I'm on a yahoo group about workboxes for homeschooling our children and recently there has been a lot of discussion about workboxes for Mom. It actually makes me chuckle a bit because I started a simple workbox for myself before I started workboxes for my children.
Here is what I've been doing. I'm starting out simple and not overloading my workbox with tasks. I actually want to be successful before I add more to it... but in a regular card file (3x5 or 5x6) I have my first tab file that says, "today". Behind that and slightly to the right is "tomorrow". I have a few cards that I do daily that I routinely ignore behind the "today" tab. When I do the task, I move it behind "tomorrow". The next tab I have is "This week" and behind that is "next week". Behind the tab for today, one of the cards is "do something from this week's tab". Obviously these are things that I need to do weekly but regularly skip or they escape my radar somehow. Things like menu planning or blog. Behind the tab for "next week" I have tabs for "this month", "next month", "this season" and "next season".
At the end of each day, I simply move the "tomorrow" card behind all the individual task cards and start again. No one has to reload my boxes for me and things are starting to get done around here! LOL! (at the end of each week, I do the same thing with the "this week" "next week" cards, and so on across the system.)
I'm a past flybaby but found that whole notebook system to be cumbersome. I abandoned it because if anything in my life needed to be added or deleted from my "control journal" I felt like I had to go to my computer and recreate a whole new print out for whatever list it pertained to. With this system, I just add one more card as I see fit. And if some card's task has become autopilot, I can just take the card out and trash it. No need to reprint the entire system like I felt I needed to with Flylady. (I love Flylady, don't misread that. I think the woman is offering an amazing ministry to "messies" like me. The control journal and the email reminders were too much for me though.)
Anyway... here are some pictures to help out my visual friends.
I certainly don't think this system is original to me. I believe FlyLady herself even references a similar system in her book. Still, I hope it will inspire someone else to create a workable system tailored just for her.
Blessings!
ETA: Thank you to Marni who helped me recall where I got the original idea for this. It came from Side-tracked Home Executives. http://www.shesintouch.com/ FlyLady did refer to this book in Sink Reflections. I own both. I really enjoy the books and recommend them if you have a few extra dollars.
