Household Notebook: Use It To Organize Your Home Life

A household notebook, also known as a home management binder or a homemaking notebook, is like a master planner for your home's needs and family's lives.

One purpose of your notebook or binder is to get all that information you are trying to remember, like your daughter's soccer schedule and the last time you flipped the mattresses, out of your head, and onto paper, where you can more reliably review it when needed.

If you're just beginning the journey of creating such a notebook, here are some general resource articles on the site for you.

• 7 Reasons To Create A Home Management Binder With Your Family
• How To Make A Homemaking Notebook

Each family's home management binder will be unique, just like each family is unique. However, there are some common parts of most organized family's homemaking notebook.

Below is a pretty detailed list of items which could go into your household notebook. Not all of them need to, of course, and not all of them need to be created at once.

In addition, if you actually were to put all these things in one notebook it would be huge and unwieldy. So these are just suggestions. You pick and choose the ones that will actually help your family and home!

There are also some resources on this site which can help you create your homemaking notebook, including a whole section of checklists and printables that you can use, as is, or tweak to fit your needs.

Suggested Contents Of Household Notebook

Schedules and Routines

• Daily schedules, for both adults and children
• Checklists for various tasks, such as morning and bedtime routines for children
• Weekly schedules
• Family calendar
• To do list

Cleaning and Chores

• Daily house cleaning schedule
• Weekly cleaning schedule
• House cleaning checklist
• Weekly checklist for house cleaning
• Kitchen cleaning checklist
• Bathroom cleaning checklist
• Housekeeping checklist to get ready for guests
• Spring cleaning checklist
• Fall cleaning checklist
• Weekly laundry schedule
• How often to wash clothing and household items in your home
• Stain removal guide
• Chore charts
• Task list template for tracking odd jobs and household chores

Car and Home Maintenance

• Car maintenance schedule
• Vehicle inspection checklist
• Vehicle maintenance log (also includes mileage log)
• Home maintenance checklist
• Home storage inventory
• Household inventory (and why you should create a household inventory)

Food, Drink and Other Errands

• Grocery shopping list
• Grocery price list
• Seasonal food calendar chart
• Coupon organizer
• Meal planning template
• Menu planning ideas forms
• Recipe organizer
• Pantry inventory
• Freezer inventory
• Errands and shopping list

Family and Friends

• Goal statement for your family
• Contact information and address book
• Personal information page for each family member
• Clothing sizes for each family member
• Lists of books to read, DVDs to watch

School and Extracurricular Activities

• Children's school papers
• School schedules and calendars
• Lunch menus
• Carpool schedules
• School information page
• School reading lists
• Summer programs information
• Sports schedules
• Scouting and PTA materials

Health and Safety

• Emergency contact list
• Medical information for family members
• Emergency supplies list
• Home safety checklist
• Fire safety checklist
• First aid checklist
• Prescription drug records
• Health insurance information
• Pet health records
• Home security checklist

Finances

• Household budget
• Bills to pay
• Checkbook register
• Passwords for online accounts
• List of credit cards, banks and accounts

Legal Information and Documents

• Insurance information
• Tax paperwork
• Contents of safety deposit box
• Warranty information
• Vehicle records
• Family records, such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, wills, etc.
• Property ownership documents, such as deeds, leases, stock certificates, bonds, mortgages, etc.
• Contracts

Holiday And Other Celebration Planning

• How to make a holiday planner
• Holiday calendars (for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas)
• Thanksgiving planner, for your meals and traditions (including Thanksgiving grocery and shopping list, a written out menu, a countdown schedule for the day of cooking, plus a checklist for the whole month)
• Christmas meals, and traditions (including Christmas grocery list, and a written out menu)
• Christmas budgeting form
• Planning for other parties and celebrations
• Christmas wish list and gift list
• Seasonal greeting card and Christmas card list
• List of birthdays and anniversaries
• Gift suggestion list
• Gift tracker (to track gifts received to write thank you notes)

The contents of a homemaking notebook are really only limited by your imagination, and can include any collection of information which helps you organize and enjoy your family more.

Learning how to use each section of your household management notebook is key to effective household management.

The contents of the notebook or binder, listed above, such as cleaning schedules and meal planning, can incrementally improve various areas of your home life as they are learned, implemented, and maintained.

However, once you begin to add more and more sections to your household notebook, and therefore are implementing more of the basic skills of Household Management 101, you will notice all these little steps forward add up to have a transformational effect on your home and family life, the household management snowball.

Are you ready to create your homemaking notebook?

Bottom household notebook photo courtesy of a reader, Maureen

Related Pages You May Enjoy

Getting Started With Household Management

Resources For Home Management Binder: Printables And Checklists

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