Home Management Notebook, Part 1

Yesterday, I decided it was time to create my own Home Management Notebook. A fancy term for a notebook full of lists, charts, paper, and graphs to assist me in managing my home. This is not a task that comes naturally to me. I am the "free spirit", not the "nerd" of the house (aka Dave Ramsey)....If I were completely on my own, I'd be perfectly happy with clutter, piles, stacks, a full sink, etc. I count it progress that I'm willing to make such a dreadful confession ;-)

So here's my notebook:


I found a picture on Flickr's "Creative Commons" that I liked, printed it out, then put my text in.

Resources I used were:
1. SimpleMom.net
2. ListPlanIt.com (you can sign up for a free week-long trial!)
3. Flickr's Creative Commons

The idea for the "Home Management Notebook" came from SimpleMom. She describes her notebook here, and you can download (for free) all of the sheets used here.

In my notebook:
1. The Daily Docket - simple a daily planner. I may not use it everyday, honestly, but for busier days/weeks, it would sure be helpful - at the least, I love SimpleMom's idea of making 3 "Most Important Things" on your list of 10 to-dos for the day. In other words, if *only* those three things happen, you'll consider the day a success. What a relief for a perfectionist like me!

2. Master Chore Chart - can't decide whether to use SimpleMoms, or the one I downloaded from ListPlanIt's Home Management section.

3. Grocery List and Monthly Meal Plan, as well as several menu charts from ListPlanIt. I chose one that lists menus by day of the week (which I'll use for breakfast), and another that is a "master list" of meals in different categories (meat, vegetarian, pasta, soups, etc)...Once I fill that up, I can easily scan it for menu ideas, pick a few new recipes that I want to try, and have my menu for 2 weeks done in a snap.

4. Financial Worksheets (budget for each half of the month, Christmas gift planning chart, Home Improvement Savings List to save for all the things we'd eventually like to have in the house) - all of these were from ListPLanIt.

5. Growth Charts and Notes about activities/memories I want to keep for the children. Since I'm terrible at scrapbooking, I figure at least if I have a place to jot down little things that they do or how big they are, maybe I'll have them all in one place for someday when I have nothing to do and want to create a little memory book (ha ha).


I call it "Part 1" because I'll have to update how it works. Or, to be honest, whether I end up using all of the stuff inside, and what I add to it over time. What I like about this is that it is a visual, tangible thing that I can carry around with me. I'm very tactile, so having something to look at, thumb through, write in, and create is rewarding in itself. .

Finally, a video of Graeme from this morning. We were working in the garage during Cole's naptime, and Graeme was "helping" Mark fix the Volvo (nope, still not working!).