Creating Your Unique Home Management Binder
No homemaker should be without a Home Management Binder. Period!….okay well maybe not period….read on….
A Home Management Binder is a place for all the things related to your schedule, your home, and your family.
It carries within it lists on maintaining your home and it’s belongings, schedules to keep all the members of your immediate family organized, reminders of things you need to do from day to day, month to month and even year to year, and much more.
Home Management Binders are nothing new. Women in our history might have kept a daily journal, a household receipts book, or some such collection of what she meant to do in her daily homemaking life. A dear friend of mine holds within her treasured hands the homemaking journal of her grandmother. Detailing her daily life with fade-outs whenever a new babe was born this precious piece of history is in the right hands, those of her granddaughter.
Today’s Home Management Binder tends to be a bit more organized, a little less in personal information, and sometimes more in personal style. It usually has calendars and daily planner information along with all of the household details.
There are sections to organize each part of home life and that fact makes it an easier one stop shopping place for all the information regarding your day, your home, and your family. This way if any member of your family needs to check out what is for dinner, what mom would have cleaned had she been home from her well deserved vacation, or what the phone number for the babysitter is they can check the homemaking organizer.
Building Your Own Home Management Binder
The Organizer Supplies –
To put together your homemaking organizer you’ll need a few things.
- 3 Ring Binder
- Dividers to separate your sections.
- Sheet protector pages (optional)
- Printables
- Dry Erase Pen or Erasable Pens if using sheet protectors
Your three ring binder can either hold 8 1/2 by 11 inch pages or be half sized and hold 5 x 7 or similar sized pages. It’s up to you and your preferences.
If you do opt for the smaller sized binder you may have some difficulty finding printables sized that small. But know that you can print 2 per page on your printer. I make my planner pages in 8 1/2 by 11 inch size but print them for my smaller binder. Every printer is different so check out the instructions for your model.
Your Home Management Binder Printables –
Studies show and many will tell you that putting things that need doing on paper is one of the (if not the) best ways to become more efficient and organized.
If you have trouble organizing your life and the things to do start with just a list of what you need done on a given day. Mark it off as you go along completing each task and see if you don’t start feeling a tad bit more organized and better about your accomplishments.
The following are some of the sections you can have in your homemaking organizer and the printables that can go in them.
Schedules
Daily Routine: These are the things that don’t change from day to day. Such as breakfast, morning devotions, exercise, thaw dinner, and take out the garbage. It can be as basic or as detailed as you want it. This is actually the main form to keep YOU, as organizer of your home, organized.
Daily To Do List: This page is all of the things you have to do for the current day that aren’t a regular part of your daily routine. Appointments for that day. Calls you need to make. Which area of your home you are cleaning? Your menus for the day? This list will change constantly so it’s sometimes easier to have an erasable planner page for this or a pack of tear off sheets.
Weekly Routine: This is a household list of the things you do differently from day to day but they don’t change from week to week. For example, Wednesday may be the day you run your errands and Monday the day you do laundry. This might be the most important list for me. If I don’t stick to this I get severely off.
Cleaning
This section of your household notebook will include the regular routines for the upkeep of your home.
Daily Cleaning: To really keep on top of your home there are few things to be done each day. You can read more about that here. This is a nice list to keep in your organizer. Check it off each day.
Weekly Cleaning: Each day has its own theme. This is a nice way of spreading out heavier cleaning details. Read about that here. As with daily cleaning check off items as they’re completed.
Detailed Home Cleaning Instructions: It is a finely detailed cleaning list for each room or area of your home. Such as; wiping walls, vacuuming under the bed, wash curtains. It gets very detailed so don’t hurry in making these lists and expect to add to it and tweak it as time goes on. Group home areas together if your home is large. For example, you can group a bathroom and bedroom together. If you’re in a smaller home or an apartment each room can have its own sheet.
Menu Planning
Menu planning is the way to keep on top of your family’s growing appetite. In the meals section of your home organizer, you can keep lists such as
- Weekly Menu Plan
- Favorite Dinner Recipes
- Breakfast Ideas
- Grocery Shopping List
- Pantry List
- and a Freezer List
Household Budget
This organized section of your homemaking organizer can help you organize the household budget. Some sheets to keep here are.
- Bill Payments
- Monthly Budget Details
- Savings Checklist
Important Numbers: These are numbers for people like your pediatrician, plumber, computer repair etc. Emergency type numbers also go here.
Children’s Section
If you have children then they will need a section all their own. In fact they may need their own organizer but you can start with your own home organizer and branch out to a separate binder if need be.
Some printables you might want to include in the children’s section…
- Children’s Daily Schedule
- School Information (if you homeschool consider a separate binder to keep things more organized).
- Children’s Morning Routine
- Children’s Evening Routine
- Baby Sitter Information
Shopping
Keep track of your favorite shopping places. When they have the best sales and the like in the shopping section of your home management binder.
Phone Book: This is your regular phone book. Just all the numbers of friends, families, and agencies you need to keep track of. It makes it very convenient to have these pages in your home planner.
Hobby details: Do you sew? Knit? Crochet? Quilt? Scrapbook? Yes, the list can go on but you can keep it all organized in your homemaking organizer. True there are separate organizers you can purchase if you are deeply into your hobby but otherwise, you can just make a section in your organizer to keep track of it.
Other items you could include in your homemaking organizer would be goals (for yourself), celebration reminders, devotional pages, and the list goes on.
You can find pre-made templates for your Homemaking Binder at these places…
- Some nice, time tested, efficient forms at Get Organized Now
- Some pretty Home Management Binder pages from Homemaking Ministries (includes bonus video on putting together your binder).
- The Homemaker’s Guide to Creating the Perfect Schedule.
Your home management binder will be an ever growing thing. Don’t be afraid to edit it or tweak it to work for you. You may like your instructions to spread out on many separate pages or you may like all of your information consolidated into just a few pages (like me).
Whichever method you choose to build up your home management binder don’t be afraid to do what works for you. Every household organizer is as unique as the family or individual who uses it.
Home Management Binders can be a lovely personal thing. The addition of favorite photographs, colorful artwork, and sections unique to you and your household will keep you turning back to this resource day after day.
Check out my Put Your Homemaking Organizer Together the Series for more in depth details on putting your Homemaking Organizer together a new section each week!
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