Spring Cleaning & Going Back to School with Lisa Woodruff

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 2: This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

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Speaker 3: And this is Sarah hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

00:00:17
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds.

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Speaker 2: Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping.

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Speaker 3: Out long term career goals.

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Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. In this episode, Sarah is going to be interviewing Lisa Woodruff, who is the owner of Organized three sixty five and a longtime friend of this podcast and people have listened to a past episode where she's on. She's also a business sponsor of this podcast, which is just amazing. We really appreciate that. So Sarah maybe could tell us a little bit about the episode and also how your general organization is going.

00:00:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am always inspired by the way Lisa's brain works and the things she talks about, and they often change, like she's a very creative and energetic person, and she even she'll say like I'm really good at like starting projects and having ideas and then I need someone else to do them because I've already moved on to fanx idea. So I think you'll really enjoyed that aspect of Lisa. I've been very inspired by her, you know, different organizing programs, which she has actually changed around a lot to be a little bit more fluid than they used to be, which is good because I was struggling to like complete them the way they were initially laid out. But she's inspired me to get a lot of my own organizing done and I am starting to make some progress, although ironically in the areas that she like says not to focus on, I haven't been able to help myself, like the kids' rooms. I mean, she is absolutely correct that it is like the lowest yield project because it's going to be ruined in a week, and I'm glad that she remembers that, and yet it had to happen. So I am making some progress, and that organize all of my stationary supplies, which had actually been like on like I had wanted to do it for a really long time, and then I emptied out all my drawers. I got rid of old planners I didn't want, et cetera. That felt really really good. My wa washy tape is all you know, lined up Laura, it looks awesome.

00:02:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But the other thing that Lisa and I are going to talk about that I think you'll find fascinating, or at least I did, is that she chose to go back to school to pursue a PhD at age fifty because she just wanted more expertise in the area of her interest. She wanted more legitimacy, she wanted to conduct her own research. And I mean, I just have so much respect for that because my impulse would have been like, well, I'll hire a PhD and like outsource all of that, and she's like, no, I want all of it. And she's gone into detail about how she's doing prerequisites and she's actually in like a kind of post back program to become a PhD candidate and all the stuff she's done to streamline and organize her life to fit this in. And I think this is relevant for many listeners because there may be people who were on a career path and are interested in another. For example, I know a lot of people who choose to go to law school fairly late in life, as it's a career. It's very practical bed in three years you can be qualified to do unlike medical school, where you have to don't forget the residency and maybe the fellowship and it like kind of takes forever. But you know, law school three years and you're there, and so I think that there will be many helpful takeaways from Lisa's experiences and her journey so far.

00:03:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely looking forward to that. Yeah, I'm more in the school of I hire people who are experts in research to help me with my I understand a lot of it, but it's always good to have people who have the real credentials in it to help. Yeah, my organizing projects have taken a major leap forward of late now that we have some professional help on that front.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: I've had our.

00:03:40
Speaker 1: Home manager person going through all the kids stuff. The rooms are looking a lot better now. There have been toy bins with labels on them. All the cake decorating supplies are now in a clear plastic bin with a label. I mean, it's probably something I never would have done, but it's kind of fun to see it in my pantry.

00:03:59
Speaker 3: Very excited.

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Speaker 1: I'll take it.

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Speaker 3: I think that was a fantastic use of that extra time and extra help. And I've seen pictures and it's really cute and it's not It doesn't look so hard to maintain, like maybe a home edit room would look where everything's in rainbow order, and you're like, that's great. It looks more practical than that, So I think it will last.

00:04:19
Speaker 1: Although I think the Lacroix and our pantry are in fact in rainbow order, so why not you know, somehow I can as well.

00:04:28
Speaker 3: Put them that way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well let's hear what Lisa has to say.

00:04:32
Speaker 3: I am so excited to chat today with Lisa Woodra, who has been on our show before, maybe two times before. I'm not sure I'm losing count. She actually asked me as we were starting, wait, which podcast is this for? And that just is a testament, meaning was it best of both worlds or best laid plans? Not that she didn't know us, but she she loves all of the Laura Vandercam, Sarah Hartunger industrial complex and has been a part of all of that. So we are so excited to have Lisa welcome.

