How To Start Your Own Business

Angela asked:

Have you ever written about why you started making these (Organizing Bags), how you got the idea and finally at what point did you stop making them and start ordering them?

Lazy says:

I'm sure many of you are wondering the same thing. You want to know how I started my wildly successful Organizing business so you can do the same thing right? I have literally made thousands of dollars in only six years. Now that you know the great amount of money we're talking about here I bet you can't wait to get started. Here we go...

• Have such a cluttered home and disorganized life that you think you will run screaming through the streets if you flush your keys down the toilet one more time.


• Read an on-line book review of Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece Schofield.


• Proceed to spend the rest of your life trying to get organized.


• In the mean time use plastic baggies as Deniece suggests to organize your games and puzzles.


• Watch the baggies fall apart within a few weeks.


• Duct tape the baggies back together.


• Buy more baggies and watch them fall apart.


• Decide you are going to make your own bags because you are tired of taping baggies.


• Wait till your sister is visiting so she can help you make them.


• Wonder why it is taking your sister so long to get a drink of water.


• Realize she didn't want to stay up all night sewing bags so she snuck off to bed.


• Stay up the rest of the night sewing.


• Love the bags!

I loved using them so much that I redesigned them and kept making more and more for myself. A while later I had a garage sale and sold some bags to a neighbor friend. She agreed with me that they were fabulous and said I should start selling them. I sold a few bags on E-Bay and to family and friends before I started my own website. I also taught organizing seminars and the participants always wanted bags. I didn't sell a lot but enough that I got tired of sewing them so I looked around to find someone else to do it. Imagine my surprise to find I could pay someone to make them cheaper than I could even buy the fabric myself!

About two years ago I invested $1,000 to place my first order. In the mean time I was busy designing, and building a house so I didn't worry too much about the bags. Finally in January I asked Laura to try them and write a review for me. Within weeks I was sold out!

It took me a while to decide that I wanted to keep doing this but then I finally designed and ordered new bags which came in last week. We'll see how long this order lasts but I promise it won't take me seven months to get my next order. I'm already planning some new styles and I have ideas for other organizing products as well. I also had some organizing seminars scheduled for this month but it's all on hold because I'm too sick to sew, or go anywhere at this point of my life. However, with my kids' help we are busily shipping out your bag orders so keep them coming!

I'm trying to get more professional and pretend that I have a real business. I just bought business cards and opened my own bank account. Now I only have about a hundred more things on my to-do list which should take another five years to accomplish while I'm having babies, building houses and raising chickens.

I'm sure some of you have started successful businesses and could give me lots of advice so let's hear it because I need all the help I can get!

Can you have a schedule when you're as lazy as I am?

*Updated

Julie asked what my two year old does for personal time. That is a good question because she doesn't have personal time and it's got me thinking about what I should be doing with her. Thanks a lot Julie! Just one more thing for me to do!!! She gets read to throughout the day by the kids and Mom and Dad but the rest of her waking hours she spends playing with us and terrorizing the house by getting into things.

If she were my oldest I would make a regular time of day to read scriptures (a couple verses) and other good books to her and discuss them. Maybe even have her color a picture about one of the books. I would never turn it into "school" time. I would make it fun and only do as much as she wanted to do. She really loves her Sign Baby cards, doing puzzles with us, playing with play dough and getting in the way when the rest of us are working on things. We have recently been teaching her to play board games. Of course a toddler only really needs to play and have books read to her. That doesn't change for a long time.

I'm really looking forward to the time when she stops taking naps and participates in Mom School. I'm sure she'll have a lot of new ideas for us!

Tami asked me what our schedule is like as home schoolers so here you go for what it's worth.

I'm actually not opposed to schedules but the truth is we've never had much of one because of Stranger's job. He works for the railroad and he is on call 24 hours a day seven days a week. He gets a call an hour and a half before he has to be at work so most of the time we are winging it. We can be sitting down to eat at a restaurant or in the middle of Church or on our way to a family dinner and he'll say, "I just got called to work. We've got to go." He's also coming home at all hours of the day and night so when we're in the middle of something it gets put on hold to welcome Daddy home. No, he doesn't get any days off. Not weekends, not evenings, not nothing. He gets a few vacation weeks and that's it.

So now that you understand his schedule I will try to explain ours. This last year I have been trying to work more on having a schedule for our day. These are not rules but guidelines and I've noticed that the closer we stick to them, the happier everyone is, especially me!

• I'm working on getting up before 7:00 in the morning to have personal time but that doesn't always happen.



