Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

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HomeSorted

Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby HomeSorted » Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:46 am

Good evening (or morning!) all!

Some basic introductions to start things off: I'm Lizzie, live in Australia with DH and three kids (11 - autistic, 9½ and 8). I'm a long time enthusiastic creator and user (sometimes) of the Household Notebook/Home Management Binder/Control Journal. Lately however I've been slacking off in that as well and I'm feeling a bit - what's the word? - restricted by a large binder. Something like that. At any rate, being a past Flybaby I'd heard about the SHE system so decided to order the book online. Long story short, my order got cancelled (wasn't through Amazon) due to not enough stock. Darn. Have decided to jump in anyway. This will either work or it won't - I'm sure the kids will find something creative to do with the coloured cards, LOL.

I'm a very hands-on person. I need the tactile experience of flipping a page/card. Something about it concreting it as 'done' in my brain perhaps? I got an iPod Touch for Xmas and have been going crazy downloading apps for it - anything remotely related to to-do lists, productivity, timetabling, you name it - but it's not the same.

Also a huge fan of morning, afternoon and evening routines. I don't homeschool (not all that popular down here in Oz - nothing like the States anyway) and I'm a SAHM, so I have these hours of 'free time' (ha!) during the day and I don't feel as if I'm achieving anything at all at the end of it. And yes, I have a lazy - gasp! - tendency or three to contend with as well. Husband works shiftwork in the community services field, in a high stress job. Don't always feel as though I create enough of a haven for him here when he gets home. Our main bedroom is absolutely atrocious - easily the worst clutter magnet in the entire house. Not good.

I'm constantly without clean clothes or socks (times all 5 of us), love the idea of menu planning but hardly ever follow through on a plan even if I write one up, can go months without mopping the floor, rarely eat at the self-appointed dinner hour because I don't plan ahead enough, don't exercise because I can't see how I can fit it in, don't read as much (spiritually or otherwise) as I'd like, don't sew even though I have an expensive, newish machine because I never seem to have time and so on. You see the problem here! I can write all these things down on pages in my HMB but I think I need to get 'bare bones' on the issue and go the 'one task per card' route for a while. So here i am!

HUGE fan of OrganizedHome.com and the Cut The Clutter book (here it's printed as Houseworks). Best organizing book I have.

I'll spend the next few days delving deeper into the board archives and I'm looking forward to cleaning info from you seasoned cardfilers (card fillies? LOL)

Cheers,
Lizzie

HomeSorted

Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby HomeSorted » Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:52 am

See? I have cleaning on the brain - that was meant to read 'gleaning', LOL.

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Harriet
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Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby Harriet » Thu Jan 14, 2010 9:02 am

Homesorted, hi!!

Have you noticed the Cardfile Links thread in the Cardfile Central forum here? The first link given is Cynthia Ewer's site with great info, of course, but if you scroll down you find her collection of photo-tours of real homemakers' cardfiles and their own descriptions. She has recently posted a new one. That would be good for anyone who's considering a cardfile to see. I'm really glad you are here. Today is a busy day for me but I hope to chat with you later. Thanks for the glimpse into your days.
If you don't believe in miracles, you're not being realistic.

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Lynlee
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Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby Lynlee » Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:42 pm

Hi Lizzie. I'm from a similar time zone/ same day at least.
I'm no help with cards. My 2 have flown the nest and I'm still needing to get organised. If I follow my all inclusive list without getting sidetracked thats amazing. :roll: :D
I post in Nifty Listy or 15 minute threads.
Just wanted to say hello.
Lynlee
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Take a reality check; Remember to breathe; Do what I am able to do.
Look for the good in all.

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lucylee
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Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby lucylee » Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:02 pm

Welcome, Lizzie! I only have one child, ds26. He still lives at home, but that probably won't last over another year or so. Also I'm gone all day -- teach school. Even so, I can relate to sooo much of what you said. I struggle w/exercise, time for reading, etc., and we NEVER eat right around here.
You'll learn a lot from all the wise ladies on this board! They are truly my lifeline!
Tomorrow is another day.

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Nancy
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Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby Nancy » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:23 am

I saw that Pam or Peggy had done an audio version of the happiness file
you can get on line. [I think it was on the brat factor web page.]
I remember that the getting clothes ready the night before card was a big help
dd was talking about that today. The after school home card was too.
And the evening kitchen spiff!