00:05:00
Speaker 4: Lisa, Thank you so much. I think that's just like a classic woman thing like who am I supposed to be? Like? Am I the CEO? And am I have the wife? I'm the mother? And rarely are we just like us? And like today we're going to talk about like I finally get to be like me?

00:05:15
Speaker 3: Yes, and we hope you are going to be like you because you are assassinating and a very different thinker than many. So I'm sure you we'll share lots of creativity with the world today. So the biggest thing I was super excited. I wanted to talk to you about all kinds of things, as I always do, but to tell our listeners about the really kind of big thing going on in your life right now and why you decided to do that.

00:05:38
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness. So I have a teaching degree in early childhood education with an elementary add on. So I'm a teacher, I'm a parent, I'm a mom, I'm an entrepreneur. And I have joked around on my podcast about wanting to get a PhD for like a decade and I had a good friend who was the dean of a university program and she was like, you cannot get a PhD. I really admired her, and she's just one of those like like when she's talking, you know if she's laughing or not, because it's just like this flat, dry, like you can't get a PhD, just like not a lot of affect in her voice. And she's just wicked smart, like super smart. And I have dyslexia. And I was like, well, she says I can't get a PhD, I can't. And also, you know, I'm trying to grow this company and be a parent and all these other things I'm doing. And so I have said numerous times I'd love to get a PhD. I'd love to get a PhD just because I love to learn, like and I love to research, and I just love knowledge, like I love learning about learning just for learning sake. I've thought about getting a law degree. I've even thought about going back and getting a medical degree. And somebody said to me, as soon as you get telling your PhD, you should get a medical degree. And I was like, you know, if I look beyond Greg, I might because like what else are you gonna do with your time? And that is just like not a normal thought. I am not a normal person. But I will tell you why. I actually am going back and getting my PG no, it's because I'm out of the active parenting years. And I just want to say that right at the beginning, because whether you are working from home, working away from home, stay at home parent, like parenting is all encompassing, Like there's just not a lot of time for you during the active parenting years. How don't even know if there should be, to be honest, like a hot back like that'll it's just supposed to eat you through, like it is an intense thing to be a parent, but once they are in their twenties, they still need you all the time and they want hashtag all your money. But you do get a lot of hours back. And that's why I finally was like, you know, I have the time, and I have the time in my business because I've built a team and we have the income in the business because we've been around for more than ten years. And I thought, you know, the only thing holding me back from getting a PhD is thinking that I can very interesting.

00:07:54
Speaker 3: I think Laura and I would both push back a little bit on the idea that during your heavier parents years you can't do be things at work or for yourself. But I do get what you're saying in that actually the PhD is not the only thing you are doing. You are planning on doing your PhD while continuing to run your successful, growing business, which is not necessarily the same thing as perhaps like leaving a corporate position, having a baby, and then deciding to get a PhD and then go back to work. You're doing all the things at once.

00:08:25
Speaker 4: Yes, but you know what, it doesn't feel like it. And I totally am like, I'm spending about forty hours a week, working twenty five to thirty hours a week in a PhD. And I quote Laura Vanderkim, like every day everyone on my podcast knows her because one hundred and sixty eight hours, you have more time than you think. That's only seventy hours, you guys still have ninety eight left to go. I'm sleeping seventy eight hours a night. I was sleeping eight to nine, so I've lost like one hour a night of sleeping, But that's a lot of sleeping. I'm still dating my husband every week. We are still watching TV five nights out of the week. I'm still spending ninety minutes with my grandson every day. Like I am still doing all the things, you know what, I'm not doing I have no buffer time, Like there is zero buffer, but I'm okay with it, Like I don't even care.

00:09:12
Speaker 3: I love it. How are you currently? Are you relentlessly kind of planning your week ahead of time? How are you making all of the pieces fit? Because I've been listening to your podcast, and I to me, it sounds like you've done a lot of forethought, which I think is the best approach, because you know how I feel about planning and how incredibly important it is and how it will kind of allow everything else to work. But maybe tell our listeners a little bit about how you've gotten those pieces to fit together so nicely.

