Maintaining a home is a full time job. There is no denying it. It takes time and energy to keep a home running peacefully and harmoniously. Whether you can be home full time or not, there is a need for organization to maintain this restful environment through which our husbands, children, and friends can find solace. Until recently, you could find many small to-do lists, schedules, menu plans, scattered random receipts, financial notes, papers, and the like spread out over my home. Some might be in the office, some in the kitchen, some in my purse. I had a haphazard cleaning schedule in the back of my mind. I had a homemaking notebook but it only had some random articles that I wanted to save and not much more. Do you experience this scattered feeling?
I suddenly got inspiration after viewing some of Stephanie’s planning pages to get organized in this area. I am so glad that I did. I collected everything into one home planning notebook. Ahh…so much more peaceful. I wanted to share with you what my homemaking planner looks like…but be sure that your notebook can take any shape or form. I pray this might provide you with some inspiration to get started. Organization is an important habit to cultivate, and I need it just as much as the next homemaker.
What Your Need?
1 3-ringed binder
Dividers
Sheet protectors, if desired
Planning sheets (check out the resources below)
Ideas for Your Home Planner/Organizer/Journal/Notebook
There is an endless supply of ideas that you could compile for your planner, but here are a few tabs that I have:
Goals - this section I put right at the front of my journal so I would be daily reminded to review my goals for the year including: personal goals, nutritional goals, handcraft goals, family/ministry goals, family mission statement and book reading list.
Weekly Plan – Monthly calendar and to do list for the week. I take time every Sunday for my weekly planning outing to plan for the upcoming week using these pages.
Schedule – morning and evening routines, weekly routines (day by day plans that don’t change) – (check out Simplifying Your Schedule and Developing a Morning Routine for further inspiration)
Menu Plan – monthly winter & spring menu plans, monthly errand list, shopping lists (visit Developing a Monthly Menu Plan for more details on developing a monthly menu plan)
Homeschooling – ideas for learning activities, planning pages
Hospitality – our family vision for hospitality, ongoing invite list, meal ideas for guests, emergency meal, meaningful questions for dialog
Holidays – family traditions, holiday recipes, holiday planner, gift ideas for family/friends, Christmas card list with addresses
Household Inventory – freezer inventory, pantry inventory, master household supplies list (including personal care, house maintenance, office, kitchen, cleaning, and health supplies – to review monthly before errand run to see if anything needs to be restocked), clothing inventory (keeping track of the kids clothes to stay ahead of the seasons)
Finances – Budget, bill schedule, cash envelope funds and purchases, receipts
Family Journal – includes by weekly evaluation notes, monthly journal on what God has done in our family over the previous month, birthday letters to our children
Household Maintenance – spring cleaning list, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual chores list, honey to do list (basic repairs that need to be done around the house)
Blog Ideas – this is where I keep track of blog post ideas, advertiser and affiliate information
Resources - this is for keeping articles, book titles, and misc resources that I might want to look back on in the future
Contacts – a central place to keep phone numbers, addresses, websites, etc.
Other ideas: coupon organizer, chore chart for kids, emergency preparedness info, etc.
Here’s a peak into my planning notebook:
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxiwgm6LTu8
My encouragement for you is to take one section at a time. One section per week if necessary to avoid getting overwhelmed in any way. Build your homemaking planner over time and see more peace establish in your home. Bless your efforts! Developing my home planning notebook has taken several weeks and it is always getting improvements made to it.
Pages from my Planner:
Here are pages I personally use and/or have assembled for my notebook planner:
Freezer Inventory
Pantry Inventory
Master Household Supplies List
Housecleaning Schedule
Weekly Evaluation Page
Monthly Menu List
Resources & Inspiration:
Tell Your Time: How to Manage Your Schedule to Live your Life Fulfilled – a wonderful little ebook that helps you develop goals and a schedule
Intentional Planner by Sheri Graham – a wonderful resource including planning pages
Maximize Your Morning by Inspired to Action – a helpful free guide to developing a morning routine with several good planning pages.
List Plan It – a great site that offers a yearly subscription access to over 400 lists to help organize your home, business, and life.
