Should I Use A
Household Notebook?

A household notebook is a 3-ring binder filled with all the information that you use to run your household. In theory, it would seem to be a good idea. In practice, not so much.

I have read some of the household notebook stuff on-line and it seems that the methods are too much and too difficult.

I would recommend a slightly different approach.

Start by clicking on my article about Planner Books. This article goes into depth about how I organize my Planner Book and keep some of my information for my personal life, my career and all my other interests in it.

I think the household notebook idea has been developed for women who are married with children and who have a lot going on. Whether it is children in lots of activities, volunteering, a job, a business or any number of other activities. The reason why you are busy doesn't really matter. Busyness happens to everyone. Just having a Household Notebook will not give you a lot of free time. It will take a lot of time to create and in the end may not work out the way you thought.

I would think about ways to cut back on your activities but if that is your life and you like it, then you should really just go with my Planner Book Idea instead of a household notebook.

It doesn't cost that much to buy a good planner book at the Office Supply Store. You really should get a standard one that has inserts you can just buy at the store or order through a catalog or on-line.

I say to buy one ready made because if you are truly that busy the last thing you want to do is recreate the wheel by developing your own.

Some of the things that people talk about keeping in a Household Notebook are pretty common sense and can be kept in a common sense way.

Here is a list of things that you will see place in a household Notebook and my different ideas on how to accomplish the same thing better, faster, easier and sometimes in a more elegant way without using a household notebook:

1) Addresses. I keep my main addresses of people I actually write a letter to in my planner book. There aren't that many. I only have about 4 or 5 pages of addresses. What I do keep is a medium sized paper address book of all the addresses I know.

This would be all the relatives and friends. This address book should be just a book of the addresses only. I know both my grandmother's and my mom only needed one medium sized address book that they kept all their adult lives. These women got a lot done. They didn't spend any time rewriting addresses. Once you have the address in this book it is so simple, just keep the book. There is no need to be continually transferring this information. About the best tip I have is to write the information in pencil so that when peoples phone numbers and addresses change you can just erase the information and change it. I cannot understand the fascination of writing in ink. In fact, even if you choose to make a household notebook you should use pencil instead of ink.

2) Emergency List. I wouldn't keep this in a binder with other things. You should just have a piece of paper in a clear plastic sleeve and have it taped to the inside of you main kitchen cabinet. You will know where it is. If you do have a babysitter over just take it off the cabinet and put it on the counter or the table right in front of the babysitter so she sees it. Then when you get home you can just tape it back up. That way you don't have your binder filled with personal information out for the babysitter to snoop in.

3) Menu Planner. Maybe this is a good idea but it just seems like anything having to do with menus and food planning would be in your kitchen and probably in its own folder. If you like to cook then you don't need to bother with this, you will just cook. If you don't like to cook but don't want to eat out you will have a really simple schedule of simple meals that are easy to put together. I am a divorced man so my meal needs are a lot different than a married woman with kids. That being said, if you are a mom it is your job to feed the kids so you need to concentrate on it and do a good job.

I think you may want to evaluate your other activities if you are so swamped that you think you need a menu planner. When your kids are young and in your house, it is your responsibility to care for them so they should be first. Meaning, you need to feed them nutritious meals that they like. It doesn't seem like you would need to have an elaborate plan because this should be one of your main chores. Planning has more to do with things you do not do that much. Preparing meals is something you do every day so you really wouldn't need to plan that much other than making out your grocery list. You want to spend your time actually cooking, not planning your meals.

Save the fancy meal planning for occasional parties and holidays. Planning meals every day is just a waste of time. Just make the meals that you know instead of trying to be the best chef around.

4) Dreams list. If you have time to dream then you ought to have a method to keep this information in its own place. Not stuck in the middle of your mundane chore list in a household notebook. I have a small 3" by 5" paper notebook I keep in the pocket of my planner book. I write goals in here along with affirmations. When it gets filled I get a new one. I keep the old ones. I also have pictures of the things I want to get, the vision board idea.

5) Vacation records. I do have a couple of pages in my Planner Book with a summary of my vacations over the years. I list where, when, how long and who with. Since I love to travel, this is really not enough information for me to keep. I have a separate paper notebook that I bought specifically designed for keeping track of your traveling. To me, since this is one of the things I love to do the most, the cost of the book and the time spent recording the information when I get back is worth it. I can then have a Vacation book to keep forever. Hopefully, I will need to buy a lot of these books over the years. I also like to keep some of the most interesting information I collected from my traveling. Things like brochures and maps. I love those types of things. Some of that I just tape right into my Vacation Log book. I also make notes on the brochures and maps. That is part of the fun. I really would not want to keep this in my Planner Book or Household Notebook; it would be soon become too bulky.

6) Children's information. I keep a bare amount of my kid's information in my Planner Book. You will get an enormous amount of papers that have to do with your kids. Putting all these papers in a binder would be a full time job.

Papers you get from your kids school and their various activities will either need to be acted on or just read and tossed or filed away. If they need to be acted on, just do it right away or put it on your desk, table or in your planner book to do as soon as possible.

It is hard to throw this kind of stuff out. A better way is to just have a file for each child and for each activity and just keep filing it away in chronological order. So you may have files labeled as Sue-School, Sue-Religion, Sue-Dance Class, Sue- Friends, Sue-Medical, Sue-Dental, Bob-School, Bob-Religion, Bob-Boy Scouts, Bob-Soccer, Bob-Friends, Bob-Medical, Bob-Dental. I think you get the idea. Over time these files will fill up but then you can prune them once in awhile. At the end of the school year is the perfect time to go through and toss most of the school papers.

7) House remodeling projects. I would approach this with it's own binder. Truthfully, I don't want to approach this at all. I did a lot of remodeling when I was married and it was not that fun. It is a messy, expensive, disorganized mess that is better to avoid if at all possible.

8) To Do lists. If it is something you need to do, then either do it, put it in your planner book in the To Do section or have a small checklist with you. A small piece of paper or post-it note is still a good way of writing a checklist. I put a small post-it note checklist in pasted in my wallet when I have a number of errands to run and things to get. I just write small. If I am running errands the last thing I want to do is drag around a big 3-ring binder or even my planner book. I want to go into the store or wherever with both hands free to do what I need to do.

By having a small list with me in my wallet or pocket I can do that. Don't overly complicate your life with elaborate lists in binders. Do things more simply. It is so much easier to write out a short checklist on a post-it note, place it in your wallet and go than it is to hold onto a binder. You should have a pencil or pen to cross off things while you are doing them. Then just throw the list away when you are done.

It is very hard to have a simple life if you are continually having to put papers in a household notebook. The better method for storing papers is in manila file folders. Manila file folders are very cheap compared to binders. Also they do not take up much space.

Binders take up a huge amount of space even if they are empty. Binders have their place, but go light on them as a household notebook.

Go Back to Home Page.

Go Back to Household Notebook (Top of This Page).