A GENIUS Way To Be More Productive with Lisa Woodruff

today's podcast is going to blow your mind and I am not saying that lightly this we're going to talk about a concept that I had never heard before that makes so much sense I just can't wait to share it with you I am interviewing the incredible Lisa Woodruff from organized 365 she's the CEO of organized 365 the founder of and creator of the Sunday basket she is hands down one of the leading productivity experts in the world like honestly and she has incredible systems in place and she's so passionate about especially helping women get a hold of their life and their home and get it organized so that it feels effortless are you ready for this prepare to get your mind blown welcome Lisa to the clutterbug podcast I am very excited to have you here today Cass thanks for having me back I gushed about you and how incredible you are and all the things that you do but I just want to jump right in because one of your latest podcasts blew my mind and I would love to talk about your concept of being a train engineer versus driving a car this you this concept and how you put it I've never heard anyone explain it like this before and it makes so much sense to me and it blew my mind so please I mean I was driving a moped for a long time in my life with like everything piled on top and then I was driving a car and then I'm now I'm a train engineer and um what a incredible please if you could let my listeners know and give them and then let's talk about this because mindblowing okay great would I I love about this is you and I both have a very similar mindset and a very similar speaking style like we have a lot of cross-pollination in our audiences we are both kind of just two women who figured it out basically and somehow we ended up in business I think is how we would both describe ourselves um and I think that is so true especially for women like you become an adult you end up with this house you end up with whatever and all of a sudden you evolve these responsibilities and women who appear to have it all together have figured this train system out and I am constantly as a kindergarten teacher trying to Art analyze and articulate why do some women seem to be able to go through unexpected events and not lose their mind at least publicly and others like can't seem to get past 9:00 a.m. every day and they're like I'm done I guess I'll try again tomorrow and so I've constantly as a child I was watching my my dad's big family like how did some of his aunts act and other ones didn't or my mom's family versus my dad's family or like people I Babys set for I've been like studying women my entire life and now I feel as a woman who owns a company and lives with a grandchild and two working on adulting children um and now getting my PhD like I still have time HD I I was going to bring that up later but yeah I still have time and you're running this insane business and you're getting your doctorate like can we just calm down Lisa ex calm down a little bitzy so then women like me who have figured this train system out which I'll explain in a minute then have to go oh well it's no big deal the PHD only takes 30 hours a week I'm only working 40 hours a week in the business like so it's no big deal because if you take 168 hours minus 70 hours that's still 98 hours and then like they were're trying to tell you this math and you're like I can't get my laundry done in one week I can't even talk to you Lisa about doing all these things it has taken me 12 years to be able to articulate this in a way that people are like that that is what is different between productive organized people and non-productive people and it's this car versus train your train is like a is like an amazing streamlined fancy I don't know it's solar powerered it's incredible it's super fast I got like a coal locomotive over here but you're doing it so much better than me but that but the point is I'm still on a train and when I try to explain to people I never heard this Con like it blew my mind because when I'm trying to explain to people like yeah it seems like I can get a lot more done and I'm trying to find the words of what that system is yes you put it so eloquently like this is the the coolest metaphor I've ever heard and it hits it right on the head of why some people are just screaming through life getting so much done and still they don't seem to be working harder and why other people are running around like crazy pants and yet not getting things done so genius there so this idea clicked when I was thinking about us you and me as an entrepreneur wearing all the hats trying to do all the things versus like Proctor and Gamble or GE in Cincinnati like these long history companies that have like all of these systems and structures and I keep trying to articulate in my PhD program to my adviser and my uh professors look I want to create in the household what happened in the 50s 60s and 70s in corporations like everybody used to just go to work and you were told what to do and then somewhere along the way they created all these systems and processes and procedures inside of work so that literally you can get hired and onboarded and maybe you don't even talk to a person because there's all this structure inside of Corporations we don't have any structure inside of houses so I'm thinking about this I'm thinking about this I'm like how do I explain this in a real life so I like what is the difference between how I handle a lot in one day versus other people or how I personally used to handle a lot in one day so how I used to handle a lot in one day 12 years ago was I had a minivan and I would load that minivan up like it was a mobile tenement on Wheels my trunk I called it a closet like we had extra clothes we had extra coats like for the unexpected I had a lunchbox in there at one point there was a rat living in our garage that really liked The Lunchbox because I had so many snacks in my car like I mean just you know yes all state covered all of that I when my kids were little I had