“I’m sorry, but we can’t groom your dog today,” the technician said as I reached to hand her my schnoodle’s leash.
“Why not?” I replied. “I have an appointment.”
She tapped a few more keys on her computer before answering. “It says here that your dog was due for rabies shots last month. But his vet shows none on record.”
Oops! You mean I was supposed to take him in for an annual checkup?
I’d been forgetting to take care of 
tasks recently: the dog’s vet appointment, patching jeans my daughter asked me to fix, tracking down school forms. So many responsibilities seemed to be slipping through the cracks. Why suddenly couldn’t I stay organized when juggling a household of five had never been a problem before?
And then I realized: I’d let a regular system slip. Not systems. Just one. But dropping the use of only one of my planning mechanisms while still making use of others had thrown everything off kilter. My brain couldn’t manage it.
You’ve probably heard the fact that human short-term memory can only handle seven, plus or minus two, items at one time. Pass that limit and something gets dropped.
Now consider a day in the life of an average mom today: getting kids up, dressed, fed (and the same for herself). Remembering who needs to be where when, what appointments need to be scheduled, which errands must be run, what groceries are needed, whose birthday is coming up, which friend to get back to about getting together. The list goes on.
Or I should say “lists.”
Because that’s really the only way to do it all. Whether you keep a list of reminders on your cell phone, or chart everything on a calendar, or jot “to do’s” on a scratch pad (or all of the above), we all rely on outside sources to keep us on track. Otherwise, we’re constantly adding and dropping items from the seven we can store in short-term memory.
The formats I use to keep track of my family, my work, and my social life? A Google calendar (which my husband and 13-year-old also access); a wall calendar for my younger children; a weekly planner in which I keep separate lists for work tasks, home tasks, errands, laundry, and meals; a weekend chore list for our family; a monthly menu plan; and a chart of work projects and deadlines.
At the start of this year I quit using the project chart, thinking it wasn’t necessary. But the problem was, all those projects shifted to my short-term memory. Which left the odd-ball tasks like “make a vet appointment” to get bumped and forgotten. And it also meant less room for new tasks to be added, such as remembering to patch the jeans when my daughter asked.
I reinstated the project chart this week. And already I feel the difference. The less I have to store in short-term memory the more successful I am and the happier my whole family.
I know not to take for granted the systems I have that are working well. Otherwise the next thing I forget could be a daughter at school. And she woudn’t want that to happen!
How about you? What systems and fall-backs do you have that aid your memory and keep your household running smoothly?
If you want to know what I use to plan a month’s worth of meals, you can learn more about it in my article, “Answering the ‘What’s for Dinner’ Question,” found in the March/April issue of West Virginia Family.
Photo credit: “Planner and work log” by pennyshima on Flickr made available under CC license
