Lisa Woodruff on Creating an Organized Life That Works for You
What if getting organized isn't really about having a perfectly tidy home? What if it's about creating space for the life you're growing into? In this thoughtful conversation, Cat sits down with Lisa Woodruff, founder and CEO of Organize 365, to explore how organization can help us move through life's transitions with more clarity, ease, and intention.
Together, they talk about why organization is a skill anyone can learn, how clutter often reflects the seasons we're still holding onto, and why letting go doesn't have to be rushed. Lisa also shares practical ways to build systems that work for your unique life, whether you're managing a busy household, navigating ADHD, or simply looking to reduce the mental load of everyday living.
If you've ever felt overwhelmed by your home, your schedule, or all the things you're carrying, this conversation is a reminder that you don't have to do it perfectly. Sometimes, creating a little more space is the first step toward your next adventure.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why organization is a skill anyone can learn
- How clutter often reflects seasons of life we're still holding onto
- The emotional side of letting go after loss or major life changes
- Why functional systems matter more than picture-perfect spaces
- How organization can reduce mental load and support everyday life
- The connection between executive function, ADHD, and organizing
- Simple ways to create systems that actually work for your family
- Why you don't have to be naturally organized to become organized
Connect with Lisa
- Website: https://organize365.com/all-about-lisa-woodruff/
- Podcast: https://organize365.com/podcast-landing-page/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/organize365/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Organize365
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisawoodruff/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Organize365
Organization isn't about perfection. It's about creating enough space for the life you're living today while making room for the life that's still unfolding.
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I will give you a formal introduction, Lisa, who is the founder and CEO of Organize 365. Welcome to the show, Ms. Woodruff. But first, I just want to tell you that we booked this conversation, gosh, even a couple of months ago. And for months, I have been geeking out, following her business of Organize 365, her work, her zone of genius. And I am so excited to welcome you to the show. How are you today? And where in the world are you zooming in from, Lisa? SPEAKER_01: I am good. I'm so excited to have this interview with you as well. I am zooming in from Cincinnati, Ohio. SPEAKER_00: Nice. Okay. Let's get into it with a little bit more of a formal introduction, and then I'll tell you more about why I am personally so excited to talk to Lisa today. Okay. Okay. So Lisa Woodruff is the founder and CEO of Organize 365. Lisa and 87% of Americans believe organization is a learnable skill. Yet, less than 18% of those same Americans, you know who you are, feel they are organized. As the host of the top-rated Organized 365 podcast with 24 million downloads and counting, Lisa shares strategies for reducing the overwhelm, clearing the mental clutter, and living a productive and organized life. Oh my gosh, I am so excited to unpack this. Like, wow. Okay, so I am definitely in that percentage. I agree and believe it's a learnable skill. I myself have worked through and done my own practicing, and this is part of why I am so obsessed with you, Lisa. Is that it's so learnable and it is absolutely going to change your life, you guys. Like if you're struggling somewhere, it is gonna change your life. So let's start with how it changed your life personally, Lisa, and like what woke you up to this mission of, oh, this is it. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is a great question. And you know what? No one has ever worded that to me that way. And I've been interviewed hundreds of times. That is really cool. Yeah, I was a born organized kid when I was babysitting. I would get bored, so I'd organize people's houses. I was that stay-at-home mom when we would have play dates and we would have it at your house. You'd be like, let's have the play date in my bedroom. So I'd like to organize your bedroom while our kids played around us. So I was always not only organized, but I could organize other people. And so the question you specifically asked me was when did I feel like it wasn't organized and it wasn't learnable? SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And there were two times where I felt that way. The first time was when my sister and I found ourselves as the executor of my dad's estate after my parents had gotten divorced, and we were in our 30s. Like when you're in your 30s, you're an adult, but you don't really feel like you're an adult. And then when a parent passes, you're like, wait, I can't rely on their bank account. I can't call them. You really feel like an adult adult. So I felt like an adult adult. I didn't know how to settle an estate. Who does? Nobody does. And then you're trying to organize somebody else's information. You don't even know where to find it. So that was the first time I felt really unorganized and like, wow, most of us are going to settle estates. My husband and I are probably going to settle seven. We're listed as the