a portable potty in there at one point I was driving around with a Crockpot in my car this is like thing because people are like organization means being prepared at all times for every that's what the perception is of organization I have a best friend who's like I'm organized her purse is overflowing her car is full of everything like this is the perception of organization carry everything with you at all times so always be prepared at a moment's notice yeah mind you this car has 100 ,000 miles on it it did have a rat living in it for a month which I kept driving it around like the crock pot was not clean like it was you were not putting me on a TV show but I had whatever I needed wherever I went because my life was so unpredictable because I was constantly driving all these kids and like drop one kid off then run and do a Professional Organization job for four hours then go back and pick up that kid and then take him to that therapy appointment and then try to pay bills in the car while you're going like and you're just like trying to get it all done in your car and the awesome part about your car is like it is yours like you can and I drive a lot of places instead of fly because if I get that phone call I can literally get in the car and I could be on my way home I could pivot and pick up that kid who's sick at school I can go get the dog or whatever like you have the ability to Pivot and keep moving the problem is when you're driving a car you can't do anything else other than listen to podcasts really and you know talk to or scold your children whichever um you cannot multitask while you're driving so you're locked into this driving and you can only be in one place at one time because when you're on your way to one place you're leaving this other place that you need to be which is why I started the Sunday basket 20 years ago as a mobile basket that I would use in all these doctor's office that I was in to try to keep up on the administration part of my life while I was just sitting everywhere or sitting in Carline I would try to use all these tiny pockets of time and it is effective and it is more productive and you do start to get a glimmer of a piece of control when you start to really stock your car as if it's you know a mobile home and you try to use every single second the problem is you get burned out because it's just constant every single five seconds that I wasn't allocating towards some task I knew I was falling farther and farther behind and I was getting more and more stressed out if you look at your life as you're driving a car right it's like am I going left am I going right is there a shortcut which do I have to go you're waiting for traffic you have to stop at all the stop signs most people in their lives are driving a car that's like their life and it's great because you can maneuver and you can multitask and you can do things but there's constant things out of your control at all times and there's distractability everywhere and it's decision fatigue yes yes totally so I was thinking how did I move from that to this literally doing three full-time jobs and doing a puzzle last night for fun and I was like is because of planning and putting in systems and processes like my house runs like a corporation now and I used to not like that because I wanted to be the stay-at-home mom it sounds so clinical and it sounds so cold and like I'm a robot but the truth of the matter is I have so much capacity to actually be there for people and support people because I have so much more capacity so how did I do that and that's when I realized you have to create trains but you cannot have trains until you have trained tracks so the first thing you have to do is is you have to stop and that's what I did in 2012 quit my job came home I was like I can't keep running like a rat in a maze for another 60 years if I'm going to turn 40 and I'm going to live to be 100 like I want out of this mace I want to create my own thing so you set up train tracks and your train tracks start with organizing your house organizing your personal life and starting to plan every day and then every week and then every month and then you start to get where you could plan more and more out in advance trains run on a pre-planned track trains can't go Offroad and just go anywhere they want to so you can either have the spontaneity and the chaos of driving the car everywhere or the planned purposeful productivity of a train but once you get on the train the train is going in One Direction and it Mak certain stops and you have to be on the train when the train is at that stop my train is not as efficient as your train but I'll tell you what I have systems in place that take me from one moment to the next throughout my day and I don't allow myself to get derailed here's an example I empty the dishwasher right before when I'm making dinner so today there's a bunch of dishes on the counter it could be done I could stop in but no I do that at this time and I walk past and I keep focused on the things that I have to get done that I know that I get done and it's every day is very similar there's some flexibility but it's those tracks that are keeping me moving fast and not getting distracted and not having decision fatigue and I love also how you talk about your train that you're building so first you lay the tracks and I want you to give examples of what those tracks would be but then you also build cars on like the train cars yes Lisa this is so freaking brilliant please keep going keep going okay so the train tracks are yes at first when you realize okay I need to have structure in my day like I had structure when I was in school or like a corporation person would have structure they would have a a beginning a middle and an end of their day so you need a a morning and an evening routine I'm not doing yoga for three hours and meditating and any of that stuff but I do have this is what I do in the beginning of the day this is what I do at four o'clock when I get home from work between 4 and six and this is