Homemaking Organized – downloadable lists for organizing your home
Control Journal – Flylady’s guide and tips to building your home planner or control journal as she calls it.
Household Management 101 - easy steps to building your planner
Do you have any ideas or resources to share with us on becoming more organized with a home planner?
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I was looking for ideas for my homemaking journal (which I started about a year ago) and ran across your site. I was laughing at all the commonalities we have
Azure standard, I could have almost written your shopping list and the article by Serene Allison in the back of your book made me chuckle – sourdough right?
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Lindsay,
Thank you for the video and showing what you have done. I’m a visual person and it really helps to see things in action. I’m excited about this concept and look forward to developing my own binder. Thanks again for sharing how to be a wife and mother for the Glory of God!
Wow! I am inspired! I never really thought about getting everything into one binder simply because I was just trying to survive each day. This helps me out so much. I am excited to start my own and let others know about it
One step at a time!
Thank you for this great post. You have a lot of great information here. I have a link to your blog in a post that I wrote about creating a household binder. You can see it at http://www.helpforsmartmoms.com/2012/01/get-organized-in-2012-create-a-household-notebook/
LOVE THIS THANK YOU! The FlyLady website is awesome! Love The Intentional Planner too! This is so kind of you to share! God Bless You!
I love your blog! I have found so many wonderfully helpful things here! I am interested in the Intentional Planner but the link above brings up an error message… HELP!
Thanks!
Sorry! They just recently changed all the links for Graham Family Ministries on me. Here is the new link.
Lindsay,
Thanks so much for the video. Very helpful. I have a question about your Hospitality section. Where did you get the “ideas” page/information.
Thanks,
I think you should publish something like this! i was searching for something online that I could buy, but couldn’t find anything I was really looking for.. so I wandered over to your site, like I usually do to find answers to things like this.. and found it:). I will build my own.. but I really think it would be a successful book in print.. perhaps something of a spiral binder, like a work book with check lists and what not:).
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love this post, this is actually the 4th or 5th time I’ve gone back and read it. My homemaking notebook is a work in progress, but such a delight to work on! Just as any woman can feel more peaceful and less stressed after she cleans out and organizes her purse, I feel 10x’s more peaceful to get my HOME in order (that is, all my papers, lists, meal ideas, goals…). I LOVE it. And it was especially helpful to write out a family mission statement, for us as a family, but also me as a wife-mother-homemaker, so that I can keep my focus when things get crazy. THANK YOU SO MUCH! =D
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! I am busy building my notebook and hope that the time I am spending is well spent! I told my MIL what I was doing and she casually said, “oh’ yeah, when I was in that time of life I had a plastic brain too.” AHH! Why didn’t she tell me to build one of these 6 years ago? Anyway, thanks again and I love your site!
I am working on my new binder right now. I am also using the planer from NoteBooking Pages for my base. The free samples Debra was putting out are no longer available. She has expanded on them and is offering the entire year for $12.95 Not free, but not too bad for a planer. http://www.notebookingpages.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=91&products_id=251 Donna Young.org has free calender and homeschool planers. I used list plan it last year. I like the NoteBooking pages planer from Debra.
I love the journaling pages I saw in the video…did you download those or make them yourself? If you made them, are you willing to give us a closer look? I am such a structure person and I like the format AND how you really incorporated most areas of life into one notebook. It would be too easy for me to forget that this book should contain a thread of Christ stitched in each page.
I am new to your blog, and it is blessing me tremendously.
Katie
Wow, that video was so helpful. I really need to put something like this together, I’m a disorganized mess, and it has occured to me that something like this would be helpful for me to work on that. Definitely bookmarking this, and will start working on it this summer.
I really enjoyed the video and getting a good look at your home planner so I can get a better idea of how to get started. Thank you so much!
Lindsay,
Hi! I am so grateful for this blog and the planning sheets, as I started my own management binder last year, but reverted to a teacher’s planning book for now while I get my binder back in working order… so this post was perfect for me! I linked to your site for my viewers, and to tell the truth I tell people about your blog whenever I can, as I find it so helpful in a host of ways. (See http://www.grawberriesandnuggles.hazubu.com, the post is called “Planning: Such a helpful and fulfilling road map” or something like that. I also linked your worshipful prayer retreat blog and told what I loved about it, and reported my results of how its now going for me in this post.
