Organizing Complaints

As you can imagine, I get loads of questions. Some queries are posted here in the comments; some come through Facebook; some are emailed to my office. I’m just glad they’re not all snail-mailed to me on paper. I’m not that tall. I’d be buried alive!

Many times, the questions posed are too specific to personal cases for me to address. As you know, I cannot consult or take a case on these public platforms.

However, I welcome general questions. Through them, you help me understand what topics need to be covered more thoroughly.

For example, here’s an excellent question from a student:

“One thing I’m stumbling with is where to list complaints … like do I put ‘cold sore’ under C, or S for skin, or R for rash? Does knee pain go under K for knee, or P for pain, or A for arthritis … etc.?

“If you are going to share more organizing tips, would you consider weighing in on how you might categorize/file complaints?”

I love that question!

Look, I’m very old-fashioned. I prefer hard copies of material, replete with painstakingly curated, handwritten notes. If you saw the books in my office, you’d laugh.

My most precious collection — the consolidation of most of my notes from my extensive time spent in India at the Prasanta Banerji Homoeopathic Research Foundation — is contained in a large 3-ring binder. The pages are different sizes and eventually obscured the organizational tabs along the sides of the pages that segmented my giant book of notes into sections. I couldn’t sift through the pages without great effort, which became quite frustrating.

So, here’s one little trick I came up with to overcome that obstacle. First, I created a heavy-stock lead page at the beginning of each of the section partitions. Then, I taped a popsicle stick to each lead page, taking care to have it jut out far past the edge of the largest pages so that the sticks remain readily accessible. (See the photo above.)

(Stop laughing. I told you I was old-fashioned, and nothing in this modern world can be handier than a well-placed, low-tech popsicle stick!)

Next, I wrote the name of the section’s category on both sides of the popsicle stick (so that the labels are legible whether my book is open or closed).

Now, here’s the answer to my student’s question: The popsicle-stick-designated sections are loosely arranged according to some of the old homeopathic repertories! I find that to be the most intelligent, intuitive way to organize notes.

Here are my categories:

• Mind
• Head
• Eyes (including sight)
• Ears
• Mouth (including dental)
• Throat/ lymph nodes/thyroid
• Respiratory (including nose and sinuses)
• Cardiac
• Gastrointestinal
• Urinary tract
• Male/Female (reproductive)
• Muscular/Skeletal
• Skin
• Generalities (fevers/and specific conditions unrelated to above categories)

Some repertories contain different, more detailed breakdowns, while modern repertories (such as Robin Murphy’s) contain additional chapters and a different layout. But this basic hierarchy, as listed above, is what works for me.

So, going back to the question, I would place information about cold sores in the Mouth section. I’d organize Dengue Fever under Generalities. See?

Once you have the general binder set up to your liking, you can also customize your collected information about specific complaints according to hot topics that matter most to you. For instance, you could add a section called Vaccination if that is of particular interest to you. Make it your own!

The easier it is to access your information when complaints arise, the faster you and your loved ones will regain good health … and the quicker you can pass on the good news of homeopathy!

Warmly,

P.S. To learn more tips and tricks from other like-minded folks, I suggest you join a study group. Sharing information in a group setting can turbocharge your learning. I recommend it because it’s the way I learned when I first started out in homeopathy. Your group will not only explore the topics that interest you but also will examine subjects you may not have considered if studying alone.

So, for a well-rounded homeopathy education, start with Gateway to Homeopathy: A Guided Study Group Curriculum. My self-guided curriculum will take your group by the hand and give you a strong foundation on which to build. Even if you already know a bit about homeopathy, a study group will provide lifelong friends who can share your journey, your trials and your successes.

They say two heads are better than one, so imagine how much better an entire study group filled with industrious noggins can be!