executor on everyone's estates, which is fine. Now I kind of know how to do it, but it's a huge undertaking. And it's not even your information, it's other people's information. The second time I felt really disorganized was when I was turning 40. So this is about five years later. So this is 2012 when I'm starting this company. We'd gone through the 2008 recession. Our kids were now in middle school. I'm a preschool teacher, kindergarten teacher. I know how to take care of school-age kids, but middle schoolers, high school. I was like, wait, these kids are gonna drive and like we can't even afford our cars. How are we gonna get cars for them? I started to see how this was gonna multiply in time and money and expense, and wasn't really sure how I was gonna do my parenting job, let alone I knew I needed to earn money. And also, my house was a hot freaking mess. I was like, you know what? We're gonna need to move. This house is not big enough. These kids are gonna be adult size soon. Like, there are four adults living in this house, which was fine when they were little. By the time I was done with that first year of starting the company, and the year I turned 40, and I really went through every single nook and cranny of my house and got it all the way organized and started my in-home professional organization job. We had plenty of space. We've never moved. And it was really that we had just held on to so much stuff just in case, or I didn't know what to do with it, or I just hadn't let go of it yet, that I didn't have enough space and capacity for my 40s and 50s. And I think a lot of us sometimes we feel like we are disorganized. And some of the disorganization, I'm not a decluttering expert, but some of that disorganization is we haven't fully let go of the phases that we've been through in order to have the capacity for the phases that we're going into. And I think that's why sometimes we really look to getting organized or doing a good purge in order to make a leap from one part of our being to the next or one phase of life to the next. SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is so good. It's making me think about all this manifestation stuff and like opening up to the capacity of this sort of next level of yourself. And I'm so touched that this story of being the executor of your dad's will. And I'm so sorry for your loss in your 30s because, like, I agree, you are an adult. I mean, you're not funny, you're not like a barely adult, like you've been adulting for a little while, but you are still a younger adult. And I'm just so touched by that. And I think death puts so many things in perspective because you are looking at someone else's stuff and recognizing their stuff will never bring them back, and that all of them in their aliveness is no longer part of all the things you're executing, if you will, you know, as you're right, executor of a will. So I'm really touched by that. And I think the other side of it of being in this chapter of, oh my gosh, maybe our house isn't big enough. Let's do an edit as we think about the next thing, and then realizing it is like you sort of stepped into this next thing. And I think so many people struggle with the letting go. So, how do you open that door, given your experience and your own wisdom, especially that came through these two portals you just shared with us, to help someone else let go or kind of get to the place of being ready to say, you know what, this isn't really serving me. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can give you two examples, and they're a little bit different. So, one was we adopted our kids and they're wonderful. Like I never got pregnant ever, like never. But we did some infertility and then also I'm a researcher. So I had all the books about should you adopt and how you adopt and the process of adopting and all my paperwork for all the infertility that we went through. And I remember it was when I was 40 and I was going through my basement, it was still there. Now our kids are in middle school, and we weren't going to add any more kids to our family. We knew that at that point. And so I think all of us, whether it's for me, it was this adoption paperwork for you, it might be the baby crib or whatever, like the recognizing that maybe I would get pregnant in my 40s, like spontaneously pregnant. I always kind of always hoped and prayed that would happen and it never did. And so some of these things that we have in our environment are for seasons of life that have passed, we aren't really ready for them to have passed yet. And or when we get rid of those items or pass those on to somebody else, we're kind of acknowledging that season has passed. And that's really, really hard. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: The other thing I observed when I was doing in-home organizing, I would often be called in to help, mostly widows or people who were divorced. And it would usually be at the five-year anniversary, and they were ready to just get remarried, move on, like declutter a whole bunch of like they'd kept all of their spouses' clothes and now they were ready to get rid of all of them. And I was like, we're ready to get rid of all of them. And I just noticed in house after house after house, it was the fifth anniversary. It was a fifth anniversary. And it's like, well, there's something. And then when my father passed, I noticed the same for us. I literally got the largest U-Haul you could buy that you could drive yourself and filled it full of the stuff from my childhood home because it was really good stuff. I mean, our stuff was hand-me-down junk. My dad had like this stuff that came from this decorator store. So everything lamps, pictures, TVs, it was all my sisters and mine. So we split it up and we had in our house half of my house was my dad's stuff. And sure enough, by the time we got to that five-year mark, I was saying to my cousins who were just getting their own places, hey, you want the game table, you want the couch, you want the this. I was ready to give up those physical things because the physical things no longer held my dad. But when he passed, they did. And I think there is this passage of time where you could separate the person from the thing, but it doesn't happen right away. And so I often will say, not declutter things. I want you to hold on things longer than you think you should. Because when you give things away or you let things go, I want you to be doing it from a place of I can't believe I still have this. Why haven't I already gotten rid of this? Instead of like, well, I don't really have the space, or it's been about three years. I should be over this by now. No, you're not. So if you have the space, keep it. SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's powerful. And that's also very interesting in the field of organizers, where it's a lot of like foosh, foosh, foosh, pretty hardcore letting go of things, you know what I mean? Or Marie conduit if it doesn't have super stellar joy, it's out. Which I kind of think of, and I wonder about your take, it's sort of like the toxic positivity movement where it's like you have to always be at this really high vibe, or it's not okay. And I think what I'm hearing from your wisdom is no, you don't have to be. You have to actually be right where you are, and it is okay to be right where you are. And the joy of maybe that five-year question. I mean, that's like the classic, who are you going to be in five years? And for anybody listening at the time of this recording, we're in 2026, which is the year of the fire horse if you're following the Chinese lunar new year, but it's also five years post-pandemic. So all of us, like who were five years ago as we were sort of in that chapter, because everybody has their pandemic story now. And again, I think a lot of changes and shifts were made there that maybe now you're at a different place. So, like, how do you help people catch up? When you step into a home, someone has called you for your services. How do you help them sort of wake up to exactly where they are in this chapter? SPEAKER_02: That's a great question, too. So I no longer help people get organized in their home. They always think I do when they hear what I do. That ended nine years ago. Now you buy the courses and you do it yourself. And organization is a learnable skill. Okay, well, think about all the different ways we learn. Like I love Montessori education. I attended Catholic and public education. My kids also went to a learning disability school and I homeschooled for a period of time. There's a lot of different ways in which we learn. I just wanted to touch on something you said earlier about decluttering and how that is a big, like just let go of things and you'll feel better. You do it first, but there's only one tool in your toolbox, and you're always using the same tool over and over again. You don't necessarily get to the learning. And also, organization in our society is sold as a design aesthetic. And so, what I mean by that is like a minimalist aesthetic, or it's going to be rainbow order, or everything's going to be acrylic, or it's going to be these certain labels. That is a design aesthetic. That's not actually organization. True organization doesn't always look organized, but it feels organized. So, how do we achieve that feeling? And it really is about being curious and learning like, what is the thing that is not organized for you right now? Or the thing that you're like, we have to move because this isn't working. And then how do you look into that and say, like, okay, well, if we can't move, what could I do? Or what's not working about this? How is this a bottleneck? How am I part of the problem? What about the kids? A classic example. If the kids are always going to drop their backpacks by the front door, just put a hook there. Like they're not going to take it to where something else is like, okay, well, maybe we should put a hook here, put a basket here. Look at how your house operationally functions and then just solve the problem that way. SPEAKER_00: I love that. So functional. And my husband has ADHD. And so I have not only children ages eight and 10 at this point in time who drop backpacks. I also have my partner who I'm like, why did you put this? Like, he'll take his belt off and put it on the kitchen counter. I'm like, what? Like, it doesn't make sense to me, but like, okay, you know, this is going on. Will he remember it's there? Yeah, he kind of will. I know. I'm just done with weird. What the heck? So it's been cool because we have worked with a couple of organizers who actually come in home. And the gal we've worked with most recently, she sort of does it as more of like a hobby, but she's so good at it, and it's really helped it stick because it's exactly what you're talking about. It's functional. It's like, okay, we need hooks right here by the door for backpacks. Yeah. Like, okay, we need a space where when you want to take your belt off, it's appropriate