Organizing Personal Spaces

Swiss cheese organizing. That is what we talked about last week. All right, next week I'm gonna have some fake Swiss cheese because this Swiss cheese isn't gonna hold on very much longer for all of my analogies, and I have a lot of Swiss cheese analogies that we are going to make today on the podcast. We're talking just about the personal spaces that you organize in your home: your closet, your bathroom. Your bedroom, your purse, wallet, and backpack, and your transportation. All of these pieces are 100% in your control. And I think this is one of the things that makes us very frustrated about learning the skill of organization, is we start in the family room, which is like the worst place to start, and we can't understand, A, why we can't organize a family room. A family room is really hard to organize. And B, why our family doesn't follow our organization. But your closet, like, they're your clothes. They fit, they don't fit, they need to go, you need more clothes, you need less clothes. Like, you know what you need, you can tackle that. Your bathroom, where you get ready, your beauty supplies, your hygiene supplies, your— I use Epsom salts in my bath. That is all in your control. Your bedroom, or at least your part of the bedroom— your nightstand, your side of the bed, what happens when you get out of the bed in the morning— that is all in your control. Don't think of the whole bedroom, just think about the spaces in your control. Your purse, your wallet, your backpack, how you carry yourself from when you leave the home until you get back, and the transportation that you use to do that in— this is all in your control. This is 100% in your control. And one of the things I found when I personally was getting myself organized organized is if you just focus on you and what you can do next and what you are in control of, you feel so much more empowered and you start living a proactive versus a reactive life. Now in the research that Organize 365 just released at organize365.com/research, you will find 87%, 80% of 87% of those polled in America agreed that organization is a learnable skill. How many people polled do you think said that yes, they have a plan for and they feel personally organized? 15%. That is less than 1 in 6. So less than 1 in 6 of us feel like we have these areas mastered. And you guys, these are all 100% in your control. Your closet, your bathroom, your bedroom, your purse, wallet, and backpack, and your transportation— these areas are in your control. And what I want to teach you in this series— this is the first of a 6-part series— is as we look at just this column of things that are personal organization related, we can make a plan and we can actually get that done in a short amount of time. So find out more by going to organize365.com/research. And then pick one of these blocks: your closet, your bathroom, your bedroom, your purse, wallet, or backpack, or your car, and tackle that this weekend. Like, feel some accomplishment and then keep it maintained. That is the first step in getting it organized. So me, where am I right now? I am actually in Baltimore. I'm recording this in advance, and I am speaking at the NAPO conference, the National Association of Productivity organizers, and I'm speaking about our research that we did last year on the weight of paper, which has been super fun. And I turned this into a whole nerd vacation for myself. My husband's like, I, I— how do you cram more like nerd-related things into a week? I said, I don't know, give me more time and I, I will figure it out. So I left home last Sunday, I went through Pittsburgh, went to Harrisburg University where we have our IRB, our internal review board for all of our research that we're doing. Hopefully I got a sweatshirt. I'm recording this before I go there. Then I went and I saw a presidential home at Wheatland, President Buchanan's home. And then I went to Philadelphia and met some of you, which was so much fun. I know it's gonna be so much fun in the future. And then I met an author that I have liked for a long time for breakfast. And then I met up with Monique and we did another meet and greet in Baltimore. And now this morning I am, or this afternoon I'm presenting at NAPO our research. And then after this, tomorrow morning, so Saturday morning, I am like creating my own little retreat weekend. So Saturday and Sunday I'll be driving from Baltimore all the way back to Cincinnati, but I'm stopping in Dresden, Ohio, which is a place I have always personally wanted to go because I love Longaberger baskets and I want to shop all those little stores. And I'm staying in a special inn there that has like the biggest bathtub, like bathtub the size of my house. I'm so excited. And I am going to finish planning everything for Embrace and planning my summer for my family. So these are— these retreat planning things that I do are why I think I'm able to do as much as I'm able to do and why I'm so focused about what I am going to do and what I am not going to do. So Embrace, which is at the end of June, this is our last Embrace conference. I'll be finishing up all those talks. So that we can put the workbook into production in the beginning of May. And planning day, if you haven't joined us for planning day that goes with the Productive Home Solution, this is how we look at our— I don't know how to do thirds. I can only do this one. Picture it, our summer third, and then we have our, our September to December third of the year, and then we have this third of the year that we're just finishing up now, January until May. Like I plan, I plan for my summer, I plan for my fall, I plan for my winter and spring, and now is the time I'm going to start planning for summer. I'm going to plan a family trip, and I'm hopefully going to plan another nerd trip as long as all of the things match up. So I turned 50 in March, and I love to travel, and right now I'm traveling by car anywhere I could travel by car. I love it. I love driving, I love thinking, I love planning. And I'm visiting all of the places I would love to go if I were having adult field trips and I was being adult homeschooled. So I picked all these places that are near Cincinnati that I could drive to where I can get that history of the United States and the history of America and industry. I love industry and I love politics, so anything related to those is what I am trying to find more for, and that is all for me. That is filling me. I love being a wife. I love being a mother. I love being a grandmother. I love being a business owner. But also, I have these unique passions that are just unique to me, and I'm starting to carve out a little bit of our budget and a little bit of my time so that I can really feed those— just those unique learnings that I want to do. Mother's Day is coming up in just a little over a week, so So if you're thinking like, oh, I would, I would like to be able to hashtag permission granted and without guilt go away overnight and just think about what I want next for me, or I would like to be able to have a day to plan out and do planning day or to do the Productive Home Solution or start my Sunday basket or go to the Embrace Conference. If you ask for it as a gift, then your family could give it to you as a gift and then guilt-free you get to enjoy it. So put some of those things on your wish list. You can get gift certificates and actually where your family will go pay the money and then you will get the gift after they give it to you on Mother's Day. You could just go to our shop. We have gift certificates in there. And then the last thing I wanted to say today is, did you catch the over 2.5-hour podcast that dropped on Wednesday? Like, who has time to listen to a podcast that's 2.5 hours long? Well, Emily Kelly, my sister, and I recorded a really long podcast where we went through her whole journey with Organized 365. That's been a little bit over 4 years. She has found what she is uniquely created to do. You'll have to listen to the podcast to hear where she is. She's not with Organized 365 anymore, and I couldn't be happier for her. And we really go into, you know, her transformation over the last 4 years and also what was going on inside of Organized 365 in those 4 years as well. So if you like hearing like all the behind the scenes and all the nitty-gritty about my family, you will love that podcast. If you're just here to learn the skill of organizing and you don't need all the nuances of every single thing my sister and I have ever done, skip it. You can totally skip it. But for those of you that really like it, you're gonna really love it. All right, well, I am off to speak today. I cannot wait to share our research with the professional organizers who have gathered from all over the country and probably all over the world so that they too can understand how we can reduce the weight of paper both mentally and physically in our homes and help you get organized where they live. Have a great weekend, you guys.