Action for that Action to become a habit

By BenOni | April 3, 2020

As a law student, I fall somewhere between a stay at home mom and a working mother. My typical schedule: home, school, home, work at home (I am on two law journals so I have to be able to write a lot at home, including class assignments).
Needless to say I am in DIRE need of a home organizational system. So far I am using Mom’s home management tips – the daily docket and the MITs have really been working well for me. For me, something online simply wouldn’t work. I like to have something in front of me, preferably something that is lovely to look at. I would like a binder with tabs (which is actually what I am putting together now, I use the eco friendly binders from Target that come in all those great prints). In this binder I would like LOTS and LOTS of typed personalized forms that I can fill in as I go. As for menu planning I would actually like to be able to pre-select recipes to rotate since I am not the best cook.
As far as the forms go, I want something that lends itself to general organizing/daily planning, long term planning, and recording ideas as opposed to a micro-managed schedule. Like most parents, I have to keep things somewhat flexible.
And a magic wand included inside, in a little holder usually reserved for a pen, would be awesome.

Oooh, this is so interesting and relevant for me. Like a lot of you, I know I need something, but I’m not quite sure what… (apart from the obvious – housekeeper!) I have tried Getting Things Done and FlyLady, to an extent. What I took from FlyLady was mostly – the importance of having that control journal or some place where you keep it all together. And similarly, the best thing I took from GTD was how crucial it is to NOT attempt to keep reminders in your head. Get EVERYTHING down on paper, or into your computer – just don’t be using up mental and emotional energy trying to remember a zillion things.

I agree with a lot of the above comments about wanting a physical, paper-based, pretty system, not online. Part of me would love to have my own laptop and an iPhone, and be able to ‘run my life’ from those two things… but that’s really not my reality. Also, I still love the feel of paper, and being able to truly cross off a task with a really great pen!

When trying to implement GTD, I put together a small binder (not sure of the exact dimensions, but I think that it holds paper that’s 5.5 x 8.5 in) with a few dividers… I was trying to simplify an essentially business/professional system down to something more appropriate for home-use – so my dividers were just “Phone/Mail/Online” (that was all on one divider), “Errands/Shopping lists,” and “Projects.” So on the pages in the “Phone, etc” section, I divided each page into four quadrants, and called them Notes to Write/Send, Phone Calls to Make, Online Stuff to Do/Research, and E-mails to write. That way, while offline, I could be compiling a list of all the stuff I’d been meaning to read up on while online, etc. Anyway, this system obviously didn’t incorporate a meal planning section, or anything about housekeeping/cleaning. And I’m not successfully using it!