Oh it's here...somewhere....

I've mentioned on a few occasions about my love for our household schedule. Now I'm going to mention (go into great detail) about my new love for our household folder.

Apparently household notebooks are all the rage. I suppose I should know this since I've tried my hand at various attempts of this for the past year. My first household notebook contained beautiful print-outs from an organizational website. I had every document you could imagine...even ones that made no sense for our family.

My second attempt contained more items that I created myself. This still failed because I once again overdid it.

Enter attempt #3...a folder. No binder, no clipboard, no "home central" corkboard......

A folder. And right now, it's working quite well for us.

A few months again I devised a household schedule. I have since adapted this even further--but this schedule is doing wonders for our days, our home, & our sanity.

Upon opening our household folder you'll find:

our household schedule (in two pages). This was created by making a list of everything I felt needed to be done each week and how often. I plotted cleaning tasks on our "less busy" days. Each day has a list of five things that need to get done everyday (make bed, bible study, clean dishes, check trash, pick-up toys), any activities for the day, daily chores, and paper pushing tasks for the day. Please know that there has yet to be a day where EVERYTHING has gotten accomplished!!!!

a monthly/semi-monthly checklist to fill in & personalize with tasks to complete (downloaded here).

6 months worth of calendars (from here.)

A Master to-do list (you know, for all those things that need to be done...someday)

A Master to-do list before baby (this is a room by room checklist of things to clean/organize/sell & a Misc area for items like "install car seat." I had a similar checklist during my first pregnancy & it was awesome for the nesting instinct)

A "need before baby arrives" list

A list of craft project ideas

Birthdays/Anniversaries for the year

An Inventory Checklist (Freezer, Panty, Fridge, Cleaning, Paper products, diapers, and Linen closet lists---this has the top items we need to have on hand. I do a quick check through these areas with my checklist and will use that to make shopping lists---or lists for items to look for a good coupon sale)

2011 Goals (more on this later)

Freezer Cooking Plan for the month (I make notes of recipes to try, meals to cook, etc)

The pockets contain post-it's with blogging and writing ideas, information for my work at home job, & library events.

And for now, that's it!

There are potentially a few things I want to add/tweak, but right now this is working great for us! I am working on a cleaning checklist that details what cleaners to use where, along with a guide to doing laundry. Because my husband will be taking over some of this when baby arrives & because we'll potentially have family here helping--he agreed (no really, he did!) that a cleaning/laundry guide might be helpful...along with where certain cleaners are stored.

Like anything, if it's going to work for you...you have to figure out what your family needs...even if that means customizing some of your own forms!