1. I will especially keep my expecting breeder female(s) well fed with a variety of foods, kept warm in as spacious accommodations as possible and with frequent partial water changes. *

2. Before I go to an auction or to a shop where I might buy something, I will prepare quarters for those somethings to be quarantined for a couple of weeks and then housed. *

3. I will not buy a fish for which I have no tank.

4. I will not buy new plants, if all others haven't been properly treated, quarantined and planted in their designated home. *

5. Most Dry Fish Food on hand will be used before more is purchased or brought home (as raffle or door prizes) from shows/ meetings.

6. I will make more tank space for fry and growing youngsters.

7. I will designate some time daily or weekly for tank maintenance (partial water changes, gravel vacuuming, etc., etc., etc.). *

8. I will chart proposed aquarium care on a planning calendar. *

9. I will number aquariums. (1-2-3! There! That was easy!) *

10.  Care actually done will be logged in by tank number on the planning calendar. (One may have to import a basic calendar on a word file in order to do this. Copying and pasting will make record keeping easier. A shorthand of initials might be needed. That needs to be given more consideration.  Some of you adept at text messaging may have some ideas here. Probably these notations will be jotted upon a printed copy on a clipboard.)

11.  Feeding and care of live food cultures will be included upon the calendar and do lists. *

12.  I will rotate leaky tanks out of the fishroom. After bleaching they will either be repaired in the summer or given to someone who can use them for other creatures.

13.  If a new aquarium is purchased, equivalent gallonage will be sold or given away.

14.  Fish shows, auctions and speaking engagements will be placed upon the calendar as early as possible. Ideally this will be 12 months ahead but no later than 1 or 2 months. Tentative dates will be written in another color and double-checked. *

15.  Telephone calls to other fish heads will be returned within 24 hours. *

16.  E-mails from other fish heads will be replied to ASAP, done within 3 days. *

17.  Pertinent forum comments will be responded to ASAP, done within a week. *

18.  The asterisks indicate that the starred item(s) should be included upon the monthly, weekly and even daily “Do Lists” which will be prepared.

Items # 3 and # 4 will probably kill me. Or force one of the least organized people in the universe to get a little more organized.

I'm doing and hope to do better at something similar to that calendar stuff for a couple of modest organizational responsibilities. We also are more effectively planning our mini-vacations, holidays and trips that way. If much of the above, vis-à-vis the fish, actually gets followed, the neighbors will undoubtedly wonder where all of the flying pigs came from. ;)

Most of the above items are common sense, which unfortunately isn't as common as it should be. Therefore and obviously most of these are not initially mine, just good ideas cheerfully shanghaied and hopefully adopted.

Everyone is different, so others might not need to do any or some of the above. You might have and even want to share other priorities.

The calendar thing will be revisited in another diary. Many of the ideas offered will have been inspired by a calendar TFH sent out to subscribers for 2006. The inscribed calendar was a great idea, but probably annoyed some people and TFH didn't send the same kind of inscribed calendar out to subscribers for '07 or '08.