MY LIFE ON 3 X 5 CARDS

Feb 10, 2011

Back in the late 1970’s I was striving to organize my home and life, much like now. While at the local bookstore I stumbled across a book titled SIDETRACKED HOME EXECUTIVES ™: from Pigpen to Paradise written by Pam Young and Peggy Jones. It’s been re-published since then, but the concept is still the same. S.H.E. was about to become part of my life.

I took this bright blue book home and read it cover to cover. Highlighting the ideas as I went. The entire concept made a lot of sense to me. Everyone has certain chores they need done daily, weekly, monthly and annually so why not be organized about them. But we all get sidetracked.

You know the old joke/story you probably live it at least occasionally in your life—me it tends to be a nearly everyday occurrence.

You get up in the morning fully planning to getting a certain chore done and at the end of the day, although you have worked hard all day it’s still not done. Some people call it the “but first” syndrome.

Here’s an example for you: Today is laundry day, I’m going to get all the laundry done. As I sort the laundry I see a button about to come off of a shirt. Granny taught me “a stitch in time, saves nine.” So I decide to sew the button on before it gets lost.

I go to the living room for my sewing kit to take care of it. Once in the living room I see bills that need to be mailed that day. It’s 9:30 am and my mail carrier runs at 10:30 am. The mailbox is 2/10 of a mile down the drive. It’s a pretty day and I need exercise.

So I decide to walk down to the mailbox to mail the bills. I grab the camera “just in case”. Whistling for the dogs I head for the mailbox. Stopping along the way to snap photos for the greeting card business and throw sticks for the dogs.

The mail carrier arrives just as I got to the mail box. We chat and exchange envelopes. On the way back I realize I’ve not fed the dogs and other animals yet.

As I feed the dogs the geese honk at me wanting “treats”, I know the garden needs some weeding and they love weeds. I find ripe produce in the garden and decide to pick it… and thus goes the day. By the time I remember the laundry it’s too late in the day to hang them on the line.

All were things that needed done, but the scheduled laundry didn’t happen. Then I felt guilty for not getting it done. Guilt does not look good on anyone.

The two ladies who wrote S.H.E. broke all these much needed chores down into 3 x 5 color coded cards. The system was quite easy. Certain chores on certain days, on easy to spot colored cards. There are days scheduled for relaxing, for bill paying and much more. Each day includes “me time.”

It also talked about how to get help doing those chores. After all why can’t your kids empty all the trash cans in the house? How to organize storage and much more.

The most important part was it was as flexible as you wanted it to be. Little Johnny comes in and needs three dozen cookies for in the morning and baking day isn’t for three days no problem. You simply move your 3 x 5’s around and work out what works best for you at the time. NOTHING is set in stone. You just rearrange the cards. The card is kept in the queue until it’s done and then it’s moved to its next scheduled time.

I’m not sure why we quit using the S.H.E. but as time went on we moved away from it. Over the years we tried other organizational systems and some worked, others didn’t.

I tried the flylady system, which works well for some people. For me it did not, too structured, too unflexible. Quite frankly, those dogs need me to throw sticks for them more than I need to make sure my sink is absolutely shiny every second of the day. Once a day is plenty if something important like LIFE comes up. Nor do I want all the emails that come in from the flylady group nagging me to do certain things at certain times each day. I never did well being nagged at.

Slowly I developed the Princess Plan for my complete decluttering of this ranch. You can read about the basics of it at: http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2009/12/princess-plan-basics.html

I had just got it going good when the two men lost their job and was making real progress. Then we hit the road. We’ve been home for several months now and I’m having trouble being sidetracked again.

As some of you have read I’ve been working on getting our menus and foodstuffs organized. I decided to do this on 3 x 5 cards. Doing this I remembered I still had that big 3 x 5 storage box in the closet upstairs. Imagine my surprise to find the complete S.H.E. system still inside it, all these years later.

As I looked through the cards I enjoyed memories of my kids school days because of the cards for different events in the box. Suddenly it dawned on me. Part of my problem around here is I have more irons in the fire than a blacksmith. I was tackling each section of my life in a separate way. Lack of organization was undermining my efforts to get organized.