for you to put it here, which isn't the kitchen counter, by the way. But hey, it could be a hook by the backpack. It could be right by the backpack. It's so it's interesting. I think the functionality is for me so spicy. And I'm a horse person, and also I had a lot of years rowing boats down rivers for overnight trips. And so when you're in your rig, your boat, you need to know right where your water bottle is because like you're rowing, you're drinking the whole time, right? You also need to know where the snacks are for everybody, and they need to be easily accessible, right? Like the dry snacks on the top, the ones that you can eat while the boat is going, versus okay, now we're gonna pull over, we're gonna sanitize hands, and we're gonna pull out the sandwich spread with the mayo and all the things. Like that's a different part of the journey that could be deeper in the cooler, but yeah, you know, the trail mix should be at the top. So it's like I love the functionality organizing. And the way that I apply what I learned in the boat, I actually moved into my car, which I'd love to hear your thoughts about organizing a car or some of those day-to-day things. Bring it. SPEAKER_02: Yes. Okay, so I realized this again when my kids were younger. Oh my goodness, we live in our car. We live in our car. So I had a minivan, which I loved. And I finally, like when you would have changes of seasons, you know how you change your closet? I would change my tailgate. And I started calling the tailgate section of my minivan my car closet. And then I would just trick it out for whatever season. So at the time of this recording, we're going into back to school. So if you're going to be at a lot of sporting events, you would put your foldable chairs back there, you put blankets back there, hats and gloves because you never know when it's getting cold, extra sweatshirts. In the summer, I would have pool towels, anything swim related, because the trunk is really big. I only had two kids and I had a minivan, so it's plenty of time. So that's what I did in the back. Then full trash can. You should have a full trash can. Like it doesn't have to be the large trash bag size, but it should be an actual hard-sided trash can in the car of any car size. You should have a trash can. Yeah. Full box of tissues. You've got to have baby wipes. Even if your kids are older, those things are magical. Extra chargers, portable battery charger. I always have a bag of snacks. So in my book, Escaping Quicksand, I tell you the story about how the rat was living in my house in my car. He loved it because there was so much food. He ate through all of it. But all that kind of food. So I'll always have like peanut butter crackers, granola bars, little peanut butter cups. I love to have my chocolate aloha protein bars, but I can't have those in the summer in Cincinnati. But as soon as we get to the end of September, those are in the car all the way until we get to May. I always have one in my purse. Yes, migraine medicine, ponytail holder, hairbrush, like in your car console. I saw this one company, Austin Fowl, there, they put all of their little bags in there, their see-through on one side. So they had one for chargers, one for like deodorant. You should have deodorant, deodorant, hair ties, all that kind of stuff, all in there. So yes, trick out the car. Every time you're out, you're like, I wish I had put it in the car. I have throat lozenges, gum. Yeah, I could live in my car. SPEAKER_00: I love that. Ditto, ditto. SPEAKER_02: I used a crock pot in my car once. SPEAKER_00: That's new. Actually, I went on a ski trip with a friend. I was her guest with a bunch of different people last year. And at the end of the ski day, she pulled out a hot water pot. She had exactly kind of what you're talking about. She had like a kit with tea, hot chocolate, like all the things in it, mixins, you know what I mean? And she plugged in the hot water pot to the side of the car in the back. And it was like genius, genius. Like, this is exactly what you want. And we were in the backcountry, so it's not like we could go to a cafe and get hot cocoa. It was like right there at the parking lot. It was really cool. Okay. So here's my question with that, because I'm similar. Like, okay, cool. We're in summer vibe, we're in winter vibe, and you live in a place where things freeze too. So like I'll have water bottles, but then if it's winter, I gotta make sure that the really thin plastic ones that won't break or explode, you know, like all those things to think about. I can't have cans of soda or laque cooler in winter or they will burst. So just think about those things. So when you do the flip, what are your thoughts about the season flip? Do you go down to you can see the floor of your car and vacuum, or do you how do you do it? SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's a full like, oh, it's a nice spring day. Okay, we're gonna clean out the car and get all the stuff, find all the matches of all the gloves. Cause I just buy like 12 sets. Just wear whatever you want. Yeah, find all the matches, move those inside, move them out. I usually clean out the garage the same day, vacuum it all out. Yeah, we're moving it all over. And you do it a couple times. You do it back to school, you do about four times a year, really. Because, like you said, when you get to that Thanksgiving time frame in our area, you got to make sure you have the snow scrapers in the car and some of those emergency things that you put in the car. And then you get to early spring, you can't put the swimsuits in there yet, but you also have to have the light jacket, the rain, and all that. Yeah. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Do you store stuff? Let's take the snow scrapers, for example. You pull those out. Do you put them in a clear bin? Do you have a spot in your garage? Like, how do you store the off-season items? SPEAKER_02: I don't have a clear bin. I wish I did. I was just moving them the other day. I was like, I should have a better solution for this. So they're all in the same place. I said to my husband, we have four cars and we have eight scrapers. It's like we've overbought the scrapers. So one year we probably didn't categorize them correctly. Thought we didn't have any, obviously, and we bought four more. So my house doesn't look perfect, it's very organized. My husband doesn't think it is because he's a perfectionist. He wants it to look better, but it doesn't look like a magazine at all. But you do know where stuff is. Also, our houses aren't huge. So my husband bought a little set of golf clubs for our four-year-old grandson, which I didn't want him to see because as soon as he sees them, he's gonna want to play it. And I'm not playing golf. That's my husband's thing. So I hid them behind the little kitty pool. Well, then the next spring we couldn't find them until we pulled the kitty pool out. Because you don't have enough space to like have everything have a little labeled thing. I say that because if you're like, oh well, I can't do it because I can't do it perfectly, nobody can. Nobody can, except the people in the million dollar houses, and they have people retrieving things for them. So it doesn't really matter anyway. None of them are us. Yeah, so you do the best you can with what you have, and also sometimes those plastic bins are just too big, and there's the scrappers are little. So all my scrapers are actually in a like a little five-quart pail. Okay, perfect, just stand up. SPEAKER_00: Yeah, perfect. I love it, and I love the reminder that we're all human and we're all doing the best we can. That's such a good reminder. And I think two things I want to get into now. One is time management, which we were sort of touching on, and I have heard this a few times in the last maybe year or two. This idea of it's actually not time management, it's energy management because time is 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour. There's really only so much of it, but energy is different. And so one of the things I've noticed, and it sounds like you might be similar, I get very energized by organizing and seeing the results of that time being put in that way. And sometimes I'll start with a drawer and then I'll find the energy to get to the rest of the closet because I started with that one drawer and that felt so good and actually only took me 11 minutes, you know, and I've got an hour and like here we go. My husband doesn't feel that way. It drags for him, he kind of drags his feet to get to the thing, and then he's really drained afterwards. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you think about time management, but also if you've had different folks feel more or less energized or excited by the experience of organizing itself and taking the time for it. SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, I agree on all the points. I have become somewhat obsessed with this idea of time. I have been diagnosed with ADHD, but I understand time very well. A lot of people who are diagnosed with ADHD, they don't have a good conceptualization of time. They think a minute takes an hour and an hour takes 18 years. They just don't have a good grasp on time. And I've seen some people who are diagnosed with ADHD that literally like time doesn't even exist. Yeah, it can be very frustrating for people where time is very precise. But this idea of energy and time, I agree with you. Often when we find where we have pockets of time in my planning day that I do three times a year with people, I have you look at your time four different ways. I have you look at it in pies, I have you look at it this way. We slice and dice your time a lot so you could figure out how much time you have. And then also I point out, yeah, okay, great. So you have 10 hours a week, but it's always between 7 and 9 p.m. And you're a morning person. So you don't have any energy. So it doesn't matter that you have the time. So I agree with all of those things. Then the second thing you said about energy of organizing. I think that number one, organization is an executive function. So ADHD is a deficit in executive function in your brain. And there are eight things that your executive function does. The primary one that has been studied is working memory. But after working memory, we have organization, getting started, understanding how far you are in task, which is task management, planning. These words are literally how scientists discuss our executive function. So if you have a hard time with time passing and planning, and organization, and you're diagnosed with ADHD, and those executive functions are impacted, yeah, you think it's like getting a root canal to have to clean out your underwear drawer. Like that's not something you're gonna want to do. However, all of the executive functions, I believe, can be supported and improved. And that's what my science is going to be studying. Do these organized 365 systems that I created, externalize executive