But what can I put in there???

When starting to plan your homemakers notebook, you have to create a outline. You know, kind of like your papers back in high school. People can give you ideas and suggestions, but in the end you have to decide what matches best to you and your family.

Also remember, the reason we are making this in a binder, is that it is ever changing. You will always have the ability to adapt, tweek, toss, or add new things at any point in time.


Start by asking yourself a few questions about your life.
Obviously pretty much everyone will have a few of the same tabs- calendars, cleaning schedules, contacts.
But try to expand beyond that to fit your individual needs:
Are you actively involved with the church? Maybe add a church tab.
A homeschooling mom- A homeschooling tab
Got kids involved in lots of Extracurricular activities?- A EA Tab

The possibilities are endless.

But the trick is to find what you need. When thinking about that think about the biggest areas of your life. IF we break down every aspect, we will need 5 thousand tabs, so try to group accordingly. Maybe consider a personal tab, where you can keep just those items that apply to you, but don't really need a home of their own.

So what I want you to do today, is start by making a list of the sections you think you need.

Overtime, and as you think of things, make notes of what you think would fit under that category, this will later become the outline of your homemaking binder.

Just to give you a glimpse into my plans for my home binder, here is a list of the sections I plans to cover.

Rena's Homemaking notebook
1. Planning and schedules
2. Contacts
3. family
4. home
5. meals
6. finance
7. health
8. Activities
9. Renas Personal section
10. Pregnancy
11. Marriage
12. Inspiration

These tabs are created to fit my needs, try to do the same for yourself.

Here are some other commonly included sections.

School

Children

Church

Blog

Recipies

Household rules

Magazine/ internet articles articles to read

coupons

notes

I mean seriously, what ever floats your boats, works. And when we are done, it will be so nice and organized you will no longer be swimming in pile of to-do lists.

Now one thing to note, some people may have sections that are so in depth they need a binder of their own versus being included here. For example if you are a major crafter or gardener, you may choose to have an additional binder set to this theme. Or even homeschooling parents. For me, I decided to not include recipes, instead I will have a separate recipe binder.

When making our homemaking binder, keep in mind, we cannot fit every possible thing in here. What we are looking for is key items that need to be accessible at all times, so don't bog it down with the last ten years tax forms. In our lives we have so many papers that sometimes, it is better to file those separately. We are going for a organization system that we can utilize everyday, only things we need and will use.

Keep in mind, this is just our rough outline, later we will be filling in the key points of what fits where.