This really should go without saying, but it is something I still forget to do, and it causes such frustration!

When you know you have errands to run the next day, prepare for them the night before, or at least some point before you’re getting ready to leave.

I do usually do this now, after years of not doing so and running into so many problems either getting out the door late and frustrated or forgetting what I needed til I was actually on the road. But I still forget sometimes. Recently I wanted to get a curtain rod, but didn’t have the measurements I needed before I got ready to go, so I was delayed getting out by having to stop and take the measurements and write them down. I was heading out one day to Michael’s and almost forgot the 40% off coupon they have in most Sunday papers. Argh!! Just a few minutes of thinking through what’s on the agenda and what’s needed to accomplish it and then getting everything as ready to go as possible and putting it in or near my purse ahead of time makes the errand itself so much more pleasant and peaceful.

As always, you can find a wealth of tips on Wednesdays at Rocks In My Dryer.

I’ve collected a lot of quotes, jokes, poems, anecdotes, etc. on various topics over the years. I used to just save them in a folder with my saved e-mail, because most of them I received via e-mail. If I found something somewhere online that I wanted to keep, I’d copy and paste it, along with the source, and send it in an e-mail to myself to put into the folder.

But it was getting harder to find particular ones I wanted, plus all the saved mail was causing my e-mail provider to load slowly. So I have been working on taking all of these things and organizing them into Word documents.

Each member of our family has a folder with their name in “My Documents” on Microsoft Word. In my folder I created another folder called “Topic file.” I created several subfolders in my topic file for Holidays, Seasons, Marriage, Raising children, Trials and afflictions, Prayer, Missions, etc. — I add categories as I come across things in my files. Some of the folders are further subdivided into categories: Holidays, for instance, has subfolders for various holidays. In most of the folders I have a page for quotes; in some I have a page for jokes. There is a page for shorter poems but longer ones often have their own page as do anecdotes.

I use many of these things in personal correspondence, but I also use many both in my blog and in a newsletter for our church’s ladies group. When I use something, say, for instance, a poem about Easter, in parentheses after it I’ll put whether it was used on my blog or the newsletter and the date. This has been a great help because previously I’d have to leaf through past newsletters (all the May ones, for instance, to see if I had used a certain Mother’s Day poem yet).

This is a work in progress. So far as each holiday or season approaches, I go through my files and pull out everything on that holiday or season and then put them in Word documents and then create folders for them. That way it is not overwhelming trying to do all this at once. As I find new quotes, etc., I want to use, it is handy to find or create the file it needs to go in.

I thought about organizing it a little differently: making a folder for jokes, a folder for poems, etc., with topic categories within each folder, but organizing it by topic seems to work best for me. It has been a big help already in finding that certain story or quote I want without having to dig through a lot of files.

I don’t have many quotes from books in my files yet. I have a few books that I quote from often with little pieces of paper stuck in the places I like to quote. 🙂 That might be the next project after this one: getting some of those written out in a Word document and then into the right category. I also have things like this in paper files in a metal filing cabinet (from the days before computers 🙂 ) that I need to go through and transfer to the computer some day.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone has a different way to handle this kind of thing.

As always, visit the Works For Me Wednesday creator and hostess, Shannon, at Rocks In My Dryer for great tips on a variety of topics. We’d love to read any tips that you have as well!

This week’s WFMW is a themed one, the theme being car tips — anything related to your car upkeep, traveling, etc. I’m afraid I don’t have much in the way of car tips, so it will be interesting to see what others have.

I’m even hesitant to mention this, because I am thinking several others might, and we never did get it down perfectly. But it is a good goal to aim for, and that is to have everyone be responsible to take what he or she brought to the car back out of the car when we get home (including anything bought along the way, like drinks, meals, or snacks). That should help to cut down on the clutter — if you remember to remind everyone when you pull to a stop in the driveway, because they are not likely to remember on their own. 🙂

Also, we never used these, but friends who were on missionary deputation did, and I thought it was a great idea: backseat organizers. The kids could have things within arm’s reach, have them separate from their siblings, and have a storage place so things weren’t strewn all over. You can find this one at Lillian Vernon’s.

Head over to Shannon’s at Rocks In My Dryer for more car tips.

You know how some public restrooms have toilets that automatically flush themselves. Some of them don’t work very well, but some of them flush at the smallest provocation — some have flushed even when I first opened the door of the stall to come in. And they’re usually pretty…vigorous in their flushing. I’m a bit germophobic and really don’t want to be splashed from a public toilet. So one day it occurred to me that if I could cover up the sensor that triggers the flushing, I wouldn’t have to worry about it. I took a couple of squares of toilet paper and draped it over the sensor, and voila — no flushing until I was ready. And that works for me. 🙂

To read other tips that work for others or to share your own, go to Rocks In My Dryer.