My Life Saving Tips

I'm sure many of you, like me, live in a monthly cycle that toggles between a manically productive, energized phase and a lethargic, apathetic, comotose state. Here are my tips if you're like me. What am I forgetting??

• A month's supply of underwear, socks, undershirts, jeans, tops. Dish towels, hand towels, bath towels, washcloths, cleaning cloths, sheets. At least. I need to let my laundry pile up all month and then do 15 loads in one weekend.

• Because I can't possibly fold 15 loads of laundry in one weekend, I leave everything unfolded that I can. Shirts get hung. Jeans and large bath towels get folded. Everything else (sheets included) gets sorted and crammed into different bins out of sight and I tolerate the wrinkles.

• Enough dishes to last me at least a week. I cannot do dishes more than once or twice a week, but I still need to eat.

• All my skin care/hair care/dental care products live on my bathroom counter in a bin. They are never out of sight, or I forget they exist.

• Pills live in a cute basket where I can see them, in the kitchen so I can always grab water and a snack with them, next to my dog's medications too. I keep a small picture frame that I use as a whiteboard to check off what meds have been taken that day.

• I try to track my accomplishments instead of my to-do list, so I'm not demotivated after a long day of working really intently on something trivial.

• I have a file folder box for incoming mail. Categories such as: Need to Sort (straight from mailbox into this folder). From there, I have: Recycle, Shred, Deal With Urgently, Deal With Eventually, Need to File Away, Upcoming Events. This way, I can sort my mail extremely quickly without getting up to recycle, shred, file, etc. and I can stay focused. I grab the Urgent stack on my way to work, and deal with it at the office since I feel more productive there. When I'm in an energetic phase, I can start shredding/recycling/filing to clean out the box.

What else can I do?