Hi.
I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and today we’re
going to talk about organizing medications and supplements.
I’ve had some health challenges in my family lately and it has just made me have a huge
reminder of what an important subject this is and how complicated it can be, especially
if you have multiple things you’re taking at multiple times of the day and multiple
people helping.
It gets crazy.
So let’s go through some really good steps for making sure that everything gets covered.
First, you want to take the doctor’s instructions, and your own preferences of supplements or
whatever, and make a master schedule.
I use Excel to do mine so that I can easily have columns and rearrange things and then
print that out exactly the way I want.
So what I do is I make a section for waking up, then for breakfast, then for lunch, for
dinner, and for bedtime.
Now, if you have different times in the day where you have to take things, you know, away
from food, you might have different sections.
But think about first the time of day, then put how many, what kind of medication, what
it’s for, and then put what it looks like.
So I’ve got one here and it says “medium olive-green capsule.”
And the second one says “medium off-white capsule.”
And the reason is, that you can see at a glance, “Okay, I’ve got the olive-green and the
off-white one, yeah, those are the two I’m supposed to take,” and you can really quickly
see what you’ve got, instead of trying to remember the names of them and what they look
like.
So it’s a nice little cheat sheet for you to get through your day.
If you do have multiple caregivers, or you’re prone to memory lapses like some of us are,
you can have check boxes and you can print a fresh one of these out every day and go
ahead and check it off or write the time down that you did it, if it’s that crucial.
So first, just get that master schedule in place.
What you might want to do is group everything that can be sorted into a pill sorter and
have that so that you can see at a glance, you know, what’s supposed to be in the pill
sorter versus things that are in foil or things that you have to mix in water.
All right, so you’ve got your master schedule.
Then you want to take each individual supplement or drug and you want to get a trusty sharpie
marker and write on there exactly what those instructions are.
Yes, you can sit there and read the fine print, but once you get the gist of it, write it
on the top.
“Take one at bedtime,” great, that’s easy.
So that way it’s large print for those of us who need glasses and you just can digest
the instructions and have it simple for you.
So write that right on the bottle.
And then – this always has baffled me as well – write in on prescription bottles
too.
Really large, so you can see, at a glance, what is this medication?
It’s sometimes hard to read that tiny print and you’ve got all these different orange
bottles that you’re mixing up.
So, sharpie marker is the next step.
Then you want to once or twice a week take your master schedule and deal out all of the
different pills and capsules into pill sorters.
So here is one example, it’s just an easy seven-day sorter, but you can get others that
have, you know, seven days with three times a day or two times a day (POP), morning and
evening sections, and you can deal them all out and have them ready and open each compartment.
It makes it so easy and that way you can also remember whether you’ve taken them or not,
because the compartment will be empty.
So what do you have to share for your tips on how to take your supplements and medications?
I’m sure there are other wonderful things that we can all learn.
So please share those in the comments, and if you’d like some help with these kinds
of challenges, our team is always available seven days a week in our Member Message Board
area.
We’ve helped thousands of people in 18 countries and we can help you too.
You can check us out at http://www.clutterdiet.com.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.