Digging through that 3 x 5 box an idea started forming. Many of the cards were no longer appropriate for our lifestyle or home, but most were.

First step was to sort through those cards and get them set up for the proper days, weeks, months and year.

Next I worked on plans for the Walt Disney World trip this next winter. Because I’m having trouble finding an assortment of different colored cards I’ve been using 3 x 5 different colored cardstock cut to the right size. Luckily I have a greeting card business ( webfoottubdesigns.com) so cardstock is easy for me to find.

WDW is bright pink. On these cards I broke down all that needs to be done to be entirely ready for an easy getaway when the time is right, including fund raising ideas to make it a cash only trip. These cards were divided up between the months between now and then. Viola’ no last minute rushing to pack, make reservations and more importantly no sheer exhaustion that leaves me in tears on the day we leave.

Once I put the things that needed to be done before the trip on those simple 3 x 5 cards the planning didn’t seem so overwhelming.

Garden Planning on bright green cardstock came next. We want to go to a year round gardening system. Again I broke it down, divided it up, including daily and annual for these cards. Again, simplicity.

Menu planning, became white cards with divider cards for the main protein ingredients of my menu plans. Recipe cards in another section alphabetized for easy locating.

Working my way down through the Princess Plan on lavender cardstock I broke the year down exactly the way I had it on the Princess Plan, tying it to the original S.H.E. plan where it fit, adding cards in each time frame where needed.

Mystery shopping and merchandising schedules went on daily cards.

Continuing on through other aspects of our ranch life I added more and more cards. It’s a big card file. But the number of daily cards is not overwhelming, because it’s all broke down and simplified.

I’ve only been back to setting this up during the last month, but I am seeing progress already, of course I still get sidetracked, but when I move the current cards to the next day I don’t feel guilty. I know that all things will come together eventually. I keep finding more things to add to the 3 x 5 system, a few I’ve decided we don’t really need.

My husband smiled when he saw the big file box and realized what I was doing. He knows what’s coming is a return to an organized and clutter free home.

Combining systems is working well for me, maybe it will for you too.

Jan who says for further reading check out not only the book Sidetracked Home Executives but the following websites:

http://www.shesintouch.com/

http://www.thebratfactor.com/

http://www.flylady.net/

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2009/12/princess-plan-basics.html

LONG RANGE PLANNING AND A CHALLENGE

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Anyone that has ever been me around very long knows I am a planner and a list maker. I’m big on planning things out. I’m not always great at following the plan, but generally I’m within the neighborhood of it by the time a project is finished.

For the last month or so I’ve been drifting. Simply mystery shopping and merchandising, letting others steer my path in this sea of life. As a result Thanksgiving was okay, but not the meal I wanted and my timing was way off on it. Let’s just say not everything finished at once like it normally does and cold mashed potatoes are not a big hit.

I could give the excuse I had a horrible head cold, but that would simply be an excuse. Granted I spent all of Friday in bed trying to kick the worst part of it and still managed to sleep almost until noon today. But it’s still just an excuse. It was lack of on organization on my part.

Well, I didn’t really sleep that late, the last hour or so I laid there thinking rather than getting up. What I was thinking was I needed a plan, a goal, something to get me back in gear on everything.

While I’ve been working hard at working I’ve let other areas slide. Areas we can’t afford to slide. I had fallen slack on cooking, keeping the budget up to date, cleaning the house and have not been carrying my share of opening the new business.

So as I laid there mulling it all over I decided it was time to get back to a plan, but what plan would spur me on the most. After all a plan has to be a goal you really want to achieve. Everyone plans on doing chores, but because they really don’t want to do them they often don’t get done if something better comes along.

I’ve got the Princess Plan and it’s good, but I needed more. I needed to have a carrot dangling in front of me, something I REALLY wanted. Then I realized that one year from today we want to be in Walt Disney World for a 2-3 week vacation. Only there were several barriers (mainly bills) in our way for this. So that is when my plan started forming. How to make that goal become a reality. So…

This next year you will be receiving reports on the goal and how we as a family are going to achieve it.

