My TODO Lists

 Between homeschooling my kids, working part time, keeping house, running errands, selling our old house, and building a new house (want me to keep going?), my life feels like it is snowballing out of control. I'm afraid I won't take care of everything I'm supposed to in a timely fashion. I've perused Pinterest quite a bit, and followed some of my favorite blogs, looking for the perfect daily or weekly planner for me, but sadly could not find the perfect one. The one I'd want to use every day. The one that would keep me from dropping all the balls I'm currently juggling. The one that would track house projects, cleaning projects, exercise & food, and people to call. Nothing too picky, right? 

So, I decided to make my own. I wanted something simple that would let me check off a simple cleaning list that would help me easily keep the house clean and keep me motivated to get it done because it could be done quickly. I also need something to write down the important things I have to do today and people I need to call. I also wanted to start meal planning, so there also needed to be a place for that.  With all my needs/wants, I decided to make two lists. One to give me an overview of what I should do today, tomorrow, and sometime later in the week, and one that would give me the chores I have to complete today to keep my house nice.

Here's what I came up with. 

You can download a copy here. 

I'm still playing around with it, but I think my weekly and daily cleaning lists are where I want them to be for now. I'm thinking about maybe making a monthly one too, but will have to see how my weekly and daily lists keep me movtivated and on track. :) I'm also playing around with my monthly food & exercise log. It works, but isn't as pretty as I want it to be, plus I found some other cool features I wanted to add to it. Guess it will have to wait for some more free time! 

My Household Binder

One of my favorite blogs, iheartorganizing.blogspot.com, posted a monthly challenge of getting together a family binder. I loved this idea. I've tried it before, but hadn't really thought through all of the needs I wanted it to cover and this blog really inspired me to start again - or rather (bashful grin), attempt to finish what I had started.

So...drumroll please... here's what I've got so far! :)

 

Here is the cover of my binder. I had fun decorating it a couple years ago so that it would be nice to look at. I kinda like the name "Plan Book" instead of Binder, so that's what I used instead. 

I keep my pens, pencils, scissors and any misc. other things I might need here. Then, for each section of my plan book, I scrapbooked a page to make it pretty to look at. Some sections still need to be added or updated still though. 

For my schedule section, I have my week at a glance, calendar (I might remove this later since I have one hanging on my wall beside the computer that I look at FAR more frequently), and I am planning on adding my daily schedule and school schedule as well. 

I got my week at a glance from http://www.mommytracked.com. 

My calendar is also from  iheartorganizing.blogspot.com. 

The menu section is where I have my meal planning page. I love, Love, LOVE what Jen did for her meal planning page - and so I printed off a copy of hers. 

It has everything I want to plan for to stay on track with loosing the last few pounds from my 3 pregnancies. I'm well on my way folks - and I'm super excited! It has a place to plan breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and dinner. I try not to snack in the evenings now, so this is another reminder not to!

I haven't added anything to my education section yet, but have plans for it. I'm planning on putting the homeschool curriculum's that I'm currently looking at here and possibly including a copy of the school plans for the week.  

Since I homeschool, I'm fairly busy so I don't have much time for projects and crafts, but here is what I would like to work on. 

I would like to take an inventory of our current movie collection. I have it fairly organized now, but would love to have record of it on paper as well. 

I also plan on creating a place to keep the library checkout receipt so I don't forget what library books I have out and when they need to be returned. :)

Since I'm new to blogging, I loved the fabulous BLOG ideas page, so I included a copy Jen made as well. 

She also had a page for gift giving, which I liked. I'm thinking about creating another section for financial information and if I do, this will be moved into that section. But for now, it's great to have this to list out all my family and friends that I need to remember to get gifts for. 

Ahh the cleaning page. I am a reforming-slob. We moved into my in-laws new house last month and I'm terrified that we will mess it up in some way before we move into our new home. So I've become a little obsessed with cleaning. 

I included Jen's family cleaning checklist and her home maintenance checklist. I want to be sure I don't forget to do something that I normally wouldn't think of doing so I can keep my temporary house looking new. 

I also liked a page from www.acleanheart.com so I included it to remind me of things to work on each month.

Woman's Day had a Spring Cleaning checklist that I loved too, so I included a copy of it as well. 

 

I have recently (as in the past 1.5 years) gotten back into exercising, so a Fitness section was a must for me. Homschooling my kids and a longer commute to the YMCA means that I don't go as often as I would like. 

I have several Jillian Michael's videos and I LOVE them. I found this challenge on Exercise.tv and printed it out so I would have a rotating schedule for my videos. 

I also like to look at exercise magazines like Oxygen, Fitness and Shape. When I see an article I like, I tear it out so I can try out the exercises, without having to cart around the magazine. If they are really good, I scan them so I don't destroy the original copy.

To loose weight when I first started to work out, I decided to follow some tips I read about and write down everything I ate. Click on the picture below to download a copy of my Food & Exercise Log.

I work out with a personal trainer 2-3x a week and she makes some suggestions on what I eat and how I could do better to stay on track to get down to the shape I want to be in for the rest of my life. It's not easy remembering to write down everything, but having this printed out helps a lot. 

Since we are planning on building a house in the new future, I have a section for House Plans. 

Anything I find that might be useful in the house building process I try to keep here. Like this page on countertops. It has some great information comparing all the different countertops and their pros/cons. 

I keep my address labels here - or did until we moved. I haven't updated them yet, so this section is also blank. But it's the last page in my book, so I'm ok with it being empty for now.

Thanks for checking out my plan book. :)