One thing I love about your blog is you bring so many like-minded women together and uplift, inspire and share, while remaining real and relatable too. It makes the world far less lonely to have such neat people synergise ‘together’. In reading the planning and prayer retreat post, I realized how many of those things I do already, which was comforting, but gave me inspiration to just be more organized and concerted too. So combined with this post, I know it will help me become eventually far more efficient and effective as the Lord’s tool. From a Christian family of nine, I was raised with wonderful values, but organization is on the bottom of the list of attributes my mother had to contribute. Thanks for being a mentor for me in many ways, so many exciting things to tackle for me ahead…such as better budgeting and meal planning and all in one binder too.
I’m working on creating my binder now and have a question for you. I’m using many of the pages from the Intentional Planner and others you recommended. Do you have a section where you keep your bible reading notes, prayer lists, readings etc. Maybe you have a separate notebook or binder for this. I hope I’m not asking something you already mentioned.
Thank you!
I keep a separate spiral notebook/journal for my devotions, notes, prayer lists, etc.
Isabel, I do all of my journals and devotions online. It is more private and locked with a password. I don’t keep any of that stuff laying around the house. Not that it matters but just to be safe if someone shared a deep secret and wanted me to pray about it. I can enter the prayer online and keep it there. No papers required or anything. Try livejournal.com and make sure to change all your settings to private where it’s just you that can see everything.
I have my journals from 2008 up until now. I don’t have to store any of that at home.
I wanted to share with you some very cute, and free holiday and family traditions planing sheets… they are at spelloutloud.com She has a free printables link, she also homeschools and has some really cute printables she shares there.
I love what you’ve done and really appreciate the video. I just purchased and downloaded the Intentional Planner and can’t wait to get started. Thank You
http://www.organizedhome.com has 41 FREE PRINTABLES specifially for a homemaking notebook and more!
Alright, now I’m all motivated. I got myself a binder and some blank pages, and I’m off to work, though I can only think of three tabs so far. Give me enough time and I’m sure I’ll come up with ten.
Thanks for the ideas and resources!
This was interesting. I use a momagenda calendar which I mostly love, keep an expenses notebook by my desk/computer, and an ongoing smaller groceries notebook in the kitchen by the entrance. However I make so many lists and goals and momagenda doesn’t allow for enough space with that! I like the idea of keeping it all together and spending less on it. I have always preferred paper and notebooks to putting everything on a computer, but I may switch over…
thank you for this! i’ve seen binders like this for a couple years now on other blogs and whatnot…at first found it to be alittle…high-maintenance. but i really think i might be interested in making one of my own now, to be more efficient with my time! so thanks, ill definitely take advantage of the resources you gave…i am a person that likes to be organized, too! thats why i started to make coupon binders…to help others stay organized as well!
want to win a mabelino coupon binder?
check it out here until the 18th!
http://www.mrsmoneysaver.com/2010/03/mabelino-coupon-binder/
Hi there! This is my first time on your blog and I can’t wait to start on this project. I found your blog from a link on Muffin Tin Mom’s blog
I have been wanting to start a home journal for some time now, and you have given me the inspiration that I need!! Thanks, I can’t wait to dive in!
You always post what I need to hear. I have been feeling rather scatter-brained lately and I am so excited about getting everything that’s in my brain in order. Does that make sense? I think so. Thank you again. Oh, do you have links to your freezer/pantry/basic cleaning supplies type inventory sheets?
Send me an email and I would be happy to send you them in document form.
Here are other great printables to keep you organized! From Mom Agenda’s website. Totally cute and a clean, fresh look. There are several holiday planners as well as “everyday”.
http://www.momagenda.com/printable/newsletter-signup.html
Real Simple has printables, as well. Do a search on their site to find them.
Lindsay, I was just referred to your site through a dear friend whose organizational ability and purposefulness inspires me. I went on a quest 2 years ago to put together a family/home notebook and did just that…though on my own strength and the limited resources I could find. THIS blows my socks off! What encouragement can you give someone (like me) who is NOT naturally gifted in running my home? I have three boys under the age 4 and this is the key area in which the Lord is working in my life: running my home. It’s so Proverbs 31. If there are any words of wisdom you can offer a perfectionist overwhelmed by the task, I’d greatly appreciate it! God bless you!
