On to level 3, the household manager! We are building in guardrails to pause, reflect, and think, without interruptions, about all the invisible work and get it all planned. For years I have stressed the importance of the Sunday Basket® and often say it's the first thing you should do in your organization journey. EXCEPT when we are talking about building these levels. For this framework you must first identify the housework you need to do and establish a cadence. Then organize your home in order for the household management in the Sunday Basket® to stick!

The Sunday Basket®

There are two options for the Sunday Basket®. You may get the Classic or Complete Sunday Basket®. I explained what is included with each option and I will give you the cliff notes that if you are more digital go with the Classic. Each week you can expect to spend roughly 90 minutes - 2 hours weekly after you have it set up and have established the routine. I can't make more people to help you with your household management and you can't make the people in your household do their "fair share." This safe holding place for your actionable papers and projects will free up about 5 hours for you to get more done! When you delay decision making till Sunday a few things will happen. You will schedule your time better because you can think through your week and decide what you actually have time for. AND, the details may change or the task may just go away. While you are delaying someone else is still filling requests on demand and may say yes before you do on Sunday or "next week" AND they may start to realize you aren't the "go to" person anymore and there will be less pressure to always say yes. And don't tell me you can't. You have so much more say than you think you do. It may be overwhelming in the beginning but then it turns into a rewarding behavior.

Deconstruct Your To Do List

This is all the invisible work you do and don't really recognize will you hear these episodes or implement the Sunday Basket®. As the household manager you are constantly calendaring, weekly planning, coordinating, planning for learning, delegating, making returns then reordering, managing insurance, care for your cars, making sure you children have what the need for school, strategizing, buying, tracking, remembering, monitoring who's been to the dentist, doctor, had their annual eye exams, the invisible work list goes on and on. In your 20's it's like "This is easy!" because maybe you are only managing yourself and one car. But as your life grows in complexity so do your responsibilities. Now, as you remember you need to do all these mind numbing things, you should be writing them down on index cards. This is how you deconstruct your to do list. One thing on each card. You can move them around or delay each task based on importance. No need to keep rewriting your to-do list. This prevents your ship from sinking!

What Do You Want?

You need to keep asking yourself, what do you want? When you delay your decision making you care in control of what you will spend your time on. I remember someone saying "Everytime you say yes to someone else, you say no to your family." And the other thing to remember when you are planning, strategically set time aside to accomplish the projects that are important to you. It's almost back to school time and the Sunday Basket® will help you really think about what you want and then you can plan how to get there. The Sunday Basket helps you to have a much more realistic allocation of your time, your talent, and your treasure.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

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Level two is the second and final level of visible work that you do as The Productive Home CEO Theoretical Framework. At this level, you learn the skill of functional home organization. It is the organizing of your physical spaces to support the phase of life you are in.

Functional Organization

The world has taught us that a bunch of cute storage bins perfectly labeled is organized. No, I teach functional organization. I explained parts of The Productive Home Solution exercises in this episode. The lunch making station. Wouldn't it make more sense to have all the dishes to make the kids' lunches in one spot? When I looked around one morning, I realized how many cabinets I had to open just to make the lunches. I changed that to having everything in one cabinet. It takes less time to make the lunches and fewer steps.

Then I thought about the rest of the things I do in my kitchen. How is your kitchen set up? Does it support you in the phase of life the people in your life are in? I'd encourage you to catch the full episode to hear how I store cereal, the beverage cabinet and many more organizational solutions I explained. I will empower you, at the end of the day, this organization isn't pretty but it will save you time and free up cognitive space in your brain to reach level three. Organization is not an aesthetic rather it's a productivity marker and a feeling.

It Takes Time

I wish with all my heart that I could give everyone magic wands and wa-la! Your house is organized. But don't be discouraged. I will show you how to eat this elephant one bite at a time. And that there is an order to get organized. The Productive Home Solution is the foundational system and cadence for which we organize and maintain our households throughout our lifetime. And it follows the energy of the year. Not sure what I mean? Listen to the part about organizing your storage areas. Your storage area actually becomes a prepaid store! There's a rhyme and reason as to why I designed the program to do certain spaces at certain times of the year.