what I do before I go to bed those like anchors to your day and then you make the mental decision that I am going to become a more proactive and less reactive person which means yes I'm going to lose a tiny bit of my spontaneity but also I'm going to gain back capacity and so I'm going to move from a car to a train and initially you're just the engine like just the engine is on this track just like you said and the engine is going down the track it's saying okay I did my morning routine I did my afternoon routine I did my evening routine and like for example an e an afternoon routine this is something also I don't hear a lot of people talk about but is GameChanger for me that is when you end your work day or when your kids come home from school until after dinner for some people it's 15 minutes for some people it's 3 hours but it's all the things that have to get get done during that time and your train engine runs because you have a Sunday basket so the Sunday basket is your weekly planning time and your catchall time and you're planning for the next week and you get used to okay I'm going to plan on Sunday for the next week and when I say plan on Sunday I mean pay the bills and make sure all the permission slips are signed and all of that but also I'm going to look at my week ahead what is the weather what work obligations do I have what extracurricular school things are there what doctor's appointments we have whatp holidays are coming up out of nowhere real and made up holidays doesn't matter we have to celebrate them all now um do I have everything I need for all of those have I stocked my car which is now a train for everything that I'm going to need have I looked at my budget and pulled out the cash that I need because this is a a hair week so I need more cash L any decisions you can make on Sunday for your week you make on Sunday so that during the week you're just running the plan that you've made on Sunday and that is the engine the Sunday basket the morning afternoon evening routine just that alone is lifechanging life changing like like life changing here's an example so we have a play tonight for my daughter and Sunday so we knew when we when I planned for the week that I had to get because this is cash only I had to get cash out so we plan to get the cash out on the day we're going to the bank we know like we think the whole week and ahead yes so that we're not like oh crap we got to stop at the bank on the way to the play and that sounds like such a small no big thing but it's all these little decisions that you make and all these little things that add up to chaos and and distractability and time yes and it's cognitive overwhelm like they have science has shown that we only have so many decisions for the day so I like to say in the morning you have a good morning routine when you are listening to a podcast or daydreaming about your day and you forgot anything that you did if you end up making at the coffee machine going how did I get ready this morning that is the right morning routine if you're checking things off of a checklist that is not the right morning routine the whole point of these tracks of these morning routines like you said with the dishes is to know there is a time and a place for that so that you have free the time and the mental capacity right now for what you're supposed to be doing which is not dishes or thinking about what you're going to wear today it is work to create those tracks that's the thing so I had to have reminders and repetitively do it but the the real secret I think is to not get off those tracks like to like no this is what I'm doing and it doesn't have to be insane things it's like I get done work I empty the dishwasher I start making dinner like I do those things and then after dinner we reload the dishwasher every night at my nighttime routine I tidy the house for 15 minutes I reset things I start the dishwasher like it's little I know this sounds so silly to say this out loud but those are tracks and I never thought of it that way those are tracks that no matter what I do those and now I don't have to think about them because I work so hard to lay them and the laying of those tracks are habits and they take a long time to actually become just like motor memory and you're just doing them and I don't know about for you but for me like in my 30s I waited so long to get these blessings through adoption these two little babies I wanted to be a stay-at home life mom since I knew that was like an optional thing like that's what I want to apologize like what degree can I get until I become a state home mom like I just want to be a state home mom and when I was a stay-at home mom like the fact that I had Variety in when I did dishes and what I made and what my schedule was for the day was part of my job description of being a stay-at-home mom and like planning my day and it was fun um but I think that we resist some of that structure at home because it's boring it's too robotic it's too clinical it's too cold I want my family to be loving I want it to be warm I want to be spontaneous I want to be but what happens is when you are that way for everything you're exhausted and you're not really happy by six o'clock at night yeah I I I mean I feel like I'm definitely I hate structure well I I in my mind I tell myself I hate structure I'm a free spirit ah free Spirit cast was a hot mess sandwich okay I have a little bit of structure in my day but that's all I need my train isn't as big as you yours it doesn't go as fast as yours but let me tell you now that I'm not driving a car I get so much more done I have so much more time to relax in my day that I can do the fun spontaneous things because the house the finances the the the big stuff is on autopilot it doesn't even feel like work my it feels feels effortless to maintain a home but I'll tell you I moved here 6 months ago and so at my old home things were running like a well oiled machine and I'm like oh I just have my life together I moved to a new house and suddenly I find myself in