Photo by Muffet
Building a household notebook or home organizer is essential in the management of your home. When I worked, I had manuals, schedules & guidebooks and home is no different. I’ve had several household notebooks, control journals and other types of planners throughout the years and none of them worked very well for me. I’ve always been the type to get carried away with an idea & an elaborate plan and then the system goes to junk. That being said, I’m going to share with you how I put together my household notebook — the one that finally worked for me.
Last week, I posted a tutorial about making your own fabric covered binder (without sewing). One (but by no means the only) reason that previous household notebooks didn’t work for was because they were all practical (sort of, more on that later), but not pretty.
While going through this series, please put more thought than action into them. All my failures had more time on making the binder and schedules than thinking about what what would really work for me. Thus, they didn’t work. That being said, this week, think about what you want your HN to do, have in it, and look like.
My supply suggestions, but please keep it reasonable & creatively use what you have where possible:
- a 2″ 3-ring binder; I find that the type where the rings are mounted on the back cover, not the spine, are best. I also find that 1″ is too small & 3″ is too big. Just my personal observations.
- plastic page protectors
- a 3-hole punch
- paper and/or home organization forms (I love List Plan It and the Life…Your Way Printables)
This week, think about what information you look up or access on a regular (at least weekly, if not daily) basis. Think about how you would group that information. Go with your gut — the more instinctive it is to use, the better it will serve you. Consider how you would like the information laid out with the tabs. This is a completely PERSONAL book and while I will share how I’ve laid mine out, you may do yours completely differently.
Gather your office supplies you will use and come back next week, when we start creating schedules.
Jennifer Tankersley
8 March 2010 at 9:27 PM (14 years ago)I LOVE the fabric-covered binder! That is beautiful!! I also love my home management binder. I just posted about making one last week. I use 1″ binders because I have more than 1 binder. I use 1 for finances, 1 for meal planning/recipes, and 1 for family/contacts/home. They reside in different rooms of the house. Aren’t they so handy? Nice to have everything you need corralled into 1 location. Thanks for the post!
Jen
.-= Jennifer Tankersley´s last blog ..list of favorite things about our evening at Disney on Ice’s Finding Nemo =-.
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jen Reply:
March 10th, 2010 at 6:16 PM
I do love them! Your forms are awesome, too! Thanks for stopping by.
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