00:09:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's ten thousand percent planning. So I identified a long time ago there's this cycle of organizing, and it starts with the cluttering, and then you move to organizing, and then you move to increased productivity. I could not be doing what I'm doing if I had any kind of clutter anywhere in my house, in my mind, in my schedule, in any like. I have for the last decade gotten myself to the point where I was ready for this. So I have decluttered my eating. I have decluttered my morning and afternoon and evening routines. I have decluttered my house, I've decluttered my responsibilities. I have no social life because I'm a nerd and I love socializing with the people in my class and the people in my business. And that's good enough with me. Like I don't need to have a social life, so I decluttered a social life. The other thing is like I have these routines that I've built up over time. So I have a pretty elaborate beauty routine, both of the skincare now and of the makeup. They take quite a while and I love them. And I buy everything in bulk, and everything is on auto orders, so I auto order everything. I have really simplified foods that I eat, and I don't care if I eat the same foods. So I have a granola bar and a coffee in the morning, and then I have a protein bar around ten thirty and I make these rice bags. So in my rice bags, it's like a little bit of fried rice, a whole bunch of vegetables and some chick I heat it up for five minutes while I go to the bathroom, you know, get ready. Then I eat that and then for dinner either I get fast food on the way home because I love best food or I have little snacky things at home, and we don't really eat meals at home anymore. We didn't even when I was in the active parenting years, because I do not get parenting advice, household advice. So like all those things, like every single routine has been scrutinized and reviewed and every one and twenty days, so three times a year I go through them again. So we're recording this in the beginning of May. So I will plan my summer. I will plan my foods, I will plan the clothes I will buy. When I started school, I went and I bought myself a uniform. I went to Talbitts. I got two jackets, I got three shirts. I got a couple of sweatpants because I don't have sweatpants, and that was the uniform that I wore every night for class. Like everything comes down to planning, and you cannot have a proactive, productive life if you haven't decluttered and organized and refined your habit to that level.

00:12:01
Speaker 3: I love it. I love both the physical decluttering and I love the idea of doing every you know cyclical. I use Quintal's use kind of trimester as you divide the year into three, just like you're like an overhaul of like what's working, what isn't, How can I streamline things further? What are my priorities this time, et cetera. I want to talk more about kind of like what some of your research is that you're passionate about, and what are the things that you are finding that inspired you in some ways to go back to school in the first place, Like what was kind of at the heart of like what does Lisa want to show the world? And it sounds like some of that's changed because you realize it. In science, you don't just get to decide what you're going to prove, you actually are going.

