The home organization binder, aka my brain, is one of the things after kids and pets you want to grab if your house is falling down. Once it is put together and we work through putting other important documents in safe places, everything you need in case of an emergency should be in here.
In my house we will be working with 3 binders.
- The Main Household Binder
- Coupon and Price Guide Binder
- Warranty and User Manual Binder
This month is all about building the main binder!
The first thing you want to do is gather the components of the binder. Most of my components were gathered from old school supplies,were things we had around the house, or were leftovers from other projects.
- 1" Binder with a clear slide in front for 8.5"x11" paper. This size should work for most households. You can also find a smaller (5.5"x8.5") binder that will fit in a large purse or backpack, which might work better for a student or someone on the go.
- A set of tabbed dividers. I found a set of 8 that I repurposed. You can also use file folders with holes punched in them, or slip a piece of paper into a sheet protector and put a sticky note on the edge.
- A pencil pouch with assorted pens, pencils, highlighters, and wet or dry erase markers.
- Post it Notes
- Sheet protectors
- Paper. Lined notebook paper and copy paper. You can use either one or both.
- Card protector sheets. These can be found with the baseball cards and other trading cards. They are great for organizing store loyalty cards, as well as business cards.
- Calendar. I bought one on clearance at Target that came with a small student agenda for my daughter.
After you gather all the supplies, it's time to start assembling the binder.
The dividers get lost behind the sheet protectors, so I started off by lining up the tabs, clipping a hole for the tab in a sheet protector, and then slipping the divider into the sheet protector. The tab sticks out and you can also slip notes, or a cover for each section, down inside the sheet protector
Put the dividers into the binder and add 2-3 sheet protectors between each divider. As we build the binder you might find you need more or less for each section, but 2-3 is a good start.
Next we are going to label the sections. I start out by writing what I think I will use on sticky notes then putting them in order on the tabs. This makes it easier to rename or move the sections around. I also wrote a brief description of what will go into each section on another sticky note which I put on the front cover of each section.
The sections I am starting out with, and what is going in them, are:
- TAG This stands for Time Alone with God. (Can also be just a personal section.)
- Journal pages
- Prayer list
- Verses to memorize
- Cleaning
- Daily, Weekly, and Monthly lists
- Calendar
- Master Calendar with every one's schedule put on it
- School calendar
- Work Schedules
- Birthday and Anniversary List
- Contacts
- Family, friends, neighbors, school, utilities and emergency
- Menu and grocery
- Monthly or weekly menu
- Working grocery list
- Freezer and Pantry inventory
- Finances
- Monthly Budget (and no budget is not a dirty word)
- Bill schedule
- List of accounts
- Maintenance
- Home maintenance
- Car maintenance
- Projects
- House projects
- Craft projects
- Gift projects
After you decide on the sections place the tabs in order and then put them on the pages. The larger sticky notes will go on the front covers and when you open your binder it should look something like this.
Have fun building your binder and remember what I have done is just a template. Get creative and add sections or use different ones. At the end of the month once the binder is pretty set and I know how I want things to look I will be working on printables that I will share with you all.
