Organize 365 Podcast

I asked what is the basic essential housework that is necessary for life? Level one is the foundation of The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework that starts with essential house work. I did my own study and I am sharing my findings. You might be as surprised as I was.What is Essential Housework?How is housework defined? Housework is something you do for yourself or you pay for someone to do it. And how much time are you spending on it? On average about 23 hours per week; 3 hours for laundry, 6 hours for cleaning, and 11 hours for food preparation. I know it's hard to believe.I surveyed a panel of 1000 people, ages 16 - 65. I divided up the panel to closely reflect the US Census ethnicities to account for all different household types. I bet you would think that there would be a stark difference in what men and women determined was housework and taking it one step further, what was essential. Nope, 90% of the panel (men and women of all ethnicities) agreed on 19 of the 78 items as housework and that they were essential. Now, I say essential because I want to point out that not everyone owns a home or a car. And I wanted to ask people from all walks of life because essential housework needed to universally apply to everyone. All19 items fit into either laundry, cleaning, or food preparation.The GoalI'm sure this has you curious about how much time you spend on these essential housework. Do a time study. Then review, the calendar does not lie! And information is power. The amount of time each household dedicates to these tasks will vary depending on their caregiving responsibilities, whether looking after children, just themselves, or a loved one. I gave a lot of examples of how your time may be getting used and ways you can manipulate time and tasks to free up your time. And once again, I want to encourage you to outsource if you have the means to or you find yourself in a high demand season.When we know what the work is, how much time it takes us, and we reduce our expectations, we can set the foundation to put systems in place so you can reach the higher levels of this pyramid. At some point, I want you to get to a done point. The goal is to reduce your expectations and time spent on housework so you can get done for the day or done for the week.Then comes the fun part where you get to ask yourself what are you uniquely gifted and created to do? Exploring you, through Embrace. It's a 2 day self guided retreat where you think about where your expectations came from. How much housework are you doing? Why? And what do you want to be doing? You'll use critical thinking to dream about what you want to do next. What are you uniquely gifted and created to do? That's the goal!EPISODE RESOURCES:-The Sunday Basket®-Embrace-Time Study Registration-Sign Up for the Organize 365® NewsletterDid you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media

I'm very excited to start rolling out The Productive Home CEO Theoretical framework. Ewww does that feel weird to call yourself a CEO? Well you are! Our homes contribute to 68% of the GDP! You are running a little business right inside your home that greatly impacts the economy. So as the CEO, I want you to have a foundation in place that allows for planning, completing projects, and managing your household information (owned or not) for your business AKA your home..Maid WorkWhat I refer to as maid work is visible work. It's also what I call working IN your business. You clean your house, wash the laundry, vacuum the house, dust, and all the other things. The people in your house can see you doing it. And it's this visible work that couples are asking who is doing what and when. This is like the organizing we do in the home. Our organization leads to productivity that leads to time.CEO WorkThen there is CEO work which is that invisible strategic planning. It's also what I call working ON your business. The CEO is a focused leadership agent inside the house for the purpose of change. This person isn't always the one who makes the most money. They don't get to dictate every decision. And they aren't better than anyone else in the home.Every good CEO has a pulse on what's happening in the world, is strategic, sets goals, and maximizes the resources like the people and capital. The Productive Home CEO is doing the same and asking how those factors impact their home, their budget, and what will the house need due to those things and for the future. And those considerations are for all of the people in the home, not just the kids. Our kids are living their best lives these days but I want everyone to be in a place that they are taking into account self care for all.My WorkI am looking forward to testing my proposed interventions in an effort to reduce housework overall so we can all be asking ourselves what am I uniquely gifted and created to do? You cannot get to that place until your basic needs are met. You cannot start to get organized when you don't feel safe. When you are cognitively bogged down with cleaning your house, you never get to the organizing part. We know organizing (working on the business) leads to the next level which is planning (working on the business.)Very few get to experience the last level of this pyramid of The Productive Home CEO and that is self actualization. This is where we have that leisure time to wrestle with what am I uniquely gifted and created to do? The first thing in place to help you get to this level are the Planning Days. Where you set aside time to think and plan. I've started to offer these monthly CEO Planning Days to really think about finances and self care. And lastly the Self Care Retreat. You guys life is exhausting. What are you doing to care for yourself? Self care are those basic things like clothing, bathing, food, and medical care. But we need to take that another step further thinking about your educational, recreational, spiritual, and relational needs. Remember our kids are living their best lives because we as the adults are thinking about those things and want our kids to explore all opportunities. And then we become adults and lose sight of our self care needs and this is if you have children or not. Embrace is always available so you can explore what are you uniquely gifted and created to do. And I'd love for you to take advantage of our time study. I'd love for you to participate for your own knowledge of where you are spending your time and any adjustments you may want to make. And I'll use that information for some of my research! In the upcoming episodes I'll be diving into each level in much more depth!EPISODE RESOURCES:-The Sunday Basket®-Monthly Home CEO Session-Escaping Quicksand Self Care Retreat-Embrace-Sign Up for the Organize 365® NewsletterDid you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media