00:12:42
Speaker 4: To find actually anything. I'm like, what do you mean you can't prove anything? Isn't that the whole point? No, I've learned that you can support. I've learned that we disseminate our information, like even my language and my podcast is changing. But I started this journey into the PhD a couple of years ago, right before COVID happened. I was doing a time study again inspired by Laura because she has the time studies in her books that even emailed her. I'm like, Laura, how'd you do the time studies? And she's like, okay, here's what I did. I was like, okay. So we had sent out one hundred Sunday baskets to new people who didn't have a Sunday basket, and we were having them rate how they spent their time before it, and then we were going to follow up. And then the pandemic happened. I was like, well, that's the end of that. So we were trying to prove support that you say, five hours every week using a Sunday basket. Well, that research went away, but I still wanted to do research, and so I was talking about doing research in my three year Vivid vision for episode three hundred and sixty five, and I had hired a research company, like a sales research company that was going to do really souped up marketing research for me so that I could get on the Today Show basically, and I was going to prove that women are doing more work than men, like that's just what I wanted to prove. Well, luckily, before I did that, Sarah reached out to me another Sarah and she said, they're all smart, that Sarah's are, And she said, I think this could be bigger than you think. I would like to help you make this academic worthy. And so she ran it through Harrisburg University where she's a member there, and they gave us an IRB to do our study. And so we did a study on what is housework and what is the weight of paper? And then we used that initial study to actually run the survey. So that was all great, and what we found out was that we did not support that women are doing all the work, but women are probably doing more work. There was no way to tell if women were doing more or less based on the questions that we asked. But what I realized after that was that everybody's doing more work than we want to be doing at home. Now we've done another study with Sarah and the IRB and we ran it ourselves, and that one was on home organization. Now what I know now, now that I've taken only one semester of classes, is that I have operational life the words housework and home organization. And when I went to do my research studies. When you do academic level research, every single word in the study has to be defined so that there is no confusion about what it means. So you can't say mental health, you can say anxiety. And so we're ready to launch the study. This was back in twenty twenty and I said, okay, well, but what is the definition of housework? And they just looked at me, like, you know, housework. I'm like, yeah, no, no, what is it? There was no definition like Google didn't have one. There was a one for home organization. So I made my own definitions for those studies. Well, now now I want to see can I operationalize those definitions so that they are the academic definitions for housework and home organization? I know. Write second thing I realized just in my first term is I had to do a class on theoretical orientations, and as an early childhood teacher, I learned about Ericson and Ericsson's stages of growth. Like as an early childhood you know, you could definitely see as little babies go from one stage to the next. My little baby Grayson I love. I'm like, oh object permanence, you know, like I'm checking off the things. Well, those stages of growth go all the way through one hundred years old. And actually it's Erickson's wife that helped define all of those stages of growth, and so I love that that's from the Freudian time zone. Then in the next time zone in like the seventies and eighties, that's where Maslow was really popular and humanistic theology not theology theory. Sorry, can't get religion and too many things. If Sarah guy, he's got stick with just forward to learning. So I like Maslow. I've done a lot of study of Maslow. It's interesting now that i'm researching it, what I actually know of Maslow is very commercialized and not actually what he taught. But there's still things. Positive psychology came from that time frame as well. And now currently we are in the era of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is habits and your whole life is habitual. So I wrote a paper about how there should be a household orientation theory that pulls the life stages from ericson positive psychology and Maslo for goal attainment at home and cognitive behaviorabal habit for me as the way in which you do that. So I'm toying with the idea. I don't know if my you know, dissertation chair will let me of creating my own theory, the household orientation theory.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh, so interesting.

00:17:29
Speaker 4: I don't.

00:17:30
Speaker 3: I feel like there are just so many ideas and anecdotal things around this and very little like hard data. So this is just very, very exciting to bring some science into a field that has been not surprisingly overlooked because it's been in the realm of mostly women. Oh my gosh. We have to take a very quick break and then we're going to be back because I have so many more questions. Okay, I'm back. So your theory would kind of put together and a framework for how households operate or why they work and how they don't work or.

00:18:15
Speaker 4: Yes, so the person who I hope to study under, now I don't. I'm not in school yet. I'm still applying to get my PhD. So I'm actually in like a I'm in a pacalaureate, yeah, a certification program, and I'm going to be applying here in the next couple of weeks. And so I've talked to a lot of people at school. So finger crossed, you know this is going to work. But this hopeful dissertation chair that I'll work under, she studies in workplace organization and how workplaces thrive. And so she told me that there were two different views of that, and I'm sorry, I'm not going to know the two that there are because all this language is so new to me. So I bought both the textbooks because of course I did, and I skimmed them, and in the one textbook, I pulled out three chapters. I said, these three chapters. What I want to do is create a scaffolding at home like we have at school and work, which is what I've been talking about in the podcast Forever. And I have a couple of advantages being an entrepreneur and somebody in my fifties. And the first one is like I'm used to creating something from nothing, Like there was no Sunday Basket, I didn't have a podcast. I'm creating my own fake TV studio. Like basically, I mean, if I dream it and believe it, I just do it, like nobody's telling me yes or no or giving me permission or whatever. So when I go to do research, I've already done three research studies with hiring out everybody that I need. So one of the things that is when you get a PhD in psychology, the goal is to disseminate to do research, and then disseminate that research so that people can learn what you have found. I don't have a PhD, so I have not published in any journals any of the research that we have found. When I applied to school, I thought a CV was your resume, I turned into resume. It's not. A CV is how you have disseminated the research that you've done well, dissemining research on podcasts, in live in person, in webinars, allccounts. My CV is now three pages long, written in APA style on all the dissemination that I have done from the three researches that I've done, but I have not disseminated yet in journal articles. I need to need to disseminated in journal article. I can't even quote myself yet, and it's already statistics. And so when I approach getting a PhD and creating this theoretical orientation like, I will be a research in journal producing machine like. Along with getting my PhD, I'm already looking at getting a coach to help me write journal articles for the research I've already done and to pull things out of the dissertation I'm going to be doing that will be journal articles when I graduate. So my goal is not just to do research for research sake. My goal is to have a more meaty conversation in rooted in science so that we can bring to the forefront this discussion that right now it's just this former teacher, stay at home mom, blogger turned podcaster, quasi business owner is talking about. But when you just what PhD after, I'd be like, oh, doctor Woodriff said, I.