a Honda Civic again and I love I you have mentioned many times like you're the anti-pr organizer professional organizer like you like to have the that's why I think this is such a great conversation because I think people do view US differently I have so much time and and I will say that the reason why I think you think my trains are running so fast is because I have actually created a corporation and another train which is my team and so my team runs a lot of I mean obviously none the podcasts or the interviews that I do but shipping and ordering and customer service and running the clubs and like that those are done by literal people like there's trains and they each have trains and and like we're all doing this so the household part you know I am only working 30 hours a week in the business while I work 30 hours a week on the PHD so I'm working 60 hours a week but not inside of my company 60 hours a week you just you are a productivity not expert that you but but it's but look at the the results speak for themselves like I want to be more like you you're amazing I I dip my toe in the water and it is so much better it's so much better being a a train conductor and um and it took me a while to build new tracks in this house and I was frustrated because it is well it was frustrating because I had to kind of learn new things and there's a lot more work to be done and new tracks to be done and now six months later I'm on autopilot here and it it it feels effortless and so um I want this for the listeners but I think your concept of moving from driving around your life in a car to riding on a train because you're going in one you can go so much faster you're getting so much done you're so much more efficient is so brilliant because it it makes you look at the concept of routine differently and it gives you real perspective of what it looks like which is I don't get derailed in the day with all the little things around me because I know when I'm tackling those later I have a plan of when I'm doing these things when I pay the bills when I meal plan when I go grocery shopping when I do do the housework that I I'm able to ignore the all the stop signs in the traffic lights because I'm on a track man and I'm just going along fast in my day and I can read a book or watch a movie while I do it because because I'm on a train I'm on a freaking I'm on a mother freaking train Lisa so so Cass I think um I want to talk about the train cars but but before we go to that I want to really dive into this idea I think that we all have that we do want to be spontaneous and fun and available for novelty and newness and relationships and connection and if you did not have a productive mother or maybe you did have a productive mother and then you appeared that she was cold which could be too but if you did not see someone who was productive and also a available for fun you think you have this either or in your head and what I have found to be true for myself is the more that I create better systems and structures at home so we've laid the tracks we're now moving to weekly planning we're a conductor of a train we're doing the Sunday basket we haven't even added any cars yet all of a sudden I have more capacity and this is why I'm getting my PhD because I'm trying to figure out what actually happens in the the brain when a woman becomes organized and she is not doesn't have this cognitive overload what I found is when women started doing organized 365 and they did the Sunday basket and then the productive Home Solution and then the paper they got to a point and it does take one to three years to get all the way organized all your cars that we're going to talk about get on your track they got their trains going with all their cars and Cass they were mad at me not mad mad but they were frustrated and do you know why no oh they had nothing to do at home which meant they had to figure out what they had to do with their life because organized 365's mission is not really about organization at all our mission which has been our mission for eight years is organize 365 helps you get your home functionally organized so that you have time to do what you are uniquely created to do and so many of us especially women get so trapped in the dayto day that we have totally stopped dreaming and we have forgotten what it is we want to do like I have a coach for my PhD and each time we meet she says I don't even know why you're getting the PHD because you already have the podcast and you're already coming out with a theories I said I know but I want to publish them she goes why you're already reaching so many people in these ways like what is it you think this PhD is going to give you and I just said I just want to get it because I just want to get it like I don't even have to get it like I just want to get it why can't somebody who's 52 just go get a PhD cuz they feel like it I just and you have the capacity to do it have the room in your life yeah yeah when I first got kind of things going on autopilot I was stay-at home mom running a daycare and I looked around and thought Oh suddenly I have time I was like it what do I do with it I was bored because I was working so hard I was managing the mess for so long every moment was filled with chaos that I didn't feel ever bored because it was never boring and then when things started getting easier I was like wait a minute and I just kept adding to the plate and adding to the plate and adding to the plate but then that felt effortless I'm not getting my PhD but I just became um a volunteer uh medic and I'm doing this and I'm running a charity I just started a charity for my stepdad and I'm writing a new book and it's like and still running a business yes and still have tons of time for Netflix I know see we're both weird I watch a ridiculous amount of TV I listen to at least an audio book a week a whole book A Week plus the PHD Plus work plus Greg wants to watch like five hours of TV I'm just like and I'm doing like getting through all jig we watch like three episodes a day