Lists For Miles and Miles

I am terribly forgetful, beyond actually! I hate to admit it but if you know me well you are aware of this fact anyways. Sometimes I scare myself, like recently Jason went into the washroom not long after I was in there and was like.. "Ummm.. Nicole!" I went in to see what was going on and apparently I forgot to turn the water off after I washed my hands, I suppose this was a little drastic because I don't generally do things like that but most likely if you tell me something or ask me to do something and I don't write it down or do it right away I will not remember.. without a doubt. Last week we walked through the Hoboken train station and we go there at least once or twice a week and for the first time I noticed these big lit up screens with all the arrival and departure times, I don't know how I missed it all these times.

See here's the thing though, there is a good thing about being forgetful, things that I've already seen and done can be new again! HA! I'll often go somewhere and then go back and most often little parts seem familiar but overall its like going for the first time all over again. That is in part due to my bad sense of direction but mostly because I am extremely forgetful. I will go into the bedroom for lets just say, my watch and my purse.. odds are I will come out and have forgotten my watch, or my purse.

So naturally because it gets annoying for others around me I try to do whatever I can so that I will remember, lists, sticky notes, phone memos, emails, reminders set on my phone. Jason is really good about it, I can imagine it can get irritating when he asks me to lets say (because this happened recently) to charge the tablet, then he would get in bed the next night and go to use it and it was dead and he would look at me. Sadly it wouldn't have even crossed my mind but when he looked at me I remembered. I asked him to leave it out then next day thinking if I saw it I would remember to charge it, he didn't and therefore I didn't.. oops! After about a week of this, I kid you not.. he just charged it himself. I swear its not intentional.

I make such an effort that I generally have a million lists on the fridge and every morning I take out the ones that are relevant to my day. Sadly memo's on my phone don't really work because they just aren't in my face so writing things down works a lot better. I always have grocery lists on the go, one for each store I need to get things from so I can take it with me when I go. Currently I have these lists on the fridge:

• Things to take back when we go home. 
• Things to bring back to New Jersey when we leave the house. 
• BJ's grocery list
• Shop Rite grocery list
• Target list
• Songs to download
• Books to read
• Places to try in Hoboken (restaurants I walk by and think I would like to try)
• Places to try in Jersey City (same as above)
• Blog Ideas (I have a book dedicated to this but I have been trying to plan my posts for the week and therefore I go through my book and make a list of posts I plan for that week and cross them out of the book.)

Lots of lists right? But whatever works right!! The good thing about needing paper for reminders is all the fun little note pads and stuff I get to purchase and Jason wont object because naturally it benefits him too! So although I am not going back to school (sadly) I love this time of year because all the sticky notes and such are on sale. 

<source>

$3.99 at Target, 5 pads of sticky notes.. go and get em'! Who doesn't need sticky notes?

As I am looking at Target I am wondering why I don't save a tree and just buy a white board, good lord why have I never thought of that before?

<source>

These things are my holy grail! We buy the magnetic ones so they are always stuck to the fridge that way when I am going somewhere I can just grab my list and go, and that way they are on the fridge and in my face all the time making it a little harder to forget things. Plus then I can rip a sheet off, make a 'to do' list for the day and leave it on the counter to check off. Generally I work better with a to do list, one because then I at least remember what I need to do and I feel more motivated as I check things off! 

<source>

I use actual notebooks for the things I don't need daily, like songs to download on my iPod. I don't generally download songs daily or even weekly but I like to write songs down when I hear them so I don't forget when I want to put them on my iPod. I also tend to use Shazam a decent amount and every once in awhile will add the songs I have tagged on there to the list as well so they are all in one place when I go to download, otherwise I will forget haha! 

<source>

I keep one of these bad boys in my purse! No I am not kidding, I have to. When we take trips that are longer then a day or two I have to write things down each night if I at all plan on sharing what we did. When we went to Hawaii every night I would get in bed and write the date down and where we went and what we did, what we learned, etc when we came back from our trip and I sat down to blog I went back through my little notebook and that's how I did it. I go through a ton of these note books because when I'm out I don't have access to a sticky note, haha. 

My point in this is not for you to think I am a candidate for early onset dementia but that although you may be forgetful there are fun ways to stay organized and on task. Now is the time to get your fun forms of reminders while everything is on sale for back to school, stock up for your kids and for yourself! 

I'm going to Target this week (I go every week) but this week specifically for these goods!!