00:21:19
Speaker 3: Don't know, And it's kind of a joke, but not a joke. You do have a unique set of skills and experiences and characteristics that, given your interest in doing this, makes you perfectly positioned to do it. Not everybody would be interested in doing it, but since you are, like who has all this personal and also client experience, customer experience in so many different ways to run a household, some of which are effective, some of which are not effective, And I can't imagine anybody who has a broader perspective on what works. So this is super exciting.

00:21:52
Speaker 4: And I did just want to point out, like I'm not making a light of getting a PhD, Like it is going to be a solid four years and I already I could tell my brain is completely changing. Was just one term done, Like getting a PhD is a process of becoming a critical thinker and thinking like a doctor, and thinking analytically and being able to cite everything you're talking about, like even in the podcast now sometimes I'll say I'll add citations into my podcast show notes because I'll be referencing studies that I've read. And so it is the process of becoming a doctor, not just the letters. I don't want to, you know, everybody like, wow, she just thinks you you know, No, it is a seriousness to.

00:22:30
Speaker 3: It, Lisa. It is very clear that the passion is there. I don't think anybody listening to this doubt that, and I'm just really excited. I'm you said your series where You So on Lisa's podcast on Organized through sixty five, which if you don't listen to it, it is an excellent podcast on so many different kind of household slash organization slash I don't know, like life type topics. But recently there's been a great series which was like thirteen or fourteen long about doing your PhD, which I think you were recording in the car, which, by the way, blows my mind because I could never do that. I'm a terrible driver. You don't want me to podcast and record it anyway, So tell listeners about that, and is that going to continue because I've loved hearing actually the nitty gritty of how you're fitting this in and what the journey's been like as a very non traditional student.

00:23:17
Speaker 4: Yes. So it's going to end up being I think sixteen or seventeen episodes. It's on Mondays, and it's pulled out into a separate playlist, so if you listen on Apple, like I've pulled out playlists into different channels and things like that. You know, I did similar things when Abbie got pregnant and then had our grand baby. When you are sharing your life and being an organized person, organization changes as you go through different stages and you have to continually level up your organization and change out what you're doing. And so I thought, first of all, I'm going to talk a lot about getting a PHGA, might as well record a podcast. And second of all, the planning, like I was planning for the two months before I started. All the time all I was thinking about like, Okay, this is this going to stay? Is this going to go? How am I going to keep doing this? What about this? What can I systematize? Because I'm looking at like, you know, a four year journey here. It's not just I'm going to do this for ten weeks and then I'll pop back into my life. And I thought there would be benefit for other people to see, how do you add in like a thirty hour week commitment for four years in your life? What kind of decisions do you have to make? But then also, I haven't been in school in thirty years, and I've never been a straight A student, so learning isn't like easy for me, and academia is. I'm a professional business owner now, like I want to do a good job, like I want to represent well, and so I had to think about, like we're recording this and I actually have my hair in a bun. I never wore my hair in a ponytailer or a bun before I started the PhD. I had to wrestle with that for a long time, like is it okay? Is it professional for me not to have my hair down and curly? Which sounds completely silly, except you've done it too, because we do, like we totally have to think through all of these things. So I did that. I thought through all of those things that I put them in there and then as we're going through like how did it work? As I would go through different stages of the term, like how am I doing with coursework? I traveled four times during that term, had a birthday, just like how does real life happen when you change? And now I could tell you that series has come to an end because I am now a PhD student and a CEO. When I started that series, I was a CEO who was starting her PhD, but not even sure that we were going to continue on, because like if Greg said we're done, I was going to be done. And so how did I take all of the organization and productivity and everything that I learned and everything else I'd done and apply it into this and then really transition that now I am that person, just like I am a grandparent now I can't even imagine when I wasn't when I was worried about how much time a grandchild wild take. And that's so true when you give ready to start something, you have no idea how you're going to do it, and even when you start doing it, you're not sure that you want to continue on, and you might quit. But then eventually you just take on that identity and you add it to everything else you're already doing.