I want to take a moment to provide the backstory to how I got to where I am today. And where we are with studying the American Home. You'll see why now is the time to start new research that will apply to all compositions of families, for the extent of their lives, to help household managers in their CEO roles.Evolution of StudyAs far back as the 30's and 40's, the psychologist Lillian Gilbreth studied the efficiencies of the home. We have her to thank for the kitchen triangle and so much more. Then came the book the Secret History of Home Economics. Home economics focused on the science of the home. And then my favorite which was manufactured entity of the stay at home mom. The war was over and marketing turned its aim to women at home; how they should look and what they should be doing. Finally, our most up to date research is from the 70's-80's! Shocked? I was too! This is the time the gender shift was identified. Basically women began to do less housework because some women were starting to work outside the home, the man started doing more work, and overall as a household unit less needed to be done. All of these studies were completed with couples with children under the age of 18. At that time, a good educated guess would say that was only 40% of the population. As of today that number has declined to only 17.9% of homes have a couple with children under the age of 18! So how is the other roughly 80% of Americans running their homes and what are their challenges?"Current" DayI acknowledge that due to my upbringing, I had some blind spots. As I started Organize 365® I assumed everyone's lives looked like mine. Over time, due to my babysitting years, years of raising kids and being in my friend's homes, doing home visits when I was a teacher, and organizing other's homes, I realized that there are a lot of different compositions of families, not everyone has kids, and not everyone owns their homes. But we all need an effective productivity system so the household CEO can run their homes smoothly.My Reference PointIt's time to create household theories from a leadership stance. I love John C. Maxwell's quote "Leadership is influence. Nothing less. Nothing more." Remember, you can only change and control yourself. I want to be an agent of change. I'm going to be introducing the Productive Home CEO. I'll research efficiencies and look at planning to reduce the work for everyone in the house, to maximize the economic impact we have and to be productive. This system will challenge you to to think "How can I be the best version of me and support the people in my house?" I want this theoretical framework to be applicable to all. I want to encourage you to reach out to me if I appear to have a blind spot. Please continue to provide resources and research you may find that supports the work we are doing at Organize 365®.EPISODE RESOURCES:-The Sunday Basket®-Sign Up for the Organize 365® NewsletterDid you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media

I did it! We did it! Did you hear in the intro when I introduced myself as DOCTOR Lisa Woodruff? I have completed the dissertation for my PhD in Applied Psychology and feel compelled to share it with all of you. I cannot say Thank You enough for all the emails, suggestions, and encouragement.The DissertationHere is the dissertation I delivered celebrating the work I have completed. I proposed the question "How do prospective memory and invisible family load interact with worry in women?" Prospective memory is remembering anything that you need to do in the future. I had three hypotheses to dissect this question further. There were 379 panelists. In this episode, I shared what my hypothesis was and the results.The futureI just see everyone so overwhelmed with either poor systems or no systems to support the invisible load of the household manager. At work and school there are systems in place that keep those organizations running smoothly. I wanted to get this PhD to have a seat at the academic table and do more research to create systems for the household manager that will live long beyond my presence on Earth. This study was a great starting point. Just like other studies, it has brought up more questions. I plan to use those questions to create more studies. Again, than you for all of you support and I look forward to all the research to come!EPISODE RESOURCES:-The Sunday Basket®-Lisa's Dissertation Presentation-Sign Up for the Organize 365® NewsletterDid you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! I declare a table for all people to have conversations about what housework is, what needs to be done, who needs to do it, and consider all life factors into those definitions and roles. I have just found myself a little frustrated that men get a bad wrap when it comes to helping in the house. Before you show up with torches to take me down, hear me out.MenThere is clearly a discrepancy between what men think house work is, how it should be done, and who should be doing it. I take Grayson to swim lessons every week. I have been watching the female and male life guards and observing how they teach differently. Neither is right or wrong, just different approaches. Nonetheless, there are discrepancies in how the skills are taught and the priority on which skills get focus.My husband was always great at bathing the kids. Honestly his way was better. But if I had insisted on my way, I probably would have just done it myself in frustration. He enjoyed it and I didn't have to. When the grandkids came along he once again got excited to help with bath time. But to be clear, even if his way wasn't better, I would have kept having him do it just so I didn't. And that's just it. Who is willing to help even if it's not your way.We Are All Doing the Best We CanI took the time to read an excerpt from Sunshine Girl by Julianna Margulies (pp. 208-209). It's a delicate apology from her dad to her. It's a perspective she had not considered. Some men are going to a job they don't like everyday just to continue to provide. They love seeing their families happy and taken care of. That job they endure provides that lifestyle. And then on top of that their partner is saying they don't do enough around the house. They are constantly being put on the defensive about "doing enough." And I get it about the invisible load and anxiety over our homes ladies. But if he says "Just tell me what to do." Just tell him. He's in his own minutiae and may not see what needs to be done around the house.I want to see spouses working together to take care of their home. I believe both parties need to give 100%. Based on your careers and life circumstances it will likely not be 50/50. I want to see us seeking and valuing their perspective, their methods, and trying to learn from them too. Only have this expectation for yourself. You are only in control of you. Cherish the men in your life while you have them and Happy Father's Day!!EPISODE RESOURCES:-The Sunday Basket®-Sign Up for the Organize 365® NewsletterDid you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media.