Well, how has it been in the life of a S.H.E. (Sidetracked Home Executive)? For this S.H.E., not so good. What do I mean by this you might ask? It’s because my silly little brain does not have a helper mentality. It’s supposed to bug me and bug me to use my wonderful 3×5 card system. Yet does it? Nope! It leaves me totally stranded.
The whole “woe is me” petty party isn’t very fitting now is it? lol
In all seriousness, I have the hardest time remembering to use my card system that I worked so hard to get reorganized once again. I did great that first couple of weeks, where I was able to follow it on an overall basis. Then this went downhill in what seemed like a very quick time period. Now, it’s sitting on my nightstand next to my side of the bed collecting what I hope might be pixie dust :).
I will say that even though I haven’t been very good using the cards on a daily basis, a couple of routines I’ve been able to stick to have formed. One of those happens to be at night when Keith and I are headed upstairs for the night. Before we go I make a quick glance around the living room, dining room, and kitchen to see if there are any dishes left out. If there are, I take care of them. I make sure nothing is left in the sink. If the dishwasher is full enough, I start it up. In the morning if the dishwasher was started from the night before, I make sure to get that emptied first thing. For me this is huge as dishes, so not my thing.
Something else that has become a habit is to now do my laundry every Saturday. For awhile now we’ve always had Athena do her laundry every Saturday, but Keith and I didn’t. We had enough clothes that we didn’t need to do this. However, when it came time to do laundry, guess how much we had to do ALL AT ONCE? Let’s just say, we don’t look forward to laundry day in this house. However, it’s much more manageable now. It’s like, “duh, silly girl.”
So that’s the latest in this S.H.E’s life. Until next time.
Have you any S.H.E. moments to share? I’d love to hear them as well as any positives you have as well.
Hi Kristena! I was so excited to learn you are familiar with S.H.E. And the card system. I was always a disorganized and easily side tracked homemaker, but started making progress after I read this book ( and laughed my way through it, blushing as I recognized myself!) like you, I had a lot of trouble keeping at that system, but it led me to thinking about what I needed to do, and prioritizing my work. And it sounds like that is happening to you! You have found two things that are high on your list, and your approach to those things has changed! Great!
One thing I found was the file card system worked for some things, but because of how my mind worked, I needed to be able to see my weekly jobs all at once. That led to me using a notebook and analyzing what I needed to do, then writing the day of the week I would do it right beside it. I could look at my list of chores, see what day of the week I would do it, and have a vision of what I needed to do all at one time. It just helped me!
Another thing I found helped me was to do one or two loads of clothes every day – whites Monday, colors Tuesday, towels Wednesday, work clothes Friday and sheets on Saturday, for example. I hated to spend a whole day doing laundry and just found for me, this worked better.
Another thing that took a lot of time and energy was meal planning. Once I realized I needed to have ideas to look at I devoted one page of the notebook to all the meals I might make, then could easily look at the list and make a meal plan based on what was on hand, easy to thaw, or what sounded good!
Thanks for reminding me of this system! I am ready to go back and look at it again! Keep plugging away at it! It will be fun to hear how you revise it to make it work for you!
Wow, so you’re another S.H.E. like I am. I’m glad there are others out there like us because we know we understand each other then. I want to try to keep updating about how I’m doing with the system. I know I’m not as good as I could be but I know I’m also doing much better than before. LOL