function, reduce cognitive load, and therefore give us more capacity and enhance our executive function. That's what I'm hoping to find support for in my research. So, what I have found in my clients is that a lot of them know how to organize some spaces, but not all spaces. Like their kitchens have always been great and their closets have always been great, but then they'll buy the program because they have no idea how to do a storage room. So then they'll start to organize a storage room. Then they'll go back to those spaces, the kitchen and the closet, that have always been great. And they'll go through all my content and they're like, whoa, that's a different level of organizing. I have a different understanding of why the organization works. You got things organized in my kitchen I never realized weren't organized because of all the teaching that I do and all the questions that I ask. So then their organization muscle, their executive function organizing increases. Another executive function is when you can see different possibilities for the same space, flexible thinking. I can't handle Pinterest. I have so much flexible thinking that I could come up with ideas. If you give me a toothpick, I'll come up with 8,000 ideas for the toothpick. If I go to Pinterest and I see other people's ideas, my mind just explodes because I already have so many ideas on my own. People who have struggled with flexible thinking, they're like, no, silverware goes in a silverware drawer. That's what a silverware container is for. What do you mean you just used a silverware container in your bathroom for your makeup? I see a silverware drawer as a bunch of different dividers. Oh well, I have a bunch of different makeup. Okay, I can divide them into this. I can move a lazy Susan anywhere in your house. But other people may say, no, lazy Susan's for condiments in a cabinet. I'm like, no, put it in the refrigerator. And they're like, the refrigerator. They just can't come up with that on their own. And so these ideas give them this. So as you start to go, oh, I can move this here, your brain starts growing and developing. Your executive function muscles start to grow and develop in organization. You get more excited about organizing. So now here, if you ever start listening to Organize 365 podcast, you have been warned. My podcast listeners will tell me they're just gonna sit on the couch and listen to a quick episode. And the next thing they know, they're organizing their underwear drawer. They're like, it's like Pavlov's dog, Lisa. No matter what you're talking about, it doesn't matter what you're talking about, Lisa. While you're talking, we are organizing. They just are like, and I'm organizing, and they just get in that zone. So I think it is learnable. And I think that, well, I know it's learnable, and I know that ADHD is as a teacher, we would provide all kinds of supports and interventions for students with great success. And so now what I'm trying to do is do that inside the household because there are no supports inside of households for ADHD. You're just stuck, right? Yeah. Well, as a teacher, how do I overcome that? And the best solution for ADHD is always having a body double or a person. But a lot of people can't afford that. So, aside from that, how can we grow these muscles on our own? And I try to make it fun. Oh my gosh, you are so fun. SPEAKER_00: Okay, all right. Let's hear about your podcast with the 24 million downloads, because I'm also a podcaster. Like, how are you applying some of these concepts planning to podcasting in and of itself? And I love that feedback and just that idea of hey, because we know that our podcast listeners, they go deep and you guys are doing other stuff right now. You're getting dishes done, you're walking the dog, you're maybe inspired to organize that drawer because we're talking about it, or you're in your car and you just parked and now you're organizing the car and you're doing the flip and go you. But like, let's hear more about your experience of podcasting with your genius of organizing. SPEAKER_02: So here's how I view podcasting as a podcast listener. And I listen to so many podcasts and such a diverse amount of podcasts. For me, it's like I'm having these mental conversations with people I wish were I was having real conversations with. They may be from a different part of the world or have a different strength or have achieved a different level of success or whatever. And I feel like I get to have this, it is one way, but in my head, I'm having a conversation back and forth with them. And I am growing and I am learning in relationship to that person, even though we are not personally talking back and forth. So have you ever met your podcast audience? Like whenever I meet mine in person, a book signing or whatever, it is the best thing. And they just start telling me everything. They're like, oh, sorry, I'm not giving you a chance to talk. I'm like, I've been talking for 12 years. Bring it. Like, I know what I said. Tell me about you. I just want to hear about you. Like, tell me about you. And it's like we just pick up in this conversation we've been having for 12 years, because we have been having a conversation for 12 years. I love it. So I really say out loud the things that I'm thinking, and then I listen to the feedback I get to see if it actually resonates. And people are like, oh my gosh, I didn't think anybody else thought that. Or also as a teacher, I taught middle school math, which is probably the