Home Management Binder- House Tab, Kids Tab

Home Management Binders come with a purpose. If we are wives and/or mothers we are in charge, the managers, of our homes. This is our delightful, God given privilege as women. A Home Management Binder (HMB) is our "brain" in a sense. With multiple people, rooms, items, and jobs to care for, we can be forgetful or (as is more often my weakness) overwhelmed. When I don't know where to start, I often don't start anything at all. Apart from organizing our lives, a HMB should give direction to our days so we have a plan to get work done in a timely fashion. Then, when our work is done, we have time in the day to pursue relationships and hobbies!

Yesterday I talked about the supplies needed to get started, as well as sections to consider for your own binder, and my most used tab: Menu Planning. So let me dive into more sections of my personal HMB.

House Tab

This tab contains 4 pages so far. The first you can see above "House Needs". I've started a list of all the maintenance-type work we need to attend too. Examples from my list are: new vent covers (kids love to drop things down there), moving a shelf from the kids' closet to our mudroom, and exchanging my old stove for a new-to-me one (we have it stored in our basement for now). This is a great place to make notes about paint touch-ups, burnt out light bulbs, and anything that needs to be fixed or mended in the home. Here are some free printables that you could use in this section:

Organizing Homelife- Household Projects
The Nest Effect- Honey Do List, Blank Check List, and Work To Do List (all links are at the bottom of the page)
Home Sweet Home- Master To Do List
The Uncluttered Lifestyle- Home Inventory List (scroll down to mid-page for the link to the free printable)

The next page under this tab lists Declutter Projects. There is a wonderful 40 day challenge over at Keeper of the Home that I will probably print soon and use to replace my simple, lined paper list. I tell ya, every time I feel like I've purged my entire house, it needs another round of decluttering!

Next, is a list of decorating ideas. I have a board(s) on Pinterest with plenty of ideas for the home, but this page in my HMB is where I list the ones I would like to start soon (I am awful at decorating and my house has had bare walls for going on 5 years now, help!). As I mentioned earlier, if I plan my day well and accomplish the things I need to do, then I have more time for the things I want to do, like crafts for my home. So I always have a page with a few ideas ready for those "spare moments" (however few and far between they may be).

To go along with the decorating page, I started a list of items I need for those projects and would like to gather at thrift stores or garage sales (I may have a little spring fever if I'm already planning on going to garage sales). I've listed things I want- like a wooden barrel for my front porch- and researched a general price for the item (they sell at home improvement stores for about $20). This way I know whether or not I am getting a deal at a thrift store or garage sale.

Kids or Educational Tab (it's in development and doesn't know which title it wants).

I actually began this blog to share how I was doing "light homeschooling" with my 2 years old son. So this section in my HMB is a place for me to record ideas and themes I wish to teach him in the upcoming days. I hope that very soon I will get back into daily activities with him! Until then, I keep listing ideas. The first page lists Lesson Plans; things I wish for him to know, like how to spell his name. The next page is for activities I would like to do with both of my kids. Because it is winter, many of these activities involve burning energy inside the house (this boy momma is worn out!). I only have three listed right now: 1) jump over objects, like a rolled up towel, 2) dust the house (hey, kids love helping and doing "big people" activities), and 3) play bubbles in the tub. I definitely need to develop this section more; now that I have fine-tuned my HMB (again) I will soon be able to focus on getting back into homeschooling. I would love to hear of any activities your kids have loved to do while being stuck indoors this winter- educational or non?

Whew, I'm almost finished detailing the sections of my personal HMB; tomorrow I'll end with Church Tab, Misc. Tab, and Pockets.

Do you have a HMB already? How do you use yours? What section(s) are your favorite(s)? I'd love to see a link to your blog or picture/description of your HMB.