Household Management Bag

So what's in my household management bag:

Well the picture on the cover is from Nemo - it's the big ole swimming turtle with its school of fish and little turtles. As long as the little fishes and turtles aren't willing to pitch in and help, this big ole swimming turtle is going to be pretty slowed down getting anywhere.
Inside there are 3 booklets representing 3 somewhat achievable methods:
The first one is my printouts from http://www.flylady.org/ who is into daily, consistent routines. Her plan is the one that's actually somewhere in my head.
Then there is the Christmas/Easter marathon cleaning session that is part of our collective memory of religious correctness. This is huge - there's a grand plan for cleaning the house and then an enormous grand plan for preparing for Christmas. It starts in August whereas I feel successful if I've started prior to the day before Christmas http://holidaygrandplan.com/cleaning-grand-plan Reality is that I'm big on Advent and Lent and am either deeply meditative or off at a church event. My second son is more into decorating and preparing the house for Christmas.
That's followed by the 3rd booklet which I've labeled Plan Ahead Checklists. It has checklists to make sure you never run out of anything, can grab a packed bag for any imaginable activity, are prepared for every conceivable emergency, etc. I slowly plug away at that one. Some of the lists were prepared by Thomas Leonard the founder of Coachu. He had all his plans in place and working well and died very prematurely from a heart attack. It puts the whole thing in perspective.
And then there's the secret booklet 4. The fantasy booklet. The pages I've ripped out of Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple (which is actually Real Hard).
And get this - There's a separate whole bag for interior decorating or "ignore the mess and send my mind to an imaginary life". And just to show you what a great imagination I have, my favourite decorating magazine is Architectural Digest. Actually I have a real appreciation for hair dressers, doctors, dentists with really great magazines in their waiting rooms.