yeah I'm ordering 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzles now so that they'll last a couple weeks I'm like this is insanity and I think this is the lie that has been sold to women you can't have it all so don't even try BS BS we work hard that's also a lie that you have to work harder that like do more do more it's not about doing more it's about being more efficient it takes about three years in order to truly become an organized person and I've never said it takes any less than that like I've always said that probably it took a while for my business to take off when you're like it's going to take three years yeah I'll see you later Lisa I'm out I'm not putting in that kind of effort but there is marked improvement with each step so so step one to start thinking week instead of a day if you're thinking day to day you can't be very proactive you have to think at least just one week but a solid year to really get that morning afternoon evening routine really trust that you're going to do it every single week and while you're doing that then you start adding on actually physically organizing your house and those are the cars so the first car is the pink car and that is the personal car you have to organize yourself first before you organize everyone else I used to say start in the kitchen start wherever where do you usually tell people to start I say in the bedroom I say in the master bedroom because it's like I don't know it's like you're the Persona of you so you wake up your clothes are organized you're you just you feel confident you feel proud of yourself you're streamlined in your personal space we have like is this where you say too like your personal stuff yes your personal space so it's your bathroom your bedroom and your and your your closet and it is because Cass if people would just get personally organized they can live their life 50% organized like that you wake up you get in a shower you go in the closet you get dressed my definition of an organized closet is every single thing in that closet fits and you would wear it if I went into your closet and I pulled something out and said put this on and walk out the front door you would do it if you wouldn't it shouldn't be in there I'm not saying you have to get rid of it it just shouldn't be in the closet so you get dressed it's exactly what I say we're same exact thing exact thing you could close your eyes and get dressed then oh leave and it fits you and yep it looks good exactly Lisa and then bathroom same thing like no samples we don't need any samples like we're not changing our facial regimen like just the one lotion you like on your face because if you use the one that's a little too thick which is what I'm doing right now I'm annoyed this morning I was annoyed I was like oh I have to decide the moisture I love that I'm running out of or this leftover one until I get to the Costco so every morning this week I've been annoyed because I've had to decide which moisturizer I'm going to put on my face you should not be annoyed the same no and it's the same with makeup if you have lipstick and you bought it and it's not your shade don't put it in your drawer what are you talking about because like that's just you're never you're you're it's not going to change you're always going to hate it so why is it taking up space because you paid for the money well you already spent the money you're not going to get it back move on like you're going to be rate yourself for another three weeks about this like just throw it away and move on so if you go to bed and you wake up and you literally wake up in the kitchen you end up in the kitchen to make your coffee or whatever and you're dressed and you've been thinking about your day and you haven't had to think about what's going on your face or what's going on your body you are personally organized and now you've got your engine with the Sunday basket with your personal organization train car and your train car like so there have been some medical emergencies in our family and I have now learned that I have basically a diaper bag for me so it's a backpack but when there's going to be a medical emergency on like oh grab the backpack and in the backpack it has a warm socks uh a warm sweatshirt because those hospitals are freezing it has protein bars in it it has bottles of water it has an extra charger for my phone like if there's an emergency me personally this is what I'm going to need I can live for days on these protein bars and water I know how long it'll it'll sustain me another two hours and sometimes you need that so what do you need you just built an emergency Caboose man you just built a little emergency Cabo car I love it and then you move from there so then the next car I have you do is storage what do you do next after personal it's like kitchen man for me because I feel like women's women are really for some reason like we maybe it's society's pressure but we feel like the kitchen reflects us and is a reflection of us as a human being so when the kitchen's a messy and disaster and we can't find the food and everything's crazy we're like well we're failures yeah all of a sudden it's we're the reason there's a war I mean I don't know why it's always our fault okay I do agree with you I move to storage and then to family areas only because family areas get undone by your family like daily but however the kitchen you can keep pretty organized if you organize it your way before we get into talking about the kitchen and how to build your tracks and your train cars in the kitchen I have to thank today's sponsor hellofresh Joe Cooks four nights of the week and takes care of meal planning and I'm in charge of three nights of the week and I choose to go with hellofresh it saves me time I don't have to plan I don't have to worry about buying things I get delicious nutritious meal kits delivered to the house three a week and they're easy step-by-step instructions everything's pre-portioned so there's no waste and the best part is a lot of these meals I can put