There’s the organization of things and then there’s the organization of yourself, your thoughts, and the facts you’re responsible for. The latter is most important when you’re a caregiver because you’re dealing with a lot of those particular items. Keeping yourself organized isn’t as difficult as it might seem at first.
Consider a Planner or Calendar
Even if you’ve never been much of a planner lover before, now might be the time to try to find the right one for you. Planners are portable and they offer you a chance to collect a lot of data that would otherwise get lost or would be spread out over a variety of other places. You think you’ll remember everything as a caregiver, but that’s often not the case, especially as you get busier.
Make Lists Whenever Possible
Lists do a lot more to organize you and your thoughts than you might expect. When you take the time to write out a list, that gives you a chance to think through what is going on, what has to happen, and what happens next. Your lists don’t have to be perfect, but they can help you to make sense of everything that’s going on. It’s also a lot easier to delegate tasks once you have a list. For example, you can hand a list to elderly care providers without having to think through everything a second time. This saves you and everyone around you a lot of time.
Copy Important Documents and Store Them Securely
Important documents are sometimes difficult to find when you need them most and yet you don’t want to lose them, either. One solution is to either make copies and then store the originals in a safe or some other secure location. Another option is to digitize those documents and then save the file names as the type of document it is. You can store the documents on your phone or in your online cloud account for easy access wherever and whenever you might need them.
Talk to Your Senior
It’s also really important to talk to your senior when you’re thinking about making organizational changes. There may be some aspects of your current system or the one you’re thinking about moving to that your elderly family member might enjoy offering input about. Keeping your elderly family member involved as much as you can is really important, even if it doesn’t seem crucial to you.
There’s a lot that goes into being organized that isn’t necessarily about where things are placed. Organizing the important information you’re managing may be the most important part of feeling like you have a handle on what’s going on.