00:26:06
Speaker 3: Which is a great metaphor for parenting in some ways, too right, because it seems so especially when you're looking at it before you've actually had the child, before you're in it. It just seems like, how will I shape my life around this? And then you just do you figure it out? And I could see that how like a podcast series in the very beginning would make sense. But then by the time your kid is one, like, well, you've probably found your rhythms, and there's not as much to say. Okay, fine, well you should all listen to the series. It is great. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is you have kind of like changed up kind of your overall guide to how to get your entire household organized. I feel like it's become more flexible, less prescriptive. Has your research influenced how you've decided to change that or is it more just with experience? And for listeners, give them a little bit of background, because not everybody might know exactly what you do or even like what a Sunday basket or a household organization program is.

00:26:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, and I think that is actually if you're an entrepreneur this, You're gonna love this. So I've been in business for thirteen years almost, and a lot of podcasting and entrepreneurship is basically digging people on the journey with you as you figure it out. You're just a step ahead of everyone. And when I first started, I was a stay at home mom, and so I helped you get your house organized in the forty weeks of the school year, because that's the weeks that I had to get organized. Then after that I figured out that, oh, well, I actually do my class at three times a year, and I do my kitchen three times a year. Okay, well, then I'm going to break this down even more into like one hundred day segments, and we're going to do three one hundred day segments that match the trimesters. And that's when I figured out that I plan in trimesters. And then I segued to, you know, it's gonna we need to do this in a year, like it's going to take a whole year to get through all these spaces, especially if you want to do the paper. And I got to the point two years ago where I had all these products and we really have not gotten rid of any of the products. And I just kind kind of a meeting with my team and they're like, I know how to sell. You are like, well, just gonna sales meet and they go, we don't even know how to do may like, what do you want us to send an emails? Like there's just too many things to market. We can't market you, Lisa, I said, I know, I know, I'm a problem. And it's because we have no scaffolding at home. If I was marketing how to do your own business, I would fall into the business category, or teaching, I'd fall into teaching. But when you're in the household, what do you grab onto and there is no pocket of money that you have in your budget for organizing your house or maintaining your house or the role you have as a homeowner, even though it's twenty eight hours a week, people without children, without children, that's how long it takes to maintain a household, twenty eight hours a week. But yet we don't even like put it on the list at all. And I have somebody clean my house, so that eliminates eight of the hours, but it doesn't eliminate all of the hours. It's an actual job. And so I just said to them. This is a whole new revelation, Terry, You'll be the first person to hear it. I'm starting my own TV show. I'm not waiting for people to come ask me. I've set up all these vignettes over in the office. I'm going to go record little segments. You're going to see them all week long. And I've decided the flow is overrated. You can get in the American flow, and you could go with the flow and you end up not done with your goals. There is a productive household flow, but it is very orchestrated, and it is deep work on Monday and meetings and errands on Tuesday and Wednesdays when you followup from meetings, and Thursdays deep work again, and then you transition to the house Friday's networking, and then you do your Friday workbox, and then you get up on Saturday morning and you do your productive home solution and you play with your kids, and then you do your Sunday basket and that is the week. But then you layer on top of that holidays and whatever else. And I know all this like I can orchestrate this movie for you. Three hundred and sixty five days a year, and I'm going to start doing it in our app and on Instagram, and it's going to be I'm gonna have to pre record some of it. But even like the Sunday basket, some weeks you're like, why do I even do the Sunday basket? There's nothing in here? This thing must not even work. And then other weeks you're like, I need my whole house is a Sunday basket, Like why is my sun basket exploding? And that's normal, And so I can give you a Sunday basket report on Sundays to be like, here's the barometer of where your Sunday basket is. So I'm going to go all in on this because I'm crazy and I have a warehouse, so I'm just gonna set it up. But that is why this research is important. The common mainstream conversation right now is that women are undervalued, that they are doing the invisible work that they are put upon and men better step it up and do their job. And the men are saying, well, i'll do whatever you want me to, just ask and the women are like, why can't you figure this out? You know why? Because the women can't figure it out and it's too exhausting to tell you, so you might as well just do it, because there's so many things I can't stop to tell you, because I'm not going to get it all done. And that conversation is real. I'm not saying that conversation isn't real. I'm just saying it's not affirmative, and it's not constructive, and it's not helpful. It's great for clickbait, it's great for the Today Show. It's great that Marie Kondo has decided that she's given it up. She has not given it up. People. If you think Marie Kondo is overwhelmed, she is not. She is selling a new book. She's just fine. She's still more organized than all of us. But we need to have a school like you need to learn organizing school like Organize three sixty five is a university. This is where you learn to be the head of your household. And there is no easy way for me to do that. So I'm just going to keep running faster.

