Handouts

Last week I went to see my doctor and came out of my appointment with 11 pages of paper.  And when I got home, there were two more pieces from my health care plan.  So what's a person to do with all this paperwork?

The first thing to do is ask yourself what information is most important to you.  Ask yourself if you honestly will ever look at that piece of paper again.  Will you ever use it as a reference?  If so, where will you keep it?  

Secondly, decide how much time and energy you want to commit to managing your information.  The more you keep, the more time and energy you will have to dedicate to it.   And keeping more makes it harder to find the important stuff.

Here's what I did with my paperwork:

• Lab and visit summaries - scanned and loaded to SafelyFiled account. (for more information click here)
• Kidney friendly tips sheet - recycled - I get this every time I go
• Tips for checking your blood pressure - ditto
• Low potassium diet - scanned, read
  • and realized I need to make some changes to my diet. (limit milk and stay away from peanut butter and nuts!  What am I going to do?)

Being your own advocate is a multi dimensional job.  But you can do it.  It's all about finding peace by piece.

To your most peaceful self.

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