Self Help

The Box is the most important tool in the organizational program. It would be easy to underestimate the value of a simple Box. Be sure to include it as part of your program. It will streamline your life and take a lot of pressure off the piles in the house. It is basically used for keeping records and storing information.

The Box is a wooden, metal, or plastic container that holds index cards. Such “recipe” boxes are sold in drug stores, grocery stores, and department stores; they can also be purchased in stationery stores, where they are called index boxes.

Although you may prefer to use 4×6 cards, I’ve found that 3×5 file cards work best for me. Along with your Box you will need to purchase one or two packages of file cards, a 3 x 5 scratch pad, some 3×5 dividers labeled A to Z, some dividers that are labeled with the months of the year, and some dividers that you can label yourself. These dividers will separate the contents of the Box into several main sections.

Address Book: The A-Z part of the Box will become your telephone and address file. Any number you call or address you use should be put into the file in the Box. Address books are hard to maintain. They get full; they need changing, so we cross out one address and put another over it. This looks messy. They become obsolete because of the changes. The Box file solves that problem because if a change needs to be made, the original card can be thrown away and a new card put in.

The Box is also better than an address book because there is room to make notes. Let us say you have a friend from college whom you never see but with whom you correspond at Christmas. You get a birth announcement from her. Write down on the card the name of the new baby and the date of birth. Then when you send your card you can write, “How is little Helen? She must be so cute at two.” You can also make notes about friends’ likes and dislikes in food, how their coffee is taken, and so on. They will be pleased you remembered.

Business Records: If it is a business call you make, you can make notes for that, too. I called Disney World and made a card for my file. I wrote down the prices they quoted to me and dated it. I will know where the price information is stored for use this year and will also have a record of how the prices change from year to year. It is filed under D for Disney.

If you have a plumber come, make a note about what he did and the date. Then if the same thing breaks down again, you can tell him when he was there previously and what he did. Keep records of car repairs and expenses under C for car.

Making notes in the Box is valuable for keeping track of orders you place. If you buy something by mail, write down the name and address of the company and the date you ordered it. If it does not come within a reasonable length of time, you can write, telling them how long it has been since your order. Put down the date of the inquiry letter on your card as well. In this way we can keep our lives under control by having necessary information readily available.