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Dove
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Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby Dove » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:28 pm

Welcome, Homesorted! That first link that Harriet mentioned above contains "21 Essays to SHE", which is a step by step explanation of how to set up your cardfile based on Pam & Peggy's book that you were not able to get.

Over the years I've heard other SHE's with children mention that doing a load of laundry a day really helps to cut out those marathon wash loads on the weekends. (It's just dh & I here, so I don't need to do laundry as frequently). There's lots of friendly & helpful people here -- glad you've joined us! :)

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Nancy
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Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby Nancy » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:48 pm

I had to do two loads a day.

HomeSorted

Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby HomeSorted » Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:34 am

Between DH's work clothes (business shirts...blech ironing chore!), the kids' school uniforms, the bedding, the towels, the kitchen cloths and THEN all the regular clothes, if I left laundry for the weekend we'll all be walking around naked, LOL.

No, I'm very much a '2 loads a day minimum' kind of girl. Well, in theory. In reality I'm not so crash-hot at making that brain-fingers-time-management connection so often times the chain is broken somewhere along the line and I end up with a mound of unfolded (and now wrinkly) dried clothes or wet clothes in the washer that I forgot to hang out (I now set a timer for both washer and dryer :P)

Have been setting up my card file today. Others mentioned reading the 21 essays, which I'd done previously, but I've re-read them a couple of times in the last week or so anyway. I was hoping to be able to read straight from the book but when the order was cancelled a few days back I just never reordered elsewhere. SHE isn't sold in bookstores here (at least not without special order, taking over a month, and WHY would I bother with that when there's Amazon et al?). With currency conversion plus shipping Amazon was going to charge me $22, but a similar business run out of the UK (The Book Depository.co.uk) was charging only $13.70 (with free shipping) so I'd gone with them. Obviously with not such great results. That said, I think I can manage with the 21 Essays and The Organization Station's explanations pretty well. And of course, there's here.

Today when I was pottering with the card file I wrote myself out some daily cards, based around my morning, daytime, afternoon and evening routines. Instead of writing how long each task took me to complete in the upper right corner I wrote the time I needed to start each task (6am, 10:30am etc) as this is how it's written down in my Household Notebook. Then I added coloured sticky dots in the upper left corners - red, yellow, green and blue for each of the different types of daily routines I have. All on yellow cards to indicate dailies. At a glance it's easy to see that yes, yellow means daily tasks, but also which of those belong to my morning routine, which to the evening routine and so on. I spent the rest of my fiddling time hacking the dividers I'd bought to represent days of the week and months of the year, since I'd only been able to find 1-31 and A-Z dividers in the store.

I was thinking about something else today. With the Household Notebook there's a real propensity (at least when it concerns me) to spend a lot of time prettying it up, printing things out etc. Even today I had to fight the perfectionist within to stop myself from re-writing cards that looked a little wonky. But I think a lot of the appeal of a card file has to do with the 'just get it down on a card, then move on' aspect. With the exception of a little colour coding and doctoring those tabs on the dividers, I definitely don't need to be worrying (yet, anyway!) about making it LOOK good.

One last thing - I started thinking about menu planning today and how it relates to the card file as well. As I was browsing a recipe mag this morning I began noting recipes I'd like to make on the cards - one per card, with the name in the middle, the category (beef, chicken, baking, lunchbox etc) in the bottom left corner and the reference (where to find the recipe, or in this case, the mag edition and page number) in the bottom right hand corner. Most of my stock standard meals can be made without referring to a recipe so there's no need (at this point anyway) to copy down full recipes on the card, but it's a handy way to keep track of recipes to try plus where the actual recipe IS. I guess I'll eventually set up a section in the card file with 1-7 (or eventually, 1-31) dividers and into each throw a card for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks etc. Then refile as needed once cooked. Something like that anyway.

Off to read the Organizing Station site again...

Cheers,
Lizzie

P.S. If you were wondering about the 'HomeSorted' thing - I have a blog with homemaking ideas that was just launched this month. If anyone is interested, I can post the link but wanted to hold off first in case that wasn't allowed.

Indiana

Re: Howdy - Newbie Card-Filer On Deck

Postby Indiana » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:59 pm

Lizzie welcome. As you are finding there is a wealth of information on this board.

Please go into your profile and enter your site. It will mark your name to indicate you have one so anyone can visit.

If you notice I have my site marked as does Emptynester and several others.

If you need help just ask.

Please join us in post when you can.


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