My Card File System

My card file system comes from the book Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise by Pam Young and Peggy Jones. I made this card file when I first bought the book about 7 or 8 years ago. It is definitely home made! I had NO money, so I just made do with what I had and made my own dividers (as you can tell). I do have homemaking binders (one with calendar, finances, Bible study plan, etc. and one with menus and recipes), but the card file is for day to day cleaning.

This system has helped me SO much. I'm pretty good about daily cleaning and staying on top of the laundry, but I've always had a hard time making sure other things got done and that I spread everything out so that I'm not frantically cleaning and washing sheets all day on Friday because I got sidetracked blogging or doing volunteer work all week and we are having weekend company. This way it's like I have someone telling me what to do so I don't forget.

In the lid of the file box I have taped my weekly plan, a calendar (from my checkbook register), and the color key to what each color means on a card.

My weekly plan is just a guide to help me spread all of my activities out through the week. I have a moderate cleaning day which is when I do what I call "dry" cleaning such as dusting, vacuuming, and organizing. I usually spend 4 hours or so cleaning that day. My heavy cleaning day is for mopping, bathrooms, etc. and I plan to spend the whole school day cleaning (taking breaks of course). I have a day for laundry and ironing (I do laundry all week, but this day is for sheets, hand towels, curtains, whatever may need to be washed that is normally not included in day to day laundry). I have a "quiet" day for menu planning, dealing with coupons, making shopping lists and paying bills. I also usually try to clean out the fridge on this day so it's ready for the week's groceries. And finally, I have a day to buy groceries and run errands. This is the day I do my CVS and Walgreen's shopping.

Now I do want you to know that if retrohousewife comes to town or my mother calls and asks me to have lunch with her, I don't say "I'm sorry, I can't... I have to mop the kitchen today." I just shift my cards around and do things on different days. I do try to schedule things around my busiest days though if I have that option. Weekends are for family and church and free from anything other than daily cards.

The cards that I am referring to are activity cards. These are the basis of the whole system. I have cards for every room in the house. They include things like "empty dishwasher", "scour sink", "clean microwave inside and out", "wash curtains", clean mirrors", "clean out purse", "exercise", and "library". They are divided between things that need to be done daily such as setting the table and making beds, things that need to be done weekly such as mopping the kitchen floor,things that need to be done monthly such as cleaning under the drip pans on the stove, and things that need to be done seasonally such as turning the mattresses or cleaning the windows. I have details of how to do each job on the card so that I can delegate it to one of the kids if I need to. I also make a card each week with that week's menu on it and keep it with today's cards so that I can refer to it easily.



The book recommends buying different colored 3x5 cards for your activities. I only had white cards and some colored stickers left over from a garage sale. Each color represents a different type of card (you can arrange this any way you want). I use yellow for daily cards, green for weekly, pink for personal, and white for monthly/seasonal.

I made one set of dividers numbered 1 through 31 for each day of the month. I file whatever cards need to be done in front of each day. I also rotate the dividers so that the current day is always at the front of the box. There are dividers for each month so that I can file seasonal cards (and birthday/special event cards) under each month, ABC dividers (for addresses and phone numbers), and dividers for Storage, Christmas, Family and Special Projects. I rarely use these because I keep this sort of information in my notebook.

Each night I check the next day's cards before I go to bed to see what's coming up.

There are lots more details in the book of course, but hopefully this gives you an idea. :)