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Parenting - Family Organizer
The Family Organizer
by Rachel Paxton - rachel@creativehomemaking.com
I'm forever looking for ways to get better organized. It's
even more of a challenge when you have a family to keep
track of. The schedules, shopping lists, and tomorrow's
to-do's are always being lost or shuffled from one place
to another.
I've put together a family organizer that helps me keep
track of my family's activities from week to week. This
organizer makes it easy to keep track of almost anything.
One day I was looking at the ready-made templates that came
with my word processing program, and I noticed there were
many home-related templates already made up for me to use
for my organizer. There was a monthly calendar and a weekly
menu planner and grocery shopping list. I made a calendar
for every month of the year to write important dates to
remember, and printed out enough weekly menu planners to
last a month or two.
The weekly meal planner has columns for every day of the
week with "Breakfast," "Lunch," and
"Dinner" listed for each day. Every weekend you
write in your meals for the week, and then make up a shopping
list to take to the grocery store. The menu planner has
a place at the bottom to write in your shopping list, or
you could make up a separate list. Download a free menu
planner template from http://www.creativehomemaking.com/download.shtml.
Just print, and photocopy as needed for your organizer.
The best way to organize your calendars and menu planners
is in a three-ring binder. You can buy dividers that already
have the months of the year printed on them. Just file your
monthly
calendars in the binder with your weekly menu planners in
between.
This is just the start. You can create sections in your
binder for whatever you want. For instance, file your children's
school or sports schedules in your organizer. Just punch
holes in the pages and file them in the appropriate month.
You could also include a list of phone numbers and addresses,
or a list of family birthdays and anniversaries.
You can buy folders for your binder that have pockets in
them. Make one for greeting cards and one for coupons. How
about one for your monthly bills? The possibilities are
endless.
One of the great things about the family organizer is that
it keeps so many things handy and in a central location.
Now if someone wants to know what's for dinner or has something
to add
to the grocery shopping list they can refer to the organizer
themselves. We keep ours in the kitchen next to the microwave,
where it's easily accessible. If you're afraid of pages
getting
messed up, sheet protectors work great. You can design a
cover, too, and slip it into the front of the binder.
Family organizers are fun to make, relatively inexpensive,
and limited only by your imagination. Start getting your
family's schedules in order today!
Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom who is the author
of What's for Dinner?, an e-cookbook containing more than
250 quick easy dinner ideas. For recipes, tips to
organize your home, home decorating, crafts, and frugal
family fun, visit Creative Homemaking at http://www.creativehomemaking.com
and Suite 101 at
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/creative_homemaking.
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