And it's in this program that little by little, 15 minute chunk by 15 min chunk, your whole home will get organized. Treat it like your job. Intentionally look at your time and decide when you will do the work. When you have completed the program you will have organized your personal, family, storage spaces, and paper but that's part of level 4, so we'll talk about it later. It takes 1-3 years. But here's the beauty. You get to decide what done looks like for you. And once you've deemed it done…it's done. Listen to yourself say it's done otherwise you will fall into the trap of "oh just 5 more minutes in this area" And before you know it, the time you gave back to yourself will be gone. You have other levels to get to my friend. Let's go!

YOU Are A Professional Organizer

And just like that, you are a professional organizer! It's important to remember that. You cannot control anyone but yourself. However, most times I see the families follow the Household CEO's lead. Once you get organized you will really feel supported. You will be going to bed in an organized space and waking up in an organized space. The time you invest in your home's organization today will pay off 10 fold in the future! Some spaces you may never have to organize again, some you will touch up every trimester, and very few other spaces may require more regular maintenance. But now you have a system in place. Once you get systems in place from level 1 and your level of organization is done from level 2, you're done. This is the end of your visible organization foundation.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Productive Home Solution

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

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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 Goal

I'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® Newsletter

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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 Work

What 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 Work

Then 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 Work

I 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® Newsletter

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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 Study

As 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" Day

I 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 Point

It'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®.

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• The Sunday Basket®

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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 Dissertation

Here 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 future

I 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

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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.

Men

There 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 Can

I 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!!

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• The Sunday Basket®

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Pedicures and massages aren't cutting the mustard anymore. Society is crying out for self care. How can we fill our cups to continue supporting our families? In May Planning Day, I thought about what I wanted to do for my own self care. Sometimes it's the smallest things but we don't realize doing that thing would fill your cup. So I am sharing my ideas in this episode.

10 Self Care Ideas

10. Get time outside doing what you enjoy - for me I will be enjoying our deck, our back yard, and sunsets

9. CEO Days - I will take time, once a month on a Monday, to plan how I will take care of myself, run my home, and have peace of mind because I had focused thinking and planned.

8. Identify and Protect project time - once I realized a 4 hour chunk of time on Saturdays for projects, I have protected it to keep it for myself.

7. Exercise - you get old due to lack of movement. I don't want that. I want a healthy body to support me into my 100's.

6. Have Strategic Time with Humans - those people you want to spend time with. Make calendar dates to keep your marriage strong, see friends, support your children in a way that is gratifying to you, and whoever else you want to catch up with.

5. Learn - I got a book series I loved in the past. I plan to devour it this summer. But think about what you like and get books reserved, podcasts downloaded, order books through amazon, put together your watch list on your preferred streaming service. Like what would you like to learn about?

4. Try New Foods - I have my chicken salad meal but I am thinking about exploring alternatives. But maybe you like to cook? Or maybe you are wanting to eat healthier, what does that look like for you? I will also be setting the habit to meal prep on Sundays.

3. Personal Reset - Go through your personal spaces like your closet, bathroom, or nightstand and decide if the things in there are supporting where you are going and who you are becoming. Discard or donate the rest.

2. Medical Deep Dive - I have a feeling most will skip this one but I am all about my medical binder this summer. I want to see where there are well test gaps and get the screening or baseline numbers from the tests I have avoided. We don't let our kids skip these things so why do we skip them for ourselves?

AND NUMBER ONE: Join Escaping Quicksand Self Care Retreat! You can join in person or virtually. You will get four hours on June 26th, 2026, to think about YOU! Get registered and get ready to escape that quicksand!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• Register for the Escaping Quicksand Self Care Retreat

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Have you ever heard "planned neglect" anywhere else but Organize 365? Probably not because it's a term I coined to describe what I do to more effectively manage my responsibilities and time. One can't do everything so you must determine what is the highest value you provide to your work, community, or family and implement planned neglect for a certain amount of time to manage it all.

