The Flip Book

It's a known fact: I'm ADD. Not frighteningly so, but enough to be obvious to those who know the signs--sometimes a bit over talkative; a bazillion passionate interests, each lasting at least several days, lol; and a woefully cluttered home and workshop.

I've been working really hard to remedy some of that, focusing partly on brain chemistry, through eating an ADD-friendly diet (lots of protein, not much in the way of carbs), and daily vitamins.

And I've brought back my old stand-by, The Flip Book. I read about it in The Messies Manual many years ago. (Hope I'm remembering the book's title correctly!)

You naturally tidy and organized people out there might want to stop reading at this point. You'll be rolling your eyes at what it takes to organize people like me in a few lines!

Here's how it works:

Get one of those little photo albums, the kind that have a transparent sleeve that holds one photo per page. Now get some file cards that fit the sleeves. Mine are the 4X6 size.

On the first card, put what you think you should do every day. Be careful! If you make this list too long, you'll abandon the Flip Book, because you'll be overwhelmed.
I have a double column, with a total of 14 items:

• Dishes
• Bed
• Tidy bathroom
• Pick up clutter
• Exercise

WEB:

• Relist: AM, Noon, PM
• List 2 new items
• Blog
• Ship How's that for optimism?
• Check Craig's List
• Tend to email
• Check Flylady.com
• Attend to paperwork
• Hang out in Etsy Forums (opt.)

After that card, you make one for each day of the week. You can have one, or not, for the weekend. I didn't put the weekend cards in, but am thinking I will. I want to have Sunday be the day I write to Paul, and it would be good to have the card, even if it were just for that.

The weekday cards have on them what you want to do weekly, and generally there aren't more than a few tasks on them. Monday's my day to do the laundry and deep clean the bathroom, Tuesday's the day to do the shopping, etc. I also have put on each day what art form I want to be working on.

Now you can put in cards, if you like, for things you'd like to do once a month, or seasonally. I don't have any of those, but may add them later. This is enough for me right now.

Lastly, sit down and make out three weeks of dinner menus. You can safely repeat any recipe every twenty-one days, and no one will get tired of it. I always leave a spot or two for a new recipe, or for picking up pizza, etc. On the back of your menu list, make a list of the groceries you need to make sure you have to create your list of dishes. Making out my list, I realized I'd gotten into a bit of a rut. We've had some darned good meals lately, and they were all things we always liked, but I'd forgotten about.

It takes so much stress away, knowing what needs to be done, and what you're going to fix for dinner!


My Flip Book and Menu list