Home Management Binder

Whether you call it a Home Management Binder, a Household Notebook, or a Home Control Journal, creating one for your home can be a great way to keep important information centrally located, control paper clutter, and inspire home managers to set goals and to accomplish much.  Here are the steps for putting yours together.

• Find a binder that works for you.  I love Mead’s Notebinder, but any binder will work.  I would choose one that has at least a 1″ spine width, but don’t use a binder that is too bulky and cumbersome.
  
• You will also want to collect tabbed dividers so that you can separate your home management binder into sections.  The easier it is to find the information you need, the more chances your home management binder will work.  Another solution is Avery NoteTabs.  These tabs are writable and repositionable so you can move them around or use the same one if you need to refresh the page.
  
• Consider the sections of you home management binder.  Some labels that I use are Planner (for my daily, weekly, monthly, yearly calendars and planning pages), Contact Info (for frequently used phone numbers/email addresses/mailing addresses), Home Management (for inventories, items needed list, cleaning schedule), Health (include exercise goals, calorie tracking pages, medical documentation), Family Matters (include information pertinent to each member of your family).
  
• Create separate binders for specific tasks that are used frequently such as:  Meal Planning (include recipes and menu planners), Financial Planning (include bank/credit card information and various budgeting worksheets), Personal Interests (include a log of books read/books to read, favorite wines, record the things that matter to you), and Memory Journal (make the special events and memorable moments in your life even more special when you put them on paper – memories fade, but notes on memories remain), and Holiday Planner (collect ideas, recipes, mementos, and plans).
• Label your binder clearly.  Help yourself to the following binder covers:  Home Management, Life Management, Finance Planner, Meal Planner, Memory Journal, Holiday Planner.
  
• Begin to fill your binder with pages that are useful and worth keeping.
  
• You can also add school lunch menus, takeout menus, library storytime calendars, brochures from local contractors, team rosters—whatever will make your life easier!!

ListPlanIt.com has all of the printable pages listed above and much, much more to create a
Home Management Binder that is organized, easy to use, and easy to customize.

Do you have a Home Management Binder?  If so, what are your favorite sections/pages?  Has it helped you get organized?  If you haven’t started your Home Management Binder, what has held you back?

Share your Home Management Binders tips and photos on ListPlanIt.com’s Flickr pool.  Join the new group, upload photos of your binders, and add to the discussion.  I can’t wait to see your binders!

Related posts:

1. list of useful contacts to keep in your home management binder
2. list of steps to a guest-worthy home this Thanksgiving
3. list of steps to calculating a home office expense deduction
4. List of Steps to Efficient Meal Planning
5. list of free pages in the new ListPlanIt trial