Dear Lindsay,
I have been reading your blog for over a year now but I haven’t written to you earlier. I live in Hungary (if you don’t know where it is make sure you check it out:) and just want to let you know that your blog gives me a lot of joy and encouragement in my life. And this planner is something I just can’t use a word for. Wonderful to say the least! Thanks for sharing, also thanks for the links and resources and I also want to let you know that the little videos you started to add are also great and very much helpful.
Thanks again and God bless you all.
Orshi
I thought I was the only one who had a household management notebook. Having gone from management in the working world to bumbling through my way at home was an adjustment and I found having an “employee handbook” helpful. It also helps my husband because we have one central place for everything so he doesn’t feel unknowledgable of what is happening in his own home.
To keep it simple we have only 5 catagories:
Time
Money
Household
Food
Child(ren)
We pretty much include everything you have but as subcatagories/lists. It has gotten to where I now keep extra notebooks to give as a gift to friends as they leave employment to stay at home.
I love my home binder! Thank you so much for this post. It was very informative and inspired me to review my planning pages and see what is available out there. Recently, we have been planning a cross country move as part of my husband’s job. So, you guess it, there is now a tab in the home binder for moving stuff!:) Thanks again!
Thanks for showing us a peak into your life and how it’s organized. Much appreciated!
Hello,
Just curious how you plan events when you are out and about (church, friends, etc). Would you take your planner with you or jot it down somewhere to take home to plan? I’m in the middle of transferring from a large planner to a portable small one and can’t decide which is easier and more efficient since the small one is obviously limiting.
Also the video was very helpful. Thank you.
Ahh…that is where having a calender on my phone comes in handy! Prior to this, I carried a small pocket size calendar in my purse.
Hi Lindsay. Thank you for linking to me. The printables are on the left hand side down a bit (and need to be updated). I find that simply keeping a daily list can be a HUGE impetus for getting everything else back on track.
You can find out how women in past times organized their daily details at my other site Vintage Homemaking => http://www.vintage-homemaking.info/category/vintage-organizing/
Any by the way I love your cover!
This is totally awesome, and exactly what I need! Thanks for the help
Thank you so much. I’ve been wanting to pull together a notebook, but honestly didn’t know where to start. I love that you’ve included ministry and hospitality in yours. We always need those reminders to show Christ’s love. Thank you for being such an inspiration!
The video helps a lot! I am just starting to work on mine and love the ideas you have. I especially love the weekly evaluation. Thanks for sharing all of this!
I think I’ve only commented once or twice here on your blog, but I just wanted to say thanks for all of your inspiring posts! They are all truly helpful, and I look foward to reading each one!
Hi!
Thank you very much for this post. You mentioned that you have a list of meaningful questions in your Hospitality section and I was wondering if you would be able to share some of these questions. This is something I am working on and it would be great to see what you have come up with.Thank you!
Yes, we have used Donald Whitney’s 10 Questions for the New Year quite extensively and always had wonderful dialog. Other questions include: How do you keep your marriage strong? Sharing their testimonies. What are some of your family traditions? How do you celebrate holidays? etc. We find it key to always pray before having company that the Lord would direct us in conversations in ways that would be most beneficial to us and our guests.
Thanks so much! I will certainly take a look at the Donald Whitney link you put here. I am looking forward to trying some of these questions.
I have one, but I definately need to work on it!
I had an attempt at a notbook sitting on the shelf. Good thing my husband was at work, because as soon as I read your post and the resources I was printing out pages left and right! Thank you so much! It helped having a skeleton version already so it did not take long, but I feel like I found a way to actually make it work.
I have a surprise for you:
http://plowlady.blogspot.com/2010/03/one-lovely-blog-award.html
Your planning folder is very cute! Great to hear about your plans to promote peace in your home.
Thank you so much! I JUST started a notebook earlier this week LOL! Huge accomplishment for me, as organization is my stumbling block time and time again.
