In this segment of "The Sunday Basket," host Holly interviews Lisa Woodruff, founder of Organized365, to demonstrate a simple, portable weekly organizing system designed for busy Miami Valley women, especially mothers. Lisa explains that the "Sunday basket" (or bin, bag, or countertop section) is a catch‑all container for all items that normally clutter a kitchen counter—mail, coupons, flyers, kids' toys, project materials, and errands. By dumping everything into the basket throughout the week and then, on Sunday night, sorting, labeling, and transferring items to a digital Google Calendar or a to‑do list, users can clear mental clutter and plan the upcoming week. She shares practical tools such as slash pockets for project segregation, bull clips for large projects, and labels for quick identification. The basket is portable, allowing it to be moved to a car, library, or another room for processing. The conversation also touches on handling bills, returning borrowed items, and selling kids' games. The segment ends with a call‑to‑action directing viewers to Organized365.com for more resources.
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Thanks so much, Holly. Well, all this week we have been trying to make ladies out there, our busy Miami Valley ladies, make your life a little bit easier. Well, today we have Lisa Woodruff from Organized 365. She's going to show you how to organize everything in this basket. This basket, guys, will change your life.
Right.
How does it do it, this magic basket, Lisa?
So this Sunday basket is really everything that's normally on your kitchen counter and cluttering your mind and cluttering your life, and we're going to put it in one isolated area and deal with it once a week. Alright.
Why do you call it a Sunday basket? Is that the day that you kind of sift through everything?
Yeah. This I started 10 years ago myself when I had 2 little babies and there was just stuff everywhere and I never had any time alone to myself. But Sunday night at 8 o'clock, my husband would go to bed, the kids would go to bed, and I would have time to myself. And I would go through everything for the week and make my plan for the week.
Alright, great idea. So let's first tackle mail because that's the biggest thing that can get you so overwhelmed, especially when it starts to pile up during the week. So Patty, what do you do with it?
So sometimes you can keep on top of your mail. I have a friend who just leaves it in her mailbox because it's easier to just take it out once a week. But often a lot of the stuff that's going to come in the mail you either can just recycle right away or you don't need to deal with it yet. You don't need to open it. It'll wait until Sunday.
Unless it's a bill or—
If it's a bill, but usually bills come within enough time that you can pay them on Sunday. I pay our bills on Saturday. So I take all the mail, all the coupons, and everything that comes to read and I just put it in the Sunday basket.
Okay, everything goes in the Sunday basket. Now, not only mail in the Sunday basket, what else can you organize in there?
So you'll get a lot of flyers at home that need to go on your calendar, and I don't have a paper calendar anymore. I have a Google Calendar. So I put that in the Sunday basket so I can put it all on my Google Calendar.
You have a Google Calendar because you just got an iPhone.
I have an iPhone. She's so excited about her iPhone.
And of course, if you're busy and you're working, you have lots of files from work.
Right.
Another thing you can stash in your Sunday basket.
Yep, a lot of my readers are working from home, and so I teach them how to use slash pockets for different projects. Those are great. And then if you have a really big project, just put a bull clip on it. And then all of these can be in the Sunday basket.
There you go. And also, if you check out the labels, which also help to make things a little easier when you're organizing. And you mentioned juggling kids.
Right.
That can get crazy too. But the kids' games can also go in the Sunday basket.
Right, because we're going to sell these. We went through, we figured out these are going to be sold, so I either need to list them on Craigslist or take them to GameStop, so they're going to go in the Sunday basket.
Do your kids know you're giving these away?
Yeah, they do. Okay.
It wasn't breaking news, right?
No, not yet.
What else goes in there?
So I got this from a friend and I just finished listening to this book in my car. I need to return that to her. And I just found this CD that I need to return to another friend. So I'll put that into the Sunday basket.
In the Sunday basket.
Because on Sunday night I make my to-do list for the week. So I'll make a list of all of the errands I need to run and put all those things in my front seat of my car and do that on Monday. Right.
And we mentioned it doesn't necessarily have to be a basket. It can be a bin, right?
It can be a bag, a bin, a section of your counter. But if it's portable, it's great because then you can take it to a library or take it to another room to go through it.
