Family Organization Binder

Tuesday, August 28, 2012



So, lately, I have been on somewhat of an organization frenzy. One of my obsessions has revolved around the new fangled thing called a Family Organization Binder. I've been seeing it all over Pinterest and have slowly but surely been working on my own version for our family.

The basis of this idea is to have a place to put all of your important files, documents, budgets, menus, to-do lists, cleaning schedules, etc. for your family. Genius, right? I jumped on it because I think it would be pretty awesome to avoid going through a million files, folders, drawers, bins, and notebooks to find everything my family and home need to run successfully. I'm not the most organized housewife/mom on the planet (at all), so fingers crossed that this will help. ;)

A few of my favorite sites/blogs I have found to assist me in the never-ending process of putting this binder together can be found here, herehere, and here. I also used this master spring cleaning schedule as inspiration for part of the cleaning section of our binder.

I will also go ahead and say that all of these sheets and lists will be in page protectors so that I can write on them with wet-erase markers. Here are the sections of my binder (as of right now).

1. Schedules/Calendars: I put daily, monthly, and yearly goal/to-do sheets in this section along with separate monthly calendars. I also made a sheet for workout ideas since I always see them online and forget what they are 3 seconds later (that may be on purpose ;)).

2. Meals/Groceries: I have grocery lists for Sam's and United, as well as weekly menus in here. I also have some page protectors for recipes that I find and a few more to hold carry-out menus. Baseball card holders are in there as well for coupons. (Although I'm terrible at remembering to coupon.)

3. Family Information: Important documents (SS cards, birth certificates, etc.), important information, important dates and birthdays, instructions for babysitters/house sitters, vacation planners, things to do/see as a family, and files for each family member will go in this section.

3. Medical: In this section I plan on having a log to record illnesses, medications, and doctor visits, as well as a sheet with questions I want to remember to ask at the doctor's office. A small but important section ;).

4. Financial: A monthly budget will go in here, as well as a record of past monthly budgets. I want to put savings goals for various things in here as well (vacations, home renovations, etc.). I'll also stick a few page protectors in here to hold important bills that we need easy access to. Oh, and important files/account information for our bank accounts.

5. Home/Auto: This is my favorite section! Included in here will be daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly cleaning schedules (it will be a miracle if I can keep up with it though HA), a home maintenance log/checklist, auto maintenance log/checklist, a sheet to write all of our house projects/ ideas on, and a few (hundred) page protectors to store my many magazine tear-outs. Oh, and I want to put important documents that pertain to our house and cars in here too.

6. Contacts: Phone numbers, addresses, and emails for all of our family members and friends, as well as for our doctors, dentists, pharmacy, various repairmen, hair stylists, banks, church, etc. I will also keep our mailing list for Christmas cards in here too. AND baseball card holders for the many business cards I collect.

7. Twenty Three Oh One: This is all things for my Etsy shop and of course, the blog. I want to put a to-list for the shop and one for the blog, blog idea sheet, design idea sheet, timeline, calendars, important contacts, inspiration photos, and account information for my Blogger, Paypal, Etsy, and Goodsie accounts. I will also put a business budget, order and payment tracker, and buyer email list in here.


So yeah, this is me trying to be Super Mom. ;)
 
If I manage to get this done by Christmas, it will be a complete MIRACLE. That being said, once I do get it all together, I really think it will be SO great for our household. I'm about 1/3 of the way finished, as of today (traveling all the time is not really condusive to completing this project haha). Writing this post has re-motivated me to power through! I SO hope that I will be sharing completed photos and details of our binder in the near future.
 
 
 
Do you have anything like this for your family? What are some great tips that you can share on how you keep your household up and running?
 
 
 

9 comments:

  1. Wow! I am super impressed by this effort!! You need to share the finished product!

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  2. That looks very well planned. I had a chalkboard in the kitchen for weekly menu's but that kinda went out the window when I started the wedding count down on it instead! LOL. Faye xx

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  3. Wow! You've totally inspired me to finish ours. Can't wait to see the finished product!

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  4. I love this idea! I am constantly trying to play catch-up. It would be nice to feel organized!

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  5. This is all very new to me and this article really opened my eyes.Thanks for sharing with us your wisdom.
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  6. One of the key elements that keep me and our family most organized is our Family Organization Binder. Every bit of important information goes into this binder so that if we ever needed to evacuate our house, everything of importance is in this one place. It also serves as reference and storage which we can recap any time.

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  7. Love your ideas! This post will come in handy as I make my family binder :)

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  8. I think it’s must to have one of these in every household. Organizing your documents will not only help you get rid of the mess, it will also keep help you get through after a calamity. My own tip would be to make sure you have more copies of your important documents aside from the original ones. Ruby @ WilliamsDataManagement.com

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