As I sit down to right tonight, I must tell you I was inspired by a friend who shared some secrets with me that I’m going to pass along to you… so they won’t be secret anymore! ;) I’m really glad she shared, and I hope that more of you will be inspired by this blog and will share with me the areas of your life that you are really proud of your organizational skills… because I love to get new ideas from people and learn from others!!!
When I think about organizing and I and talked some previously about organizing papers and sorting things into stacks and such so you could finally get down to seeing your desktop, I didn’t go into much detail on how to do that, so today I’m going to share Carrie’s secrets to keeping medical documents organized, and I’m going to share Cody’s system for bills and receipts, and hopefully between these two organization ideas, you’ll come up with something that works for you. Because, as I always say, I’m not here to preach at you and tell you how to do things, but merely to get you inspired to figure out what works for you!
SO – Medical Documents – Carrie has one of those accordion files that has a zipper. Which I must pause here and say that whoever thought of those was a flippin’ genious. Seriously. Organized files you can take with you anywhere that aren’t going to fall out b/c it’s zipped closed! Genious. Sorry, I digressed. The accordion file with the zipper. In this particular one there’s a pocket in the front that zips as well, and she keeps the medical insurance card in there as well as the business cards for each doctor. Brilliant. THEN – she has a medical file for each person in the family as well as a dental file for her and her husband, a dental file for the kids, and an ortho file. In these files she keeps EOBs, bills, statements, and all that junk, as well as it’s a great place to keep any xrays (on cd), etc. (Also – I don’t know if she does this or not, but it would be a great place to keep those medical info sheets from the pharmacy regarding rx for each person as well.) She made sure to tell me also that she keeps them in reverse date order so that the most recent event is in the front. I must say that I tend to use this system of filing when it comes to ANY documents with dates. It’s always convenient to organize your papers this way. If you’ve never tried it, do – that alone will revolutionize your life…. Again, I digressed. Then, at the end of the year, she reverses the file so that January is on top and December is on bottom and staples it all and then it goes into the file cabinet.
WHY A MOBILE CARRYING CASE? I’m seriously so gonna do this when we have kids. I love it. She’s quickly able to reference appointment dates, previous bill amounts, payments already made, and can reference any little past medical details in case of emergency or need to see a specialist. It’s kept in a convenient place where both she and her husband can locate it, so that whoever handles the latest emergency with one of their kids can just grab the folder on the way out the door. I love this idea.
As for organizing those other important papers like bills and receipts, Cody has a great system of manila envelopes. Everything gets sorted by month. So right now we’re working on the April envelope. At the end of the month when all of the last pay stubs, bills, and receipts have been collected, they’ll go into an envelope marked April 2011. Why organize this way vs by company you’re paying, etc? This is very convenient during tax time – and any other time of the year really, because you can easily track what checks you wrote in a month (we keep the duplicates with our receipts), you can find a receipt for an item you purchased quickly, etc, etc.
Now, as with everything, I will say that I am not perfect. Carrie is not perfect. Cody is not perfect. Just because we have these systems that we use does not mean there aren’t times when we fall down and forget to do something or put it off b/c of other priorities. We are not superhuman. BUT – it does mean that these are things you CAN do if you put your mind to it. You are not too busy. Remember that it only takes two minutes to do one little thing to start organizing your life. If that two minutes happens to be when you are at WalMart to grab a zipper accordion file and some manila envelopes, then that’s your two minutes for today. You are then one step closer to making this a change in your life.
Getting organized is a process. It will NOT happen overnight. It will not happen over two weeks. It may take you two years to develop a system that works for you. But, hopefully reading this blog has helped you (and will continue to help you) to realize little things that you can do to get “on track”, and hopefully you will also come to realize that NOT having a system is not an option. We all need, in fact CRAVE, routine. And don’t tell me your routine is to be spontaneous. Spontaneity is ok, and variety is the “Spice of life” and all that jazz, but you need to figure out what works for you to get you into a system and a routine that will help you get organized. Being organized WILL revolutionize your life, it will build self-confidence, and it will boost your self-esteem.
YOU CAN GET ORGANIZED... I BELIEVE IN YOU! DO YOU?
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