First I need a title, hmmm something catchy, but not to silly. Since the Princess Plan is included in this goal I think I will call it. “The Royal Getaway” or RG for short.

Now I need to decide what I want in the plan, what must be achieved to make this vacation not only possible, but relaxed and enjoyable. So sticking with the format of the Princess Plan I broke it down to 12 categories.

I. Finances, after all this is to be a cash basis only trip, that’s the number one rule.

II. Incorporate the Princess Plan

III. Actual Vacation Planning

IV. Menus, for the year and the trip (also part of the Princess Plan), but it needs its own category for this plan.

V. Sticking with the budget (I know this falls under finances too, but you’ll see why it gets its own Roman Numeral as time goes on.

VI. Mystery Shopping and Merchandising

VII. Getting our business up and running, as well as keeping it going while we are gone.

VIII. Gardening, a day to day plan. You’ll see why this is important for the coming year.

IX. Weight loss. If you have EVER been to Walt Disney World you will know why being in good physical shape is a major plus going there. That place is HUGE!

X. Wardrobe, ours is starting to look pretty ratty and a new one requires cash only. Plus if we lose weight…

XI. Animals, we have a lot of plans for them for the coming year. Plus there are two to go with us and the rest will remain home and all sorts of plans and actions have to be made for this.

XII. Miscellaneous needs prior to the trip. In other words, everything else I forgot to list.

This all sounds pretty general I know, but that is the way a good plan starts. You start with the general categories and then develop the sub-categories right down to the daily plan as you go.

Take #VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising. After doing it for around five years what planning should I need for that right? Actually a lot of planning needs done.

Sean and I have been taking it on a day to day basis and as a result we have ended up working weird hours, rushing to finish jobs, overbooking ourselves, wasting gas and then having days where we have no work. Trust me the reason Sean and I were both so sick for Thanksgiving was because we let ourselves get run down because we didn’t plan.

Plus now we have this business we are opening up and we need to allow time for it or it will never get off the ground. The problem is mystery shopping and merchandising are guaranteed money, the business is a maybe. So MS/M must be the priority of the two at this time. This could easily change in the near future, but for now we must get in as much of the first two as we can and squeeze opening the business in around the edges. That takes planning.

So on the overall plan it would look like this:

VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising.

A. Locate jobs to do

a. Check daily on the self assign websites for mystery shopping

b. Try to contract for as many weekly/monthly/quarterly merchandising jobs as possible.

c. Always take the higher dollar jobs first

B. Print the week’s paperwork as much as possible on Sunday

a. Print additional paperwork as soon as available

C. Try to stack jobs when scheduling as close as possible on locations, preferably in the same building.

a. Limit out of town trips

i. Only do out of town trips when there are numerous jobs for both parties to do and make a full day of it.

ii. Incorporate household and business errands into the daily ms/m schedule to save time and fuel.

D. Study all paperwork the night before so there are no surprises (this has been a big problem for us lately—too many surprises)

a. Gather any necessary tools or supplies the night before

i. Make a ditty bag of tools used often and leave it in the truck.

E. File paperwork immediately upon arriving home, no late nights allowed.

F. Store documentation immediately.

a. Assign a set place each set of paperwork must go as soon as it is filed.

G. Cull old documentation when the need to keep it has expired.

H. Keep a calendar up to date as to any long range jobs to avoid double booking.

I. Arrange for merchandising jobs to be done while we are gone on the trip ahead of time.

J. Set as many accounts up as possible for direct deposit or paypal.(This one is pretty much done)

K. Wash our work wardrobe as soon as we have worn it for the week in preparation for the next time it is needed. (Too many late nights of doing a hurry up load for the next day’s job).

So you can see that by the time I do this full list of 12 this is going to be a very long plan. Then I will take that list and turn it into a monthly, weekly and daily list like I did the Princess Plan.

Making a plan is pretty simple. AND once you have a plan it’s easy to follow.

So I challenge each and every one of you to make a plan and let’s work on our plans together. Why wait until New Year’s Day, why not start now? I’ve got my plan started, what’s yours?

Jan who says if we work together we can accomplish anything in OK