Planning. . . My Philosophy

I love being organized.  I have gone through periods of time where I have gotten out of my routine, and life just stinks!  I feel stressed, nothing seems to get done, and I am short with the children. 

I have 2 binders that I life by: My "Household Notebook" and my "Meal Planning Notebook."

Here I will introduce you to my Household Notebook.  This keeps me grounded and will allow for anyone to "fill in my position" if anything should happen to me.  The first page is the emergency information--great for babysitters to have access to.  I downloaded it from Organized Home (scroll down to "Emergency Information."

Next is my daily go-to section: Planning

My calendars are downloaded from Organized Home (scroll down to "Printable Calendars").  My Daily planners came from Desiring Virtue.  I use the blank planners and write all of my own stuff in.

Next up: Money and Finance

 This section will be great for Bryan if I come to an untimely end, since he really doesn't know what is going on in the house!  I created a budget with software that was on the mac.  All of the other documents are really simple spreadsheets.  The online acct info comes in handy since there are times when you have to create some wonky user name or password for an account.  My brain is limited to memorizing one, maybe two user name password combinations.  The utility directory is great for those of us that live in hurricane zones--I can just take this with me if we evacuate and I have our account numbers and contacts for the utility company.  It is also nice to have a spreadsheet with magazine subscription information like account numbers, customer service phone numbers, when the subscription ends, and who gave us the magazine.  In the vehicle records, I keep a record of insurance and registration.

Pheww, time for a simple one: Phone

You could also keep any phone chains that you belong to in here or playgroups, or school lists. . .

Another crazy Stephanie section: Home Management

There are so many mundane tasks that don't have to be done all that often, but who remembers to do them???  I found a 3 month rotating schedule that adds one small task to your list of chores for the day. Scroll down to "The Basic Household Cleaning List."


However, there are things that I do weekly:
Monday: Wash sheets
Tuesday: Wash towels
Wednesday: run errands/go grocery shopping
Thursday: Dust
Friday: mop and vacuum floors


For "Party Planners" I keep a list of ideas, to dos, people to invite, and thank you notes to send for the kids' birthday parties.
Vehicle Maintenance is pretty self explanatory. . .

Last but not least: Health and Fitness
I found blank medical records online that I printed off for everyone in the family.  These are great to take with you if you end of rushing anyone to the ER. (Although when Audie was taken to the ER the other day, I completely lost my head and forgot all about my binder!!!  How frustrating!)

And of course, if you were one of those people who is able to squeeze fitness into your life, you could get fitness goals/charts/idea in here.  It is one of my goals to get back into an exercise routine but I started having problems with my neck and there seems to always be a child up earlier than I expect.