I Must Have Mentioned "Planned Neglect" Before

I was fairly shocked when I asked AI to give me some feedback based on a few episodes I shared. It explained the "framework" I have put in place. Ha! Much to my surprise because I hadn't realized I offered a framework. I must have talked about it a few times on the podcast. But it wasn't wrong. You need to identify the timeline when you will be using this planned neglect. Then you should tell your family so they know what's happening when you start to cut corners to free up time for you to better utilize your highest value in this phase of life. Then you need to extend a lot of grace to yourself. It's ok that you have lowered your standards. It doesn't have to be forever just while something else needs more of you. Then you need to implement these temporary habits. And understand that this particular shortcut you have used in the past may not help you the same as it has in the past. You may need to figure out a different way to make life easier for a certain amount of time.

So back in the day when the dinosaurs were still roaming around, I identified planned neglect. I needed a little more time to work on my direct sales business. I thought about what could I neglect to give my attention to focus on my business? So I started with a nanny for 10 hours one day a week. Once my business grew even more I hired an assistant to help just 5 hours a week. Then there was the time I realized I was driving 25 hours a week. It was time to outsource laundry. It was beautiful for a while when I would drop off my laundry and pick it up folded and hung. And I have shared a few phases of life when paper plates became the china of choice in the Woodruff household.

Coming Out of "Planned Neglect"

Now that the PhD is coming to an end I have really wrestled with what I want to do with that time. I acknowledge that I will go back to cleaning my house and maintaining my own window boxes. I have really been thinking about the planned neglect I have practiced and it's time to reverse some of those habits. It dawned on me that while I am back to using real plates for lunch and dinner, I will continue to use paper plates and bowls of different sizes for breakfast. Also, I hadn't realized pursuing the PhD meant my health and body would suffer. I hadn't put any thought into my nutrition and I certainly wasn't moving as much as a person should. So now that I am coming out of planned neglect I have started to use some of that time to go to the gym. And I have decided I no longer want to spend that money on the Tovala meals. It was worth the money when I didn't have time to grocery shop or meal prep. But now, I have time to focus on my nutrition so I am not ordering Tovala meals. Who knows, I may utilize them again in a season I need to.

As I come out of planned neglect I am going to take back my body and health. I will also be giving time back to working on Organize 365®. You have already seen a little bit of this as I have eliminated the work products. I am launching my new book "Escaping Quicksand" and will likely write more books. And I am getting ready to focus on The Productive Home CEO and new terminology to go with it being the Household CEO. I also want to explore how to use this new authority in academia to benefit household managers and their systems.

And at home I will be filling in all the blanks in my information management binders from The Paper Solution® and taking one day a month to focus on my CEO position in the Woodruff house. Planned neglect is simply looking at your tasks, deciding how you can lower your standards of that task and then implementing a new habit for a certain amount of time. Mine was the PhD recently, what is yours?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Hope you are mentally hungry, because I'm unloading a lot of food for thought. Greg and I were in the car discussing the perception of a vacation vs. a trip. And that of course led to the time you take off for said vacation/trip. And that got me thinking overall about how transformational this summer is going to be for me. Good news! You have a front seat to all of it!

Vacation vs. a Trip

Ok, so we're in the car talking about vacations vs. trips. And Greg joked "You never take vacations." And he's kind of right because in my life I guess I couldn't really take a vacation. When I was a stay at home mom, we just went to FL. I didn't have to submit vacation time. As a teacher, I just always worked and thought of summer as my vacation time. If you are a teacher you know it's quite the contrary!! And when we do go to FL I do more work than at home. I turn into a 1950's wife so Greg can fully enjoy his vacation. And I love doing that for him and the kids. Greg thinks it's a vacation because he's with his family, gets to go fishing, and go to the beach. I will say London felt like a vacation to me. We had no expectations, I didn't do any laundry or cooking, and we had fun.

When my parents took us to Disney, we attended an art class. Yep, went to Disney to attend school. But we took a lot of trips in my childhood where we learned about thing and places and now that's what I enjoy too. My trips feel like vacation more to me but again Greg jokes they are trips. But I do think in reflection of this summer being so transformational with the PhD coming to an end and Greg thinking about retirement, I'd like to go on more vacations.

