I’ve tried several times to make one. They sound great. All my important information (routines, phone lists, menu plans, phone lists) put together, organized so I can find things easily. I have such good intentions. Here is the pretty cover I made for mine.
In fact, I think that might be the second or third pretty cover I’ve made. But I never get beyond the pretty cover. That one pictured above currently holds my 2009-10 MOPS phone list, a few yogurt instructions and a compost booklet I got from a friend. But I only knew that because I got it out to take a picture of it.
My problem is that I wanted it to be filled perfectly before I use it and it never got there. But recently, I’ve found a way to make the homemaking binder work for me:
Yep, a $0.75 composition notebook. It isn’t pretty. And it certainly isn’t perfect. But I’ve been using it and now, I love it! It has our daily and weekly rhythms, my kitchen prep plan, Christmas present ideas, Lucy project ideas and a list of supplies I need for them so whenever I’m have some time and money to swing by Hobby Lobby, I know what I want to get, blog post ideas – basically my brain + pinterest.
And now that I’ve been doing it, it seems like it should have been obvious because duh, it’s a lab notebook! At both of my post-college full time jobs, my life was my lab notebook. Everything I did was written in mine and I carried it with me everywhere. It was the first thing I picked up in the morning and the last thing I put down. That’s what you do when you work in a lab. The chronological order of it is probably pretty unusual for a hmj, it doesn’t have plastic covered slots for me to easily arrange my papers and protect them from spills and it lacks tabs for quick and easy searching, but since I’m used to that, it works for me.
And all those things people say about them are true. I’m more organized, I’m more productive, my mind is clearer because I don’t have 5 simultaneously lists running in it. One of my goals is to be intentional. My profession is mothering and I want that to be seen in the way I structure my life. This not only helps me do that but it also helps me see that I am doing that and after a long day of wiping noses and bottoms, it is nice to see evidence that my life is more than that, even if it doesn’t have a pretty cover.
Tawra at Living on a Dime has written about how the fancy, expensive day planners don't work as well for her as a .25 spiral.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea behind those binder, but I don't get along with binders. Instead have a massive set of spreadsheets in a Numbers file titled Life. Everything including my lists, menus, wardrobe inventory, and schedules are in neat tabs and folders. If my computer crashes, my "life" is gone, but it works better for me than any hard copy I've tried.