Keeping things ship shape

I am not a naturally organized person. Being a single mother with 6 kids, 15 animals, homeschooling and running a business requires organization.

 

In came the family binder to the rescue! This book has become vital to the day-to-day operation of our family and if anything were to happen to me, all important information is in one location.

 

I have my binder set up with the follow sections:

 

Time
Money
Food
People
House
Garden/Animals
Phone
Recipes
Random

 

I will devote a post to each of these topics over the coming weeks and months, but right now I want to talk about the house section.

 

This section contains maintnace and repair records, decorating ideas, storage inventory and cleaning schedules and lists.

 

The first 3 are fairly straight forward.

 

I am a list maker. I like lists, I love crossing things off my lists.
I start everyday by making a to do list for the day.

My to do simply lists the rooms to clean and any extra tasks or errands that I need to accomplish.

In my family binder under the house section I have my master list for each room. Each list contains every task that needs to be accomplished for that room to be cleaned.

 

I have placed each of my master lists in to a plastic page protector which allows me to check them off with a dry erase marker and reuse them.

 

These lists have been invaluable to me during times of sleep deprivation, complete exhaustion, child training, asking for help and general forgetfulness. Things are not over looked or incomplete. No one can say they didn't know that needed to be done. No time spent explaining what needs done when there is an offer for help. No wasted time or paper writing the list out each time.