00:31:22
Speaker 3: And yeah, so are you going to encourage couples to attend your school together?

00:31:28
Speaker 4: You know are quite a few men that are doing the productive home solution now and they've started to say to me, you know, like for men, for men, for men. I'm like, okay, well I need to know what the lingo is whatever. And then there's this one audience member. She travels and she's the breadwinner and her husband is at home, and he's like, yeah, but they're all women in there. She goes, do you know when the last time I was in a meeting of any kind where I was not the only woman. She's like, suck it up and get in the productive home solution. And I thought, you know what, Yeah, why do I have to change to make this gut off again. We're opening the door. We're not going to change our sex and I'm not gonna change my language, but I'm going to open the door. Come on in. I'm not gonna shame you. Clearly, there are no men in my life that are not supporting me, helping me opening the door for me. I'm going to support you, help you open the door for you. But I'm not going to change the fact that this has been a female ground for like ever, like I can't change that, but I haven't make it more comfortable for you to come join us and find anything visible work. You want to just start doing anything It does.

00:32:33
Speaker 3: One hundred percent right though, that there does not need to be a for men tacked on, because there's no reason it would need to be any different of a program. And I'm still waiting for my first male Best Laid Plans Academy registrant, but it's gonna happen. I can't wait. That's awesome, Lisa, that is fantastic. I want to we need to do Love of the Week. But I just one more seasonal question. It's May. As we're recording this, you've told people on your podcast about like the different golden windows, like what should everybody be thinking in the months ahead in terms of since you were able to like read our minds and know what the focuses are going to be, what's the next few months looking like for us?

00:33:14
Speaker 4: Yeah? So May is setting you up for the summer. And what happens is you run so fast in May and you get all the way to the end and you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't forget anything, and then you just collapse on the floor and the next thing you know, it's Labor Day. So you're gonna be awesome summer either way. I'm just like, I'm not giving you any guilt. I'm not giving you any homework, but I'm just saying that the memories that are most meaningful to you someone planned those. So even if you just say I'm going to do one thing in June, one thing in July, and one thing in August, and you're actually going to plan it, and I'm saying that you have to plan like a wedding, I'm just saying you're gonna do Somemores one night and the kids are going to stay up an hour late, and you're also gonna watch a movie outside, or you're gonna take the day off work and you're gonna surprise them and you're like pajama Day in the middle of July or something like, just something fun and so like, they will talk about it for the rest of their life, but it will not happen unless you plan it. So it all comes back to planning.

00:34:07
Speaker 3: Awesome. Well, before we go, do you know our tradition of sharing a love of the week. I don't think I've warned you. Oh you do, okay, good, So I'll let you go first. Mine is not that exciting, but I still have a lot of love for it, So go ahead.

00:34:20
Speaker 4: So my first term in getting my PhD. I kept hoping that Grayson would get in daycare because Grayson lives with us. He did not, but he started daycare yesterday. Love of the week so I was a preschool teacher, I was a stay at home mom. My kids did not go to daycare. I love being home with my kids. And for Grayson, I love daycare for him because he doesn't have siblings, and my daughter was staying home with her him, but she wants to work and she doesn't have a spouse, and so he is in day number two and he's so excited. I've seen little pictures. So my love of the week is daycare.

00:34:55
Speaker 3: Daycare is awesome. And also I think providing permission to ourselves to love daycare is excellent. So that is a fantastic love of the week. And I'm going to give a really really boring one, which is that Lululemon socks are awesome.

