My "Red Box" Organization System

I've tried FlyLady too! And I thought she was wonderful, but the e-mail thing didn't work for me...I guess if I sit in front of the computer I tend to get sucked in and nothing else gets done!

But I read this book called: Get Your Act Together, by Pam Young and Peggy Jones. It uses a "card system" to help keep you organized.

If you are super organized, and you keep a clean house, this is not the system for you. But if you're like me and you struggle to get all your chores done, and you have a hard time getting done what you "have" to do, so you can do what you "want" to, then this is for you!

I'll try to give you a quick overview so you can see if you want to invest the time in reading the book...I also have saved the file in a Word document that I printed out all my cards. I've uploaded the document to Google Doc's where you can still change it to fit your needs, and print them out on 3x5 index cards. Go here for the file. You'll want to tweak things a little bit for your own needs. (You may change your sheets more or less often than I do, or clean your cupboards more than me!) But it's a way to start.

So this is my red box... and it holds all my cards. The cards are divided into Monday-Sunday's sections and January-December sections. You keep your chores that you do each day of the week and your monthly chores in these sections.

When you go to organize your daily chores, each day has a theme: My Monday is the "Full Cleaning Day", Tuesday is my "Desk Day", Wednesday is my "Errand Day" etc. You can change the days around every week to make the days work for what you have to do. If you know you have errands on Tuesday, make Tuesday your errand day, but if the next week you need to do errands on Thursday, make Thursday your errand day. I love how flexible it is.My daily chores are put on cards and it works wonderfully for me. It's nice to pick up a card for my kitchen that tells me every thing to do. For example: 1-Empty dishwasher, 2-Fill dishwasher, 3-hand wash pots and pans, 4-Clean counter tops, 5-Empty Garbage, 6-Sweep floor. Yes it's pretty basic, and it seems like I should know this stuff without a card. But it helps me make sure everything gets done that needs to be done and then I can do things I want to do.

The chore cards have the daily chores you do, the chores you do weekly, and the chores you do monthly or even every 6 months. The card that are done less often can be left in the Jan-Dec sections and then you do them the correct months. (This is great for seasonal chores, or even when you need to change the oil in your car, or the batteries in your smoke detectors!)

I know that this probably doesn't make a lot of sense as I've tried to condense a 200 page novel into a blog post. So if I've left something out or if something doesn't make sense let me know.