Another great resource I am using is called The Homemaker’s Mentor. For a small fee (about $3) per month you receive downloadable lessons on a wide variety of topics plus many bonus downloads, including monthly home planning forms: a calendar, a menu planner, and a master shopping list for basic items. Everything they offer is so valuable for keeping in a notebook and so far I’m finding it well worth the nominal fee. The free laundry tips download is invaluable and the cheese-making lesson that was included as a free membership bonus is so worth it!
Thanks again for this timely encouragement to use helpful tools to manage our homes more efficiently.
I had a terrible time finding the motivation to do this…still do sometimes…but what finally convinced me is the idea that Creation itself reflects the ORDER of God, and without his beautiful, orderly design the whole universe would be in absolute chaos. When we strive for order in our homes, it spills over and we show God to our families and those around us.
Thank you. I am feeling motivated and loving it. I have a binder with pocketed page dividers and when I find good tips in magazines I will tear them out and stick them in there. I have an area for work out ideas, illness remedies, recipes ect.
I am a teacher and I actualy want to try to create this during Spring break or the summer! My husband hates planning though so I am going to have to hide it from him. Thanks for the resources.
Thank you for this post! I was wondering if you would be willing to share some of your “go to” company’s coming recipes off of your hospitality page. I can definitely see that having something like this would be so very helpful!
I often do BBQing for company as it helps balance the load and include my husband in the preparations. Lately, he has been enjoying bbqing a whole chicken and it has been delicious with a butter/garlic/herb spread underneath the chicken skin. Then I just cook up some potato wedges and a salad and we are set. Other ideas are Pasta Presto (check out the recipe section for this one), which is an incredibly delicious and easy pasta dish, served with salad, french bread, etc.
Gracias!!
My husband has been wanting to try to bbq a whole chicken. Can you share your husband’s recipe? Maybe you can start a guest post for your husband where he can share his bbq recipes
That would be fun! I’ll have to see about getting my hubby to do a video tutorial. He mainly uses the tips, recipes and suggestions in the How to Grill book. It hasn’t let us down for supplying some fabulous bbqing! I got that book for him last year and he has been loving learning how to BBQ.
Thank you so much for this useful information! I have been wanting to do something like this but have been having trouble getting started. Great ideas!
Thank you so so so much!!!! Your system is so complete!!!! I’ve seen many others on the web and yours is the one I prefer so far!!!!! What an inspiration!!!!!!! I know what I’ll do this weekend!!
I have just one question. English is my second language so maybe this is only a problem of vocabulary, but I don’t exactly understand what is the concept of “hospitality”. Could you explain a little, please?
Catherine from Quebec
Hospitality for our family is the idea of reaching out to others by opening our home, whether it be fellow Christians, neighbors, co-workers, and such. It is an opportunity for our family to share Jesus’ love with others by including them in our life through dinner, tea, etc. It can also be simple service ideas to bless those around us. It is simply loving others in practical ways. I have shared more on this topic thoroughly in a book discussion we had on a book titled “Practicing Hospitality”. You can read more about that here.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while, and it will be so helpful to help me stay focused, especially when baby #3 arrives sometime in the next 7-10 weeks. I am so excited about this post, because you’ve got all these great links and resources in ONE place, whereas before I felt like I was just doing this random searching and getting totally overwhelmed. I’m going to spend some serious time poring over these links tonight! 
Thanks again!
Can’t wait to make my own Household Journal! I’ve been planning to do so for a while now and this post just gave me the inspiration to get it done. I already have a finanical journal that I couldn’t live without!
Lovely video job! I have revamped my Home Management Binder last year and love it! However, I noticed my Recipe section is falling off the binder so I might have to get a separate binder just for the recipes. It is about time for me to have another change to my routines as my youngest boy’s eating/napping schedule has changed. Thank you for sharing. Is this your first HPN?
Thanks for your inspiration! I’ve been using Microsoft OneNote for these things, and now on a Mac I’m using MacJournal, and they both work wonderfully for organizing everything from household things to recipes to homeschooling notes and pages.
Thank you so much for posting this! I have wanted to create a home journal for over a year now, but even with all the different tutorials I’ve seen on the internet, I could not picture in my head how to put one together. Your narrated “tour” really helped give me some great ideas on how to build one for my family. I’m excited!
