Shopping List Central

After six weeks of painful recovery from abdominal surgery, I’m finally beginning to feel like myself, or enough like myself to be able to give my long suffering sister a break. I’ve also been recovering in other people’s houses, the better for my mom to take care of me and the better for me to do first hand anthropological personality type research. It’s been a crash course in the big differences between Classic and Organic homes and I’m here to dish the dirt, or the lack of dirt as the case may be. The first thing I noticed in the difference between the two households — probably because this is what I seem to care most about when I’m in pain — was how my caregivers kept track of my comfort food supply.

My sister’s is a Classic (SJ) home and so of course there were lists on the fridge and special pencils that had magnets on them so they wouldn’t get lost. I remember her telling me once that she searched the web for these and ordered them in bulk and while this is something I, an Organic Freedom (NFP) might have done once because it was a cool idea, my Classic Freedom (SFJ) sister has a ready and never ending supply.

Now my mom’s house in the burbs is a bit more loosey goosey. My mom’s an Organic Structure (NFJ) and my dad’s a Smart Structure (NTJ) so they both like lists as much as any Classic, but they don’t feel the same need to keep one on the fridge. Also, from long experience trying to Pixie these two types, they are crazy resistant to change unless it’s their idea. And no, it wasn’t just because they’re our parents and we’re the annoying Pixies, we noticed the same resistance to change when we’ve encountered these rare types out in the field. When Mom notices things are missing or low, she starts keeping a list on a yellow post it or a scrap of paper that often gets lost or misplaced. A list, yes, but with the added family members, there’s also a lot of wasted time asking everyone if something is missing or low, when if there was a central list — everyone could contribute when they saw, just for instance of course, that their gluten-free cornflakes were gone.

I know that we always talk about how Funs (SPs), Organic Freedoms (NFP)s and Smart Freedoms (NTPs) don’t need lists because they have everything all nicely structured in their brain, but it’s probably been 20 years since my brain was that good at not forgetting to buy milk when I’ve gone to the store. Frankly, even with a list I sometimes forget to look at it and invariably come home with everything except the milk.

So what’s the tip? No matter what your type, everyone, especially in a multiple person household, can benefit from having a centralized shopping list, preferably separated by grocery and drugstore or two separate paper pads. Yes, we know that thrifty types of all kind will resist this kind of expenditure when there’s so many slips of paper, post its and random paper pads around, but go ahead and splurge. It won’t cost you that much. Go on Google or Amazon and find a magnetic paper pad you like and buy tons of them and then buy a magnetic pencil/pen holder so you can have a writing implement right next to the pad. Kelly found some with magnets on them, OR she actually went to the trouble of gluing magnets on a bunch of pencils (I suspect the latter.)

Why is this tip so universal? Because every type who can see tends towards what’s easiest and that’s always the visual and having a shopping pad out that’s just for shopping reminds you to put down the missing item when you remember it’s missing OR you SEE that it’s missing when you peek in the fridge. The magnet kind are great because they’re right near the fridge which is a central pantry location in any house. And buying in bulk is good for more lax types like Organics and Smarts because this means that you’ll keep up with the same system because you have all these pads of paper instead of the random bits of paper and post it notes that you think you should use because you already have them.

I suspect that Funs (SPs) will be the first to try the electronic version of this centralized system by using a List App or some version of Google docs because they are the masters of the electronic reminders. Frankly before my surgery I had started using the Note app on my iPhone because it was always with me when I remembered I needed to do or buy something and so therefore would also be with me when I went out shopping, whereas paper lists have a tendenacy to stay where they were when I was writing them. For those of you wanting to branch out from organizational tools that come with your phone, there are a lot of List Apps created just for shopping AND sharing with the other people in your household so you can have a general household list that anyone can access on “the cloud” whenever they want.