least favorite subject of all time. And so kids who aren't getting the math, they're like, I don't want to do the math. And I would trick them into learning whatever it is that I had to teach them. It's kind of like that. I don't want to do my housework. I don't want to get organized. I'm organized enough. I don't want to spend my time that way. I'm like, okay, how do I trick you into loving this so that you play with me and listen to me on the podcast? And I just have a lot of observations, like, why am I doing this? Okay, hey, why are we doing this? They're like, yeah, we don't know why we're doing this. How can we stop doing this? Or, oh, I found a better way to do this. Or like, oh, yeah, that does work. And did you know you could do this? So here's a classic example. I did a podcast episode, All My Nair Solo. I did a podcast episode about how AI and smart machines are making my house dumb. Because there's not a single smart anything that I've bought in my house that is working for me. So it's classic two examples. Number one, my robot never sees charge, she never gets the job done. I don't even have a big house. She'll do like one room, she'll go back to charge. She never comes back out. She gets stuck on the whatever. Half the time she won't deploy. She unconnects from the Wi-Fi. The other thing is, I bought a washing machine that has an app. And now I know every time anybody starts the washing machine, so I'm on vacation. Why are people doing laundry at my house? It's the person watching the dog. I'm like, I don't need this kind of complexity. I don't need to know every single time my washing machine goes on. So then my audience replied back and they're like, don't install the app. I was like, what do you mean don't install the app? They're like, none of us install the washing machine app. I'm like, you don't have the app? They're like, no, not a single person said they had a app. No, I was like, I was being a good girl. I thought you were supposed to install the app. For the robots, they all said they didn't have the app for that either. I'm like, how do you get it to work? They're like, we push the button on the top. I'm like, you can just push the button and she goes. They're like, yeah. And then we put like block her off so that she's only doing the part that she's supposed to do. I'm like, I didn't know that either. I'm like, yeah, oh my gosh. So that's the kind of thing. And as technology grows and as we have new experiences, here's what happens in our households. We think we're the only one. We think we're the only one that's overwhelmed. We think we're the only one that doesn't know how to do this. We think we're the only one that doesn't have a system. No, none of us have a system except that one person you know that does have it that always tells you about it. That person knows, nobody else does. And everybody else is like, how'd they figure it out? I wish I could know how to figure it out. I would like to figure it out. Can somebody give me like the cliff notes on this? Or now it'd be the AI on this. So that's what I just kind of am always thinking about. Like, where are you getting stuck? Where are you negatively talking to yourself unnecessarily at home, which is just part of life that we could just get rid of entirely? Like, how can I make you feel better in your house about what you're doing and at the same time leave a legacy for future household organizers not to get stuck in the chaos of trying to recreate the wheel all the time? SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I just love you. Like, hats off to you. And the adventure of organizing, seriously, because like it does, it resonates so deeply. And whether you're a professional organizer or you're into this or you're not sure you're into it, or whatever, like we all have stuff. Yeah, and you might even be organizing someone else's stuff, executor of the will or your children, or et cetera, et cetera. So, like, this is so helpful to me. Listeners, if you loved this, I want you to go find Lisa and her podcast. How can they find you? We will put all these links in the show notes, but in case they're doing something and it's gonna go on to the next thing, where do you hang out? Social media handles, websites, all the things, how can people find you? SPEAKER_02: Everything is organized365. So organize365.com, the podcast is organized365, and I'm most active on Instagram under Organize365. SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you so much. I am seriously changed by this conversation. I resonate so deeply, totally fangirling here. Do you feel like we missed anything that you want to leave listeners with or anything else? SPEAKER_02: Once we start talking about this, there is so much we could talk about. But the thing I would leave you with is this you are not broken. You don't have an efforting problem, you are great. You haven't had the right teacher, you haven't organized your house in the right order in order to get the results that you're looking for. There is a solution out there. It is not you. SPEAKER_00: And so totally find out so good. Take that next step. Make the call, listen to the podcast, open the drawer. It's a whole new world when you're organized and a place for everything and everything in its place. Like it really is this powerful thing. Yeah. Moving through life and space. So thank you for inspiring me. I am so excited to meet you. Until we meet again, adventure on, everybody.
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