THANK YOU so much for this post! I am wondering if you would be willing to share your Trader Joes, Costco and Azure Standard master shopping list? I would love to see what things you get at each place. I frequent T.J.s but would like to start to shop Azure Standard. I shop and cook much like you do as far as ingredients but I still go all over the place for different things and try new places every week. Thank you!
Yes, I have shared previously on this very topic in A Peak At Our Real Food Budget, which includes lists of what I buy at these stores.
Brilliant! Thanks for sharing this idea.
I’ve been inspired as well to get organized with all my ideas, hopes, and dreams of running our house and raising our kids! I just got another binder and tabs today for a craft/project notebook to keep ideas based on seasons and holidays!
This is fantastic! I’ve been wanting to make one stop organizing center–but I had the idea of doing it with some wall space and desk/wall organizers instead of a binder. Call me lazy, but having to flip through a binder to find what I want seems like it’s something I wouldn’t stick to. With all or most of the the most pressing things on the wall or desk, one could just take a glance. Hmm, I think I may have to get started on this. Thanks for the inspiration!
Do you use a smaller planner as well? Do you refer to your notebook everyday?
No, this is the only planner or notebook I maintain besides google calendar on the computer for helping keep track of both hubby and my schedule. I refer to it multiple times throughout the day to review things to do. I keep it open on my dresser or in the kitchen (or kitchen drawer if it is in the way).
I just made mine this past week! Our printer doesn’t work so I have had to handwrite everything, but it’s fine. It’s an upgrade from my spiral notebook – all of my lists were there, but in the most random order and hard to find. Now I can add and subtract pages and keep things better organized.
My sections:
Daily (the day’s to-do lists)
Home (weekly cleaning routines, deep cleaning checklist, organizing checklist, and decorating ideas)
Tasks/Projects (to-do soon and to-do eventually)
Baby (daily log of my 4-week-old’s activities as I try to figure him out! also a list of his daily activities and my goals for his schedule)
Food/Shopping (ongoing shopping list, menu plans, and a list of our favorite meals)
Calendar
Misc. (various pages – workouts/baby weight loss, student loan info, blog info, books I’m reading. I also want to add pages for encouragement & serving, sermons to listen to, my Bible reading progress, priorities & goals, etc.)
Mine isn’t as pretty or perfect as I’d like it to be, but it’s functional and it helps keep my head on straight. Another great resource is http://simplemom.net/home-management-notebook. Her strategy for her daily to-do list was very helpful for me.
I just switched from a binder to an iPhone app (Homeroutine), and it works great! Either way, a plan keeps things going more smoothly and overall keeps the workload manageable.
Thanks for linking to my website as one of your resources for creating a home planning notebook. Using the routines, schedules and plans in this notebook in a thoughtful way has really helped me keep sanity in my home, even during busy periods.
The notebook has also kind of grounded me from silly perfectionistic aspirations, making me realize today is not the day to scrub the tile grout — just wipe the sink down, sweep the bathroom floor, and move on, you have more important things to do.
Good luck with your system. It seems very thorough and organized.
This is awesome. I love it and want to try to make one. Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to share your system. Many times I have tried to come up with something, but it was not as complete as this and didn’t work. This really helped me to see how I can customize my own binder. I’m excited about putting mine together.
I love mine and have been using it for about 6 months now. It almost always goes with me when I leave the house and I don’t have to worry about not having my grocery list, coupons or a phone number I might need.
Is write down what you serve specific people. I know I have had company and then 2 years later when they come again I have no clue what I made them last time and hate to repeat it with a meal I might often make for company. I also keep notes on what I have made and has gone over well for the in-laws. That way I can avoid what they don’t care for and make their favorites again.
Another thought in your hospitality section, something I try and do
This is wonderful! I just moved into a home from our Paris apartment and am a bit overwhelmed by maintaining a home, taking over the bills and my two children (2 and 8months). Truly an inspiration reaching across the ocean to France!
Just thought I’d send you another link – I have a bunch of free printable forms on my site (With the Fruit of Her Hands). There’s also a tour of my own binder on my blog.
All that said, it’s past time to redo my notebook. It’s not working well enough the way it’s set up so it’s time for a change.