** if you missed the intro to my version of Life Binders you can read that HERE**
Okay another week into my Life Binder project and it's already evolved quite a bit. Besides working on organizing the mountain of papers for Thursday's class and nursing my printer through ink cartridge after ink cartridge, I came up with a main list of categories that are pretty generic regardless of age/family situation.
Emergency, Calendar, Home, Health, Finances, Food/Menu, School, Church, Pets, Personal, Retirement/Legal. Basic enough, right? So that is what the class I'm teaching next Thursday is on. Coming up with your own system and making it work for you. In doing that this last week I learned that I needed to apply that same thought to my own house. The basic idea was perfect as a starter kit that everyone can use but after I organized all my stuff into it, I realized that some sections were out of control too full and others were missing aka; I still had piles of paperwork and information that needed storing but nowhere to put it. This is definately a very personal project so everyone's is going to be different. I decided to seperate mine into three categories/binders. Family, Finances and Home.
**In my Family Binder I have tabs for...
Emergency, Calendar, Home Info, Health, School, Pets, and a tab for each member of our family, including Baby Cameron (his in fact is bigger then anyone else's who knew an unborn child chould have so much paperwork!)
**In my Home Binder the tabs are a lot less serious but still contain that information I'm constantly looking up and that is always cluttering my desk top...
Blog, Online, Cleaning, Food/Menu, Church, Holiday/Christmas, Entertaining, Travel and Garden.
**In my Finances Binder the tabs are...
Accounts, Monthly, Yearly and Past Budgets, Debt/Loans, Mortgage, Utilities, Insurance, Automobiles (I have one for each vehicle), Medical, Medicaid, Bethlehem Property, Tithing, Credit Reports, Taxes, Retirement, Manuals/Warranties and Goals.
I'm sure I'll be adding to these in the future or maybe taking things away but for me the tabs were decided based on how I seperated my papers on my cluttered desk. Which is looking better if I do say so myself! I think I saw the actual desk yesterday for a fleeting moment. ;)
If you're looking to do a Home/Life Binder to keep your papers under control, check out a few free downloads I've put together to get you started, they are just categories or section ideas with a list of things you might want to put in them to keep track of it all but it's a great starting place to see if this type of a system might work for you.
Download LifeSuggestions1
Download LifeSuggestions2
Download LifeSuggestions3
and here are a few more really helpful resources. I didn't use all of them but the info in them was invaluable.
simplify 101 - 10 great organizing printables.
design finch - 20 weekly planners, menus and cleaning checklist printables
blooming homestead - has a great home binder system with lots of daily logistic printables.
evelyn kate designs - this is the cleaning calendar I put in the Life binder class.
Trust me I have lots more downloads to share when everything is finalized for the class but if you'll excuse me, I have a paper jam that needs my attention...
J