PTO, Sick Days, Retirement

This led us to talking about PTO, sick days and Greg wanting to retire. His mom fell a little while back and he was the closest primary care giver. It was funny to watch him go through it. When you take someone else to the Dr. you should just take a half day and use your sick time. Greg was like "But I wasn't sick." Right but it was a medical appointment. I always took the kids to the dr. so Greg never had to think about that. Then he asked what exactly was PTO. So we talked about how many hours he has accrued and how neither of us take sick time or PTO. We are hearty and we work. But what about when Greg doesn't work and I still want to? Will I take advantage of some PTO? I don't know but these are questions I want to start asking myself as the household CEO.

Welcome To My Transformational Summer

I took advantage of a lot of planned neglect and worked a lot of hours pursuing my PhD. Now that it's done, I want to decide what things I will let back in or not. There will be a lot of open time now and I want to think about how I will use that time. I decided on one thing and that was my Paper Solution™ Binders. I feel like I neglected them a little so I'd like to really spend time getting them up to par. I never did the workbooks so I am doing them now. Before the PhD Abby was pregnant, now she has two children. Greg wants to retire. All of this has financial implications on our budget. I feel like I need some CEO time. So I decided in the middle of the month I will set aside two hours to just think about our household financial goals and I came up with seven questions which will help me decide if I am taking care of me in a way that fills my cup so I can continue to take care of my house and family too. Yes, I am going to offer this "co-working" time once a month. You too deserve time to think without your family around. And you too deserve time to take care of things for your household manager responsibilities that need to be done Monday- Friday, 9am -5pm.

I want this household CEO time, to be a time for you to be able to really think through your household management, through a leadership lens, to make sure that you are stewarding all of the resources you have, well. And that you are taking care of yourself so you can be of service to all of those around you, for as long as possible, and in the best health as possible. I hope you'll join me June 15th from 9am - 11am.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• The Paper Solution®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

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Who is the first one to get cut from the priority list when a loved one has an unexpected event? You! We innately want to care for others in their times of need. And that means giving up gym time, your nutrition goals may go out the window for a time, and whatever else you enjoy and do for yourself.

See, What Had Happened Was…

Recently, I ran planning prep day and planning day and boy were my ducks in a row. By Sunday I had meal prepped, mapped out my week, and I was on fire to crush my goals. However Monday morning my sweet daughter called to say she was sick and asked if I could take Grayson to school. As moms do, I said yes. Which meant my time to go to the gym would now be spent with Grayson.

Then she called later in the day to say she was too sick to take care of Noah too. So once again rearranged my day and rushed off to pick up Grayson so I could get home to take care of Noah too. Thank God I remembered some food I had prepped to keep me on track and Grayson from getting hungry. Because Grayson had a Dr. appointment too and I had planned a snack ahead of time. Then I had this great idea to see if Greg, my husband, wanted to have lunch. Although I took the last bite of chicken salad as we hung up the phone. I was clearly off my game. And the next day, I skipped attending a talk by an economist so I could catch up on the work I hadn't been able to finish the day before.

But my planning did come into play. I had healthy food around me to support my nutrition focus of the week. But my self care was sacrificed in caring for my grandchildren to support Abby who was sick. And that's what we do for our family members. I wasn't about to say, "No Abby, I have to go to the gym this morning." No, I chose to serve and support my daughter.

Mindset Shift

We need to have a mindset shift to know something is going to get sacrificed that we wanted to do in place of caring for our loved one. How do we have good systems in place and ways to continually be upleveling our own care, knowledge, and who we are, so that we are able to care for others in times of crisis? That's the whole premise of my book "Escaping Quicksand". Unexpected events happen to everyone. But do you have a system in place to keep you on track in those moments? And are you equipped with the mindset to combat those situations?

Webinar Alert: On June 12th @ 11:30 EST, in the Paper Solution Group, I plan to go through the medical binder. I know I want to insert some labs and DNA results and a few other things. Plus, I want to update the kids' medical information with me as power of attorney. I'm sure you have papers like that too that you need to file away for safe keeping. I like to focus on information management (paper) in the Summer so each month I'm taking you through me updating my binders and this month is the medical binder. I'd love for you to join me!

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