together in under 15 minutes which I need in my busy life so right now if you want to give hellofresh a try you can get free breakfast for Life by going to hellofresh.com clutter pod free for free breakfast for life that's one item per box while your subscription is active that's hellofresh.com clutter pood free we shop at the grocery store for all the possibilities and yet we're running a restaurant your kitchen is a restaurant but you're shopping at the store as if your your kitchen is multiple restaurants my kitchen right now is three restaurants it is a convenience store primarily from 4 to 6 it is a diner we cook like like order up Abby okay now for Grayson and I like and I'm making all the different things or Abby is and we're all cooking we're all like it's like a diner and then on Sunday we are a fstar restaurant on Sunday my husband goes to all the stores he gets salmon he gets Brie he gets fillets he makes a new recipe every single week his mother comes over there's wine there's there's music like it is wonderful and when I go to tackle our budget I'm like Greg that Sunday dinner is too expensive you have to cut back on that Sunday dinner but the truth of the matter is it's the fast food that we're buying the the stocking of the convenience store that we don't eat and then the diner that's like serving as if it was 89 diners instead of saying this is the Diner's menu for the week you can have anything you want when you want but these are the only things this Diner will be serving this week it won't be serving everything you've had in your whole 23 years of being a human um so we don't have all of the options there and then end up throwing them away so this idea that your kitchen is a restaurant restaurant so it that's such a good analogy I love that because I also like identifying the strength and weaknesses in your family because I am a person I would go to the grocery store like oh asparagus oh brussels sprouts oh look at this but with no plan like there would be no meal plan and then they'd all just rot and I'd throw them out you know whereas my husband's like he's really good at this is what were the meals and he's only buying things for the meals whereas I like to go and like kids snacks I like oh for their school lunches and and I could take care of that so we actually shop we're in charge of different things when it comes to the kitchen and we only stock for those things so we know what we're having for dinner every single night this week we could switch it up maybe Tuesday we have Thursdays like we're not like cray cray yes exactly but it means I'm not throwing out hundreds of dollars worth of rotting fruits and vegetables which I was or meat just going in the freezer because you buy it on sale pull that back out again and you're never pulling it out you're never pulling it out no I know so your restaurant is a family style restaurant because you make the mashed potatoes and pass it around the table right I used to have a family style restaurant I'm still buying as if we have a family style restaurant we only have a family style restaurant on Sunday but we don't have a family style restaurant we have a high-end restaurant we're eating filets Cass so understanding who like you said who's the buyer what's their preference what are they buying for style restaurant are you because exactly like my mom love her we've all like I was her only child and we move I moved out 30 freaking years ago do you know what I'm saying but she's still buying bag of potatoes and for to make and and it's just all going bad so look at your own life like what are you eating what type of restaurant is your kitchen right now what is your restaurant trains restaurants and how can we run that like a train and make that efficient too like your your buying of the food and your cooking of the food just a little meal planning man meal planning for us well this is the thing if you don't plan and we don't we don't do we're going to be if you don't plan where these groceries are going to go they are going to go bad and you are going to throw the money away yeah so everything about organization and productivity is this ying and yang of time and money it takes time to get organized and then you save money and then you have more time and then you save more money and it's this back and forth of time and money time and money and the more time you put into organizing and systematizing your house the more money you save because you're not doing things as often which then starts to alleviate more time so if you don't do any kind of meal planning and you don't do uh grocery store planning then you end up on Wednesday night oh it's too late I guess I'll go through the fast food which used to be like a 10 or $20 hit now it's 3040 50 $60 oh my gosh it's $60 for my family to get McDonald's $60 for my family of five it's crap and it's supposed to be cheap and it's 60 freaking dollars and then what would you have used that $60 for so this is why I'm going to do this new Blitz is because this is where your discretionary money is none of us have extra money there's no such thing as extra money but you're going to prioritize eating like you're hungry you're going to eat you're going to go through oh dang it $60 I just want you to think every time now like okay you're making that choice like I go and I get onion rings because I like the drive to get onion rings I like the onion rings I get them with a sweet tea it cost eight bucks I know what I'm doing that's fine but when I'm stopping by L roses on the way home for $50 because nobody has time to make dinner or there's nothing in the house we can make even though there are hundreds of dollars worth of food still sitting in the house that's not okay with me anymore like I would like to be able to save that money so that should be your reason to go okay I'm gonna spend an hour thinking about the menu for our restaurant this week yes and then creating what we need for our restaurant because I'm going to be paid $50 per week by not going through fast food and now that $50 per week so $50 I'm making $50 an hour basically I can now use this $50 towards putting the kids in Camp going on the vacation getting a Sunday basket whatever like I can use this money differently because I have planned and so this this is what it looks like in our house and you guys people listening are going to think this is so weird we go to the grocery store my husband's in charge of the meals that he's planned for the week I'm in charge of like kids snacks for lunches we actually keep kids snacks for lunches in in a separate place in our kitchen we have a like it's zon so I know when that's getting empty that's my job to refill it he's in charge of food so we ran out of milk which is like we we need milk when we go to the store just to get milk we are only getting milk I am not like oh look at this look at this look at this like I'm on a train man I'm on a train where before I'd be like I'm G to pick up popcorn oh look this Meats on sale yes ground beefs on sale and it sounds great it sounds like we're going to save money but it would always just end up getting tossed in the freezer because I wasn't meal planning and I was just yes you know and and it was so much waste and so much extra inventory in my restaurant so now we have a plan for the week we only get the meals for the plan for that week we could switch it up within that week y we have a plan for kids snacks and if we need something extra we go and just get that and it's very rare that we have to but we're at of milk so we do have but it's it's like nope I'm not getting derailed we're just getting that because we have the plan for the rest when you say you need extra milk what I think is what I used to do when I was a stay-at home mom is IID go to the grocery store to get the milk you have to go through the whole entire grocery store to get to the milk now I know it costs double to get that milk if I get it at the convenience store or we have it's an extra dollar but I go to the convenience Le I'm so glad you said that yes because and I think people should know that it's time and money so for an extra $1 you didn't have to park like halfway out of course we need the steps but whatever you didn't have to park so far away walk all the way in get the milk walk by everything you might have bought still and I would I probably would I saved money too I saved money too because I know I would pick up stuff that I didn't need and wasn't planned on having didn't need for my butt you know what I mean so I we have self discipline at the store so we don't have to have self-discipline every single day all day long at home so I'm really bad I'm like oh Oreos get ice cream sandwiches my husband's like nope you're in charge of school snacks so I get the ones I don't love but I know my kids do and he's in charge of meals breakfast lunch and dinners and it's so great because if I want a snack I got to make it you know and no one's gonna do that no one's making nothing but it's okay it's good like it's like I'm healthier I'm happier saving money and we don't have the waste that we used to have in our in our house but none of this happens by accident none of this happens overnight none of this is easy and so we're like well if I can't make that change this weekend like you can make just after listening to this from now when you run out of milk spend $1 more and go to the convenience store if that's the only thing you got out of the podcast yes that's a win because you just saved yourself time and you realized I don't have to go to the grocery store for every single thing um productivity is all about little micro improvements and planning so what my professor said to me after I had this whole study and she's like okay this could be groundbreaking she said actually I think you should research planning because we don't know where that is in the brain yet and I think you could find it I was like you think I could find where where planning is in the brain like medically she goes yes I said for my dissertation she goes no for your life's work I was like oh my gosh I not going to map the brain and find where planning is but of course now I can't stop I have a feeling you are I have a feeling stop thinking about it you actually are this is this is good I love that you love the research because you're bringing real science into this this isn't just like oh this worked for me this is like no this works for everyone this is science and this is the most efficient way to have extra time and money and space and capacity in your life and if nothing else if you're listening to this this train for me I that was such a light bulb listening to your podcast thinking of your life as you're the conductor of a train so incredibly powerful because it means you're not allowing yourself to get derailed and if you start thinking of your life in this way like no I'm on a train path today and you see oh that's a bill I should probably get to no I pay the bills on Sunday oh oh oh gosh I'm out of milk I should run to the grocery store nope it's not grocery stopping day babe you can go to the convenience store later when you're running out any for the next errand because you're on a train because this is your track and you're staying on that is powerful Lisa and life is gonna life is going to sideswipe you like you are going to have big unexpected events that you can't just ignore and I do address that in the podcast as well and this is why people who get to the point where they move to these trains and they get these train tracks even if they haven't explained it this way and these train cars and they get their house as organized as they want it to be I used to think it has to be all the way organized I'm giving up on that maybe you don't want your storage room organized if you have the spaces that you're in are as organized as you want them to be and you're living your best life so you my thing is do you have the time to do what you want to do read a book watch TV start a new business versus have to do all of these household related things that's all I want