Home Organization Binder

I have a huge confession to make, and to those of you who know me personally, it might come as a shock.  I am horribly, incredibly, and catastrophically disorganized.  The reason this probably will come as a shock is because I love organizing things.  I thrive on it.  I once had dreams of becoming a professional organizer.

I’m not bad enough where we lose too many crucial documents or where we have roaches living under our couches.  But it’s bad enough where it leaves me in a constant state of stress and overwhelm.

I think my reason for disorganization is actually a fear of getting too obsessed by it.  I’m not known for balance and riding the middle.  I’m more the type of person who will dive into something and get so immersed in it that everything falls by the wayside.  I fear getting obsessive, so I stay away.  But the result is no better than obsession.  Perhaps it’s even worse because the constant state of disarray leaves me feeling like a failure.

And I guess we are most motivated to change when things get to a critical level, and I feel like that’s where I am now.  While I love cleaning, I hate cleaning with little people around who undo everything I do, and by the time they go to bed, I’m completely tuckered out.  So I would like something that would give me a set time each day to get crucial tasks done so that I don’t have to worry about it the rest of the day.  If you keep up on things, even keeping an immaculate house can really take very little time each day.

And so I’ve decided to start a home organization binder.  I’ve been researching them a lot, and I had wanted to share the best of the best with you here, but honestly, I didn’t find anything that really suited my needs, so I figured I would create my own.

I’m giving myself one week to get this binder up and running which should be enough time because the most time consuming aspect is already completed.

I decided that I will need certain sections in my binder:

A room by room cleaning checklist: Each room in my house will have a complete checklist of everything needed to do a really thorough clean of that room.  After each item, there will be blanks so I can write the last date I did each task.  Certain things really don’t need to be done twice a month, and if I have a spot where I can mark the last time I did each task, then I will know when the time is coming to engage in that task again.

Budget: I really want to get us working on a much stricter budget.  It’s not really that we are spending too much money.  It’s that the money we are spending really isn’t on items that are in line with our priorities.  My hope is to keep really close tabs on everything we spend money on over the next month, and I’m hoping this increased awareness will prompt us to change our habits.

Yearly Home Tasks: There are a few things that simply don’t need to be done every month, and my goal is to have a list of those tasks and assign one or two to each month so they can get done in a timely manner.

Daily Task List: I  want to create a list of things I do daily – dishwasher, laundry, etc and come up with a set time when I do these things so that I can go on autopilot with them and not really have to think about them.

Daily/Weekly To Do List: This is just going to be blank sheets where I can write everything I need to do that day/week so I don’t forget.

That’s where I stand right now.  I’m sure I’ll add some more to it as time goes on.  My hope for this is really to make these things automatic so that I don’t have to even think about them anymore.  I want a clean and inviting home that inspires and comforts my family (and myself!) but I can’t and won’t spend my children’s entire childhoods cleaning.  My hope is that if I keep up on this list and do one room a day (meaning each room will get deep cleaned every two weeks) that I won’t have to spend more than 20 minutes a day cleaning and maybe 20 minutes a day tidying up at the end of the day.  That sounds completely acceptable to me.

Right now, I spend so much time trying to keep track of things in my head and make sure I don’t forget things that my mind is never really at rest.  I believe the more I write down, the more I can dump it from my head.

What do you think?  Do you have a home organization binder?  If you do and you have blogged about it, I would love if you include your link in the comment section so I can check it out.

I’ll include links to the binder pages I create in the Home Organization tab above.  Feel free to print and use them for yourself.  I just ask that if you blog about them that you provide a link back here.

Happy Organizing!