The Tip That Will Keep You Out Of The Police Log

Just stumbled across a “post it” note on my desk. In capital letters, it says “$18 – leave cash”. Hmmm. I have no idea what this note refers to.  

This is why one of my key household management principles is: Ditch the “post it” notes, adopt the notebook. My first job out of school was as a cub reporter for the weekly newspaper “The Wakefield Observer”.

I drove my editor crazy with my long-winded sentences and aversion to interviewing anyone facing a life struggle, like a house fire, recent arrest or angry constituents. Since investigating this stuff is basically what the job of a reporter is, it was a tough learning curve.

Here’s what made it better: the reporter’s notebook. You write the date at the top of the page every day, and that’s where you write absolutely everything: names, phone numbers, addresses, quotes etc. You carry that baby with you everywhere, and it saves you tons of time.

You just rifle back a couple pages when your editor insists you call back the police captain to get further details about the guy arrested for nude jumping on a trampoline. This was a real story. His neighbors were teenage girls who turned him in.

Get yourself your own reporter’s notebook. Use it at your house. Write everything in it. Take it everywhere. Buy lots of them at once so that you will not find yourself like guru girl, amidst a busy summer, having filled one notebook up and resorting to temporary use of “post it” notes… despite knowing better, which makes the current situation worse.

I now don’t have time to think of a pithy way to wrap this up as I must run to Target to get myself a new notebook. A brief recap will have to suffice:

Number 1 on your Household Management “To Do” list? Buy & use a household notebook.

Number 2: Remember naked trampolining is never a good idea.