Are you having trouble changing your focus from money to time? Well, in 2018, I want you to start valuing and looking at your time differently. Who you spend your time with, what you spend your time on, and how you want to spend your time in the future.
In today’s podcast, I am answering the question, “How did I purposefully create the Organize 365 business and organized life that I am living right now?”
It is true. I am fulfilled, satisfied, and debt free, but it hasn’t always been like this. It has been a journey. For me, the change came when I hit 40. I think milestone birthdays are like a window of opportunity to think about how we spend our time and money, and to make shifts to propel us through the next decade.
Shifting Focus
At 40, I changed my focus from money to time. I started to focus on what I loved doing and how I could get back more time to do the things I love doing. I realized that Organize 365 was not just about organization itself, but that being organized gives you back the time to allow you to live out your life and be fulfilled.
For me, the thing I love the most is podcasts. I love listening to them, producing them, and talking about them. The great thing about podcasts is that I’m pretty sure you are not only listening, you’re doing… driving, exercising, cooking, working or, like me, you’re listening when you are supposed to be sleeping (yes, I actually do that!).
The first decades of my working life, I had been focused on pursuing money. I was never the breadwinner in the family and I never wanted to be. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and, in my mind, this is what my role was. I was just earning a little extra cash on the side.
Greg and I were sacrificing everything to earn more money, so that we could do… whatever, but we had no time and we were damaging the things we cared about, like our kids’ health, our marriage, and our finances. You should have seen the state of my house back then! It was not working for me to work outside the home. So in December 2011, I quit my job as a teacher.
I come from a long line of entrepreneurs. My dream was to employ people and to help them be successful so that is when I launched the Organize 365 blog and my professional organizing business. I didn’t have many jobs. But when I was away from home, I was being well-paid for it and it gave me the flexibility to work around my family.
No one has a life like I do now without putting in the time, money, and effort it takes to get there. It is not a magical occurrence that you suddenly have time and money. It is a purposeful decision and for me, it was when I stopped prioritizing money and started prioritizing time.
The Birth of The Productive Home Solution
In order to achieve one thing, I had to purposefully let go of another. This is called planned neglect, where a task needing to be done is deliberately neglected for an amount of time for a certain reason. I love this! I neglected cleaning in lieu of organizing.
In 2012, I lived, ate, slept, and breathed organizing. If I wasn’t organizing someone else’s house, I was organizing my own… and boy did it need it! We had been functioning on the “sleep, work, dump” method until one day, I couldn’t even put my shopping on the countertops or put it away in the cupboards. So I made a list.
The plan was to organize all 40 areas of my house in 40 days (this was the start of the blog). But this only decluttered my space, it didn’t organize it. So I expanded the 40 days into 40 weeks and organized my whole home that school year.
Today, The Productive Home Solution is made up of 15-minute tasks each day. It is very prescriptive, educational, task-oriented, and very easy to follow. It was not like that in the beginning. I had to do it 3 times in order to become more productive.
I knew when I started the blog that it would take time, but that eventually I would be able to earn money while I slept. The Productive Home Solution does this for me. I am not physically there with you, but I give you my time in this podcast, in the Facebook Group, designing the new planner, creating the system, etc. But this program could not have existed without the other stuff that came before it.
Hiring People Multiplies Your Time
Having faith that Organize 365 would one day be an international brand gave me the confidence to invest in my team.
Today, I employ people to help with cleaning my house, writing my blog posts, managing social media, imagery, and a virtual assistant. If I didn’t have this, I wouldn’t be able to create the content that I do.
Frugality saves you money but often costs you time. And it takes a lot of people to do what I do at Organize 365 now. I have to think more frugally about my time.
You cannot make a big shift in your environment without changing something.
Creating My Own Industry
To grow, I had to change, too. I changed who I followed, who I listened to, and who I spent money and time with. They had to have the life I wanted, to be ahead of me in business and creating their own industry.
In 2016, I followed and spent time with new people and small business owners who were a few months to a year ahead of me and tried to do what they had been doing, reading, listening to, etc. The result – I doubled my business outputs and income. In 2017, I 10x’d this – I looked to people who were 5 years ahead of me with the goal to exponentially grow my business.
The Sunday Basket® came to life to help people organize paper, an industry that does not exist right now. There are products out there, but not a specific box you go through on a Sunday. That was not a thing and it was a huge leap of faith to create a whole industry around this idea.
Now, it is a podcast, a physical and online workshop, a club, and a best-selling book planned for 2019.
In every instance, the people I followed could all see their success before it happened and that is how I saw the Sunday Basket®. In February, we will be expanding on this idea to include a different box on a Friday related to work and passion projects.
What Does 2018 Have In Store?
There are so many exciting things happening this year. I am getting ready to attend homeschooling conventions and writing a book proposal. I have a time expert joining me on my podcast in February and I can’t wait for that discussion. But I am most excited about the preparations that are underway for the National Convention on June 8th.
This is something you really don’t want to miss. It is all about productivity and I’m so excited about the content, the activities, helping you to understand productivity on a different level, setting your plan in place, and lots of other great stuff. Put the date in your diary now and stay tuned.
Remember, Organize 365 is not just about getting your home organized. It makes you think, expands your mind, and gives you the time back to ponder what that thing is that you were put on this earth to do. Take time to think about what lights you up. Start looking around, pay attention. Time and money are holding you back from living out that life’s purpose.
Organize 365 Mission, Vision & Values
Mission: To inspire, motivate, and teach busy women to take back their home and paper with practical and doable organizing systems and programs that work.
Vision: Through research, targeted surveys, and data analysis, Organize 365 will bring to light the organizational needs of the homeowner to shape and develop the discussion about the “stuff” in American homes through podcast conversation and book-thought leadership.
As a trusted leader in home and paper organization, Organize 365 will be the “go-to” resource for busy women, future professional organizers and home-organizational brands, and the media.
Organize 365 will help the homeowner finally get organized with home and paper organization courses, products that combine teaching and application of practical organization principles.
Values: We value the power of positivity. Our words, mindset, and actions shape our reality. Organize 365 uses empowering words to shape personal change. We build community. In community, everyone can learn to be organized, action is easier and happens exponentially.
Organize 365 believes organization is a learnable skill. We live life in abundance. Resources are not limited, but limitless. Through collaboration, Organize 365 connects the right people and resources for maximum benefit and sustainability.
We believe in transformational freedom. As you let go of one thing, you are open to receiving the next. We strive to unlock your life’s purpose through the process of decluttering, organizing, and increased productivity.
I hope you have enjoyed learning a little about the roots of Organize 365!
Ask yourself this… If I could do, be, and have anything in the world and I didn’t have to worry about all the things that I’m worrying about, what would that look like?
