The Family Organizer
by Rachel Paxton - rachel@creativehomemaking.com
Description: Tips for organizing your family by creating a family organizer.
I'm forever looking for ways to get better organized. It's even
more of a challenge when you have a family to keep track of. The
schedules, shopping lists, and tomorrow's to-do's are always
being lost or shuffled from one place to another.
I've put together a family organizer that helps me keep track of
my family's activities from week to week. This organizer makes it
easy to keep track of almost anything.
One day I was looking at the ready-made templates that came with
my word processing program, and I noticed there were many
home-related templates already made up for me to use for my
organizer. There was a monthly calendar and a weekly menu planner
and grocery shopping list. I made a calendar for every month of
the year to write important dates to remember, and printed out
enough weekly menu planners to last a month or two.
The weekly meal planner has columns for every day of the week
with "Breakfast," "Lunch," and "Dinner" listed for each day.
Every weekend you write in your meals for the week, and then make
up a shopping list to take to the grocery store. The menu planner
has a place at the bottom to write in your shopping list, or you
could make up a separate list. Download a free menu planner
template from http://www.creativehomemaking.com/download.shtml.
Just print, and photocopy as needed for your organizer.
The best way to organize your calendars and menu planners is in a
three-ring binder. You can buy dividers that already have the
months of the year printed on them. Just file your monthly
calendars in the binder with your weekly menu planners in
between.
This is just the start. You can create sections in your binder
for whatever you want. For instance, file your children's school
or sports schedules in your organizer. Just punch holes in the
pages and file them in the appropriate month. You could also
include a list of phone numbers and addresses, or a list of
family birthdays and anniversaries.
You can buy folders for your binder that have pockets in them.
Make one for greeting cards and one for coupons. How about one
for your monthly bills? The possibilities are endless.
One of the great things about the family organizer is that it
keeps so many things handy and in a central location. Now if
someone wants to know what's for dinner or has something to add
to the grocery shopping list they can refer to the organizer
themselves. We keep ours in the kitchen next to the microwave,
where it's easily accessible. If you're afraid of pages getting
messed up, sheet protectors work great. You can design a cover,
too, and slip it into the front of the binder.
Family organizers are fun to make, relatively inexpensive, and
limited only by your imagination. Start getting your family's
schedules in order today!
Originally published at Suite 101.
Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer, mom, and
owner of four home and family web sites. For complete resources
for the Christian home, visit her web site
at http://www.Christian-Parent.com.
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