00:35:08
Speaker 4: I need socks.

00:35:10
Speaker 3: Lululemon socks. They're great for running, they're comfortable. So many socks are like itchy, and they're my most comfortable socks. And I realized the other day that I had a pair that was like, I don't know, really really old and they were like, still working great. So I think I'm going to replace all my socks with Lululemon socks. Now I've just ruined every future sponsorship with every other sock company. But it's okay. I love my socks.

00:35:30
Speaker 4: And you know what I just want to say, like for women, you should do that, like go buy yourself all new underwear, like it's amazing. It's ridiculously expensive, but you're worth it. You do it for your kids like every six months, So do it for you.

00:35:43
Speaker 3: Agree one hundred percent. Well, Lisa, this has been such a pleasure. Tell our listeners where they can find all of your stuff.

00:35:49
Speaker 4: So the podcast is called Organized three sixty five. The website's Organized three sixty five. I'm Organized three sixty five on Instagram.

00:35:56
Speaker 3: Awesome, thank you so much for coming on.

00:35:59
Speaker 4: Thank you.

00:36:01
Speaker 1: Well, that was awesome. I'm hearing about all the amazing things that Lisa has going on in her life. So the question is from somebody asking us about podcasting. This person's wrote to Sarah and said, how much time a week does your weekly podcast with Laura take to prep record and produce? What equipment do you need to buy to sound professional? Do you edit the podcast? Yourself or outsource that, and do you have any tips on what recording software to use? So for those who are just joining us, I guess we could get into a quick rundown of how it goes.

00:36:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, yeah, we talked about this a while back, but it's been a little while.

00:36:37
Speaker 4: Laura and I go.

00:36:37
Speaker 3: Back and forth with the show notes. I would say that takes maybe around thirty to sixty minutes, sometimes sixty minutes or more, depending on what the topic is and what it is. And you know, we're prepping somebody to interview, we might actually want to read their book and that could take some time as well. So actually, I'm going to revise that. I'm going to say prep takes one to two hours, and we're kind of sending stuff back and forth to do that. There's also time that you need to record, and that usually takes about the episode, because, as we'll talk about, we kind of do a take and let someone else fix it and then yeah, and then there's extra time brainstorming thinking about episodes, deciding which guests to actually pitch, coordinating with said guests, and then also coordinating with our sound team, which we do outsource. But then there's work in actually having to tell them what to do in terms of like where's our break and what sponsors are in this week's episode, and actually sending them the tracks and whatnot. The equipment so all I have. Laura has more fancy stuff than I do because she has Before Breakfast, which is a little bit different. But I have a MIC from twenty seventeen that somehow is still functioning. I don't understand it, but it's great. It's an audiotechnica, like one hundred dollars mic, and I use my MacBook Pro and that's it and a pair of wired headphones. So that's all of my equipment. Do we edit it ourselves? We outsource it to a company called Sounded by Strategies. They're a public company available to anyone. They have a starter package, or you can if you have an existing podcast. I don't know if you I don't remember if you can start if you already have one, but anyway, they basically allow you to purchase their time to do all the editing and production, and they can even like for bestlaid plans. I had them help me grow it from scratch, meaning they help me with the cover art and getting it on all the platforms, et cetera. And then finally tips on recording software to use. We use squadcast, which usually behaves itself. A lot of people also like the program Riverside FM, so that's when I've been a guest on a bunch that seems to work well.

00:38:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, for best of both worlds, I use the same stuff. It's just my laptop, a microphone you can buy off Amazon, and you can spend any amount of microphones, but definitely if you're you know, looking in the fifty to one hundred dollars range, you can't get excellent stuff pair of headphones, and that's it. That's the upside of these online recording software platforms as you really can get because it records local tracks, like it's recording a local track for me, in a local track for Sarah, and our sound engineer puts them together and so the quality is better than if you're relying on the internet transmission of it. So yeah, that's what we do.

00:39:16
Speaker 4: Well.

00:39:17
Speaker 1: This has been best of both worlds. Sarah was interviewing Lisa Woodruff of Organized three sixty five. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:39:29
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.

00:39:37
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.