• I suggest to the kids that they get up at 8:00 for their personal time. My 9 year old is strict with himself about this time but my 7 year old doesn't care. Sometimes she gets up and sometimes she doesn't.



• We have breakfast and then my 9 year old has his personal time (prayer, scriptures, clean room, comb hair, brush teeth, read, work on a project, etc.) My 7 year old doesn't believe in having separate personal time. She has note cards detailing her jobs and everything she wants to do and she gets started on them.



• My 9 year old starts his jobs at 10:00.



• I'm getting lunch ready and dinner in the crock pot by 11:00 and we eat at 12:00.



• After lunch is cleaned up we start our reading and Mom school (If Dad is home then it's usually Dad school.) and the 2 year old goes to bed for a nap.



• Between 3:00-4:00 we start getting ready to go to the gym.



• We often do our grocery shopping on our way home from the gym or stop at the library.



• We get home and eat dinner that is waiting in the crock pot (hopefully!)



• 7:00 the kids take their showers if they need them, get ready for bed and run around like wild banshees. You know how that goes.



• 8:00 they're in bed reading to themselves and thinking of reasons why they need to get up and tell me something.



• 9:00 lights out for them and I go to bed to do my own reading.



• 10:30 lights out for me.

I'm getting really good at helping the kids with their bed time but I'm still only about 4 out of seven on my own bed time.

If we have errands to run then we usually wait until Daddy is home to take us. I hate running around with the kids by myself and he loves to shop. It makes it nice because if Lovely falls asleep then one of us can sit in the car with her. I keep a list of errands we need to run so we can get it done all at once. Daddy gets mad if we run around and waste fuel anyway!

I am very strict about not scheduling anything in the morning or during nap time. That is our time to stay home as a family. If something comes up once a week I can handle it but it still bugs me.

Of course all of this will change as it gets hotter and we want to spend every day at the pool!

"The greatest maxim of all is that children should be brought up as simply and in as domestic a way as possible, and that they should be as much as possible with their parents, and learn to place the greatest confidence in them in all things." - Queen Victoria

In our home this means the kids don't play with friends every day and they don't participate in every outside activity that comes along. Just because every other child in America spends their days and evenings away from the influence of their parents doesn't make it right for us. The most important thing we can do as a family is spend time together.

Ask Lazy

I've got another article for you at GNMParents. It's my very first Ask Lazy column and it is short and sweet. I've got more bathroom organizing photos for you soon. There are just so many posts and so little time!

Some of the posts I have been writing in my head are Bathroom Organization, Getting your kids to help around the house, my Valentines post that is just a tiny bit late, and of course more of our Kitchen Koncoctions. Then there is something about my 7 year old's new business, my baby is learning sign language with a great new product, and of course where would we be without more lazy stories? I will write all about it next week because there is always more time next week than there is this week. I hate that!

Store It Where You Use It

Are you looking for ways to save time and steps? Check out my article over at GNMParents to get some tips for having everything where you need it.

Email your own organizing ideas or questions to asklazy@laragallagher.com

Get Started!

(This was a response I wrote to someone inquiring how to begin getting organized. It seems like beginning is the hardest part of most difficult things. You might be thinking, "Where do I start? How do I start. Do I even want to start?" Don't think about it too long. Just get going and don't look back!)

First of all, what area is bugging you the very most? That's where you're going to start. You can't do it all in one day or weekend or even year so don't be hard on yourself. Just start with some easy projects and that will give you the courage to move on to the more difficult ones.
I always ask people, "What is more important, the people in your life or your things?" It's not difficult to answer so don't make it difficult to chose. All this clutter is probably getting in the way of the relationships with the people you love most so it's time to get rid of it. I say this because it sounds like you just need some help letting go so don't forget through all of this, things don't matter.

Starting now, spend 15 minutes a day going through the piles. Don't worry about getting rid of something you'll need someday. You obviously had the money to buy all that stuff so when you stop over spending then you will definitely be able to afford something you really need.

Which leads me to my next point. It took a lot of time and money to purchase everything in your home. That's time and money better spent elsewhere or better yet, SAVED! Are you teaching your kids to be spenders or savers? Are you teaching them that what they have is more important that who they are? What do you want to be teaching them? It's not just clutter you know. It's a symptom of your lifestyle.

I can't answer to all your questions in the few moments I have but you sound very motivated to get your life turned around in the right direction. The answers are out there. I started my organizing journey by reading one organizing book. From there I read every book I could get my hands on. You can do it. Just a little bit every day!