Day One: Make a personalized home management journal (PMJ)

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they let you in.”  Robert Frost

Unlike my smartphone, the PMJ can serve as "command central" for my entire family (in my case, my husband and me...my puppies are no help :-). I love that it will contain all the information needed to take care of my home, finances, health, and ... well, really, life ... in just one binder.  Being able to find everything I need to know to care for an emergency or everyday life will make my home and life much simpler! (No more searching through paper and computer files or bookshelves or...well, you get the picture!)  Sharing the PMJ with all the people in our families lets everybody get involved (it sounds better saying, "let's check the book to see what needs to be done," rather than ME being the director of all things.)

You can choose any type of journal you like, but the most flexible I've seen are three-ring binders with divider sections.  What do you include in it?  My dividers are:

• Emergency List (being prepared for an emergency)
• Planning (calendars/events, schedules, mission statements, goal lists)
• Contacts (current phone numbers and addresses for family, friends, favorite vendors, doctors, etc.)
• Family (personal info page for each member of family, birthday list, movies to see, restaurants to try, clothing sizes, gift suggestion list)
• Home Management (daily and weekly routines, home and auto maintenance schedules, home inventory, stain removal guide, home storage inventory)
• Meals (blank menu forms, blank grocery shopping lists, previous successful menus, recipes to try (usually links as I don't use my recipe books much anymore), pantry inventory, refrigerator inventory, freezer inventory, coupons
• Finance (budget, bills to pay, list of all financial accounts, online account information, insurance information, subscriptions, warranty information, utility/services directory)
• Health and Fitness (medical information sheet for each family member, medical emergency directory, medical authorization form, prescription drug record, insurance information, pet records)
• Travel and Activities (travel packing lists for short and longer trips), house- and dog-sitter information, volunteer activities)

There are lots of fancy journals you can purchase, but there are numerous free templates available as well.  My favorite is http://www.flylady.net where her control journal is amazingly inclusive.  Another is http://www.getorganizedwizard.com/blog/2009/08/get-organized-mission-14-organize-your-household-notebook/

Today I vowed to use the templates available and just personalize them with my own info.  Now, it will take more than an hour to put complete this PMJ, but I have the binder and much of the "innards" done in less than an hour.  I'll add a little something to it each day until it's complete -   I can see how it's gonna' save me boatloads of time!

Here's a picture of my journal:

I hope you find this helpful - and please share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Best,

Sandi