We've never run out of bleach!

 

We've been married nearly 50 years. In all that time, we have never once run out of bleach.

Meanwhile, I regularly forget we're having dinner with Fred on Saturday. Despite being told three times. I've missed booking our August holiday leave until the last minute. Last week, I double-booked myself because I had forgotten about something my wife had mentioned just days earlier.

But bleach, it never runs out. How is this possible?

You see, I get bored with solutions faster than a child with a new toy. I've tried every productivity system going. Colour-coded spreadsheets. Apps that remind you to remember things. I once spent hours setting up a system to track tasks that was so complicated I thought about writing a manual to use it.

The manual would also need to be colour-coded.

I've been through all the phases. Getting Things Done. Bullet journals. Digital minimalism. That weird fortnight where I tried to organise my life using sticky notes. My phone is basically a graveyard of abandoned to-do apps.

I fall in love with setting everything up. Then I abandon it by Thursday.

But somehow, through all my organisational chaos, the bleach bottle stayed full.

One day, I asked my wife the obvious question. "How come we've never run out of bleach?"

Her answer was beautifully simple. "I shake the bottle when I'm using it. If it's nearly empty, I add it to my shopping list." That was it.

I felt like I'd been trying to break into a bank vault with a lump hammer. When all along the door was unlocked.

No app. No complex system. No colour-coded anything. She just checks the thing when she's using it. If it's running low, she writes it down straight away.

The bottle tells you everything you need to know. It doesn't lie. It doesn't need WiFi. And crucially, she doesn't trust her brain to remember "buy bleach" for three days until she gets to the shops.

Shake it. Nearly empty? Write it down. Full? You're sorted.

Sometimes the best system is barely a system at all. My wife doesn't have a bleach system. She has a bleach habit. When she uses it, she checks it. When it's low, she writes it down.

Our brains aren't great at remembering shopping lists. But they're brilliant at noticing things. Her system plays to that strength.

This might be the real secret. Instead of trying to remember everything, attach quick checks to things you already do. Fill up with petrol? Check your mileage - is it time for an MOT? Open your laptop? Quick glance at your calendar. Prepare for meetings. Walk past the fridge? Check what's running low.

Then write it down straight away. Don't trust your memory.

The magic isn't in making things complicated. It's about making the checking automatic and trusting your list instead of relying on your head.

Turns out the answer wasn't in my phone's app store. It was in the cleaning cupboard. A plastic bottle working with a simple shopping list stuck to the fridge.

Now, when I catch myself downloading the latest productivity app, I think about the bleach bottle. Sometimes the most revolutionary thing you can do is shake what's right in front of you.

Here's to the next fifty years of bleach full bliss.