Dear FlyLady,

I have been a member–I think–since about 2005, and never really thought much about the calendar. This year, I decided to save money and did NOT buy a FlyLady calendar. True, the calendar has good-sized spaces and pretty pictures, but I don’t have enough room to put all the notes to myself I usually put on the calendar.

I also carry a small purse calendar, and usually transfer the notes and dates from there to the main calendar.

I realized I wasn’t doing well when my hairdresser of many year’s standing called me to ask if I had forgotten something–I had–a haircut. Fortunately, we were able to reschedule. I then wrote the wrong time down on the small calendar for another event–well, you get the picture. When I got a small windfall I ordered the new calendar which begins in August.

Well, I had no sooner ordered the calendar when a friend who asks me for help with her finances (English is her second language, and the technical language escapes her) was complaining that she kept missing due dates on her bills. I told her I would give her that calendar when we meet and I will order another. I can walk her through writing down due dates for her bills on the calendar, and revising her budget so she doesn’t pay any more late charges, which can cause increase on her interest rates, etc.

But what finally made me write was I was attending a meeting at a museum where I volunteer. There has been a reorganization of a number of departments and I am the captain of the volunteers for one of them. I was attending a small luncheon that would affect how the new enlarged department would use my group of volunteers, and met up with one of the attendees in her office. We were dining in the very formal (non-public) dining room and I was appropriately attired in the clothes I had laid out the night before (FlyLady before bedtime routine 101). However, the woman I was attending with had not written on one of her many lists that she had this luncheon to attend, and so was covering her more casual attire with a shawl she had in her office. I admired it–it was lovely–and said nothing else, except to say that I used to forget things more until I joined FlyLady.

Well, while others were talking on our way up about sightings of the well-known in the galleries–very interesting, actually–she was pumping me with questions about what FlyLady was–I answered her and sent her the web address when I got home.

Whether she joins or not doesn’t matter–I was a) on time b) attired appropriately in clean clothes that were laid out the night before c) calm so that instead of having to worry about whether my volunteers would be pushed into doing more than they already are, I was instead able to present my people in such a way that the new, bigger department wants their people to copy our professionalism!

But think–a) calendar b) clothes c) allowing enough travel time to arrive on time, and when I got back home, my sink was clean. And, the night before this meeting, I was able to invite a friend of a friend to stay with me in a week or so (while the mutual friend is having a very serious operation) because I knew that the house was in good enough shape that I could manage to have her stay for a few days!

I plan, in addition to working and volunteering, to go back to grad school in the fall. I am hoping to get my routines in good enough shape so that I can keep things up while I write my first term papers in 30 years. Yikes! But I have ordered the second calendar, and I have every confidence I will be fine. If you had told me that I would be doing all this a couple of years ago, I would have said “No way.”

Thank you!