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®.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• The Sunday Basket®

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

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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

• Sign Up for the Organize 365® Newsletter

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Share this episode with a friend and be sure to tag Organize 365® when you share on social media