for you then once you have that time and something big happens someone passes away or there's a divorce or there's something big happens your train is going to stop like it is go it is not a impervious train it is going to stop for that period of time while you deal with that really hard thing but the thing is your train is going to start start up again it's not like your train got derailed and the cars are off the track like they're just stopped waiting for this a while get it started takes a while to get started but the trains are all on there now you just moved so you moved your train from one track to a new track so it stopped your train stopped it literally went over to in my car for a bit I got back in my car no you didn't you actually never did you just moved your train to a completely different track and then you went through each of the cars and got them ready for the this new track and then you started your train back up again and it started going so you don't lose all of the organization and productivity you have learned you have to reorient to the new track to the new way of living to the new life circumstance but you know how to put your trains in order and you know you just need to set up this kitchen and this bedroom and this closet and your new emergency Caboose and then you're like okay is everything set up okay great fire up the train now we're running again and you're probably running running at the same speed you were in the last house yeah I have five bathrooms plus a bathroom in the garage like this house is so much bigger than my last home and I was like how can I get this all done and I was panicky and I was like and then I just built a new track for that and now it's on autopilot and it's no extra time than my last house it honest to goodness isn't I gave up some things I was like oh that's not as efficient I don't have to do it that detailed anymore I can take shortcuts here it's fine if I let that go my kids can do this my husband can do this I can let this go I can delegate and guess what just as efficient it just took time to get the systems in place but now it's like man I got time again that's this this doesn't feel hard if you go back a minute and just listen to what Cass said the way you just described your house is how a CEO would describe a business and that is not how women describe our houses you literally just talked about I put this in place and I delegated this and I and I changed this kpi and I did and that's why businesses work and that's why people can come and go in businesses because the job descriptions and the systems are there we have to create that in our houses and if you don't create it it's not going to be there there's no robot coming to save you the CEO of your home you are the CEO of your home run it like a business make it efficient it can still be fun and laidback and spontaneous but why are you in the mud in the muck slinging the stuff on the things that don't matter these are older podcasts but I did you're the CEO and the COO of your home and I explain the difference so the CEO the train conductor the Visionary the planner the setting the Strategic objectives but also you're the COO who has to implement and do all of the operations so you do actually have to do both but I like that you're saying that because we default to the COO we run all the trains we do all the actionables we do all the operations without Vision without the CEO without the strategy without the planning you are just a hamster on a wheel you're just a rat in a maze but when you add on being the engineer being the CEO being the conductor being the Visionary being the planner all of the sudden you're charting where you're going instead of reacting to where you've been or what is going to come up today so good I mean this was so good and I'm even thinking back to like when I was a stay-at-home mom and it was chaotic and different and I remember I said to myself no I'm going to run this why is it can I run a business I was like the executive director of The Lung Association and I was doing okay there but I can't get the dishes done and my kids clean and myself showered and I was like no man I got to run this like a business so I was like this is when we're doing Circle time this is when it's recessed this is when we're doing nap time this is when and I printed off this little cute schedule on the fridge lifechanging yes like I was running my being a stay-at-home mom like I was running a daycare like a business and then eventually I brought daycare kids in because it was like a daycare and it was incredible so we run our home the same way gosh Lisa's so brilliant I mean I could talk about this all day but listen I want everybody to go listen to Lisa's podcast and also if you could let my listeners know where they could find more about you I I already sung your Praises in the beginning but um you're incredible and it's a different way of looking at the thing that everybody else is saying but it makes so much sense so just thank you and please let my listeners know how they can find you oh thanks Cass it's just organized 365 everywhere on um I'm on LinkedIn as Lisa Kelly Woodruff and then organized 365 on Instagram is where I'm most active and then the podcast is organized 365 yeah and you I mean the Sunday basket you have so so many efficiency tools right productivity tools for families and you've done the work for them all they got to do is follow the steps and you building their tracks and their train cars for them so um it's just incredible and thank you so much for being on today's podcast I know everyone listening is so inspired I know I'm inspired by you to be more efficient and thank you very much thank you thank you see you later thank you guys everyone for listening we'll see you next time

Channel: Clutterbug Podcast

Views: 138,882

Keywords: clutterbug, podcast, organize, adhd, sunday basket, lisa woodruff, organizing train, train, organize 365

Id: BRuSCIdoqv4

Length: 48min 42sec (2922 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024