen them and he hasn't decided what he wants to do with them yet, if he wants to shred them, recycle them, or whatever. So just like you knowing that in your Sunday basket is everything that you need to take action on, same thing for your kids. We are training them to look in one place for papers and to-dos. So they need one place where you always put a form they need to fill out, mail they need to go through, you know, requests for what you buy at the grocery store. All needs to go in the Sunday basket. And you say, have you checked your Sunday basket? It's in your Sunday basket. Look in your Sunday basket.
