Taking Your Medication Every Day
For a daily medication you keep forgetting or putting off. It ties the dose to something you already do, puts the refill a week ahead of the gap, keeps the side effects written down, and leaves stopping to a conversation with the prescriber.
Medication · Habits · Body · 9 items · once a day
The checklist
- Tie it to something you already do — teeth, coffee, feeding the dog.
- Use a box with the days on it — then the question is only whether the lid is up.
- Set the alarm for the same minute daily — a floating time is a missed dose waiting.
- Order the refill when a week is left — the gap at the end is where routines break.
- Keep one dose where you get caught out — a bag, a desk drawer, a coat pocket.
- Write side effects down with the date — the detail is gone by the next appointment.
- Ask the pharmacist about the awkward part — timing, food and the other bottles are their job.
- Never stop because you feel better — that is the conversation to have with the prescriber.
- Say so if the cost is the problem — there are cheaper versions and programs for this.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it once a day, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.