I'm excited! I'm almost done with my Home Management Binder. For those who don't know a Home Management Binder (or Control Journal) is a tool many stay at home wives/mothers/keepers use to run their household effectively.
I became rather obsessed with the idea sometime after I realized I wanted to be a homemaker. I had figured out what I wanted to do... now what? As a young woman in 2007 what's my next step, there's no degree in applied household science, but I certainly don't know nearly enough to run a household well. I thought "there must be a system, some book on how to properly run a home. A method of training to educate and refine me into the best homemaker I could be". I mean you receive rules and training to sell shoes, certainly running a household and raising children should have a few resources. Schools no longer really teach home economics: how to budget, clean, sew, cook, care for children, etc. and most people don't know how to do those things. I see people throw away a shirt because they got a stain on it, pay a tailor to sew on a button, buy frozen dinners for every night of the week, drown under debt because they've no concept of a ledger or a price book, and make a doctors appointment for the sniffles. They pay a maid and a nanny to do what they should do for themselves.
I looked and found a few websites and groups dedicated to just that. Fly Lady and other various home management sites, where home keepers share their HMBs and methods. I was amazed at all the information. Successful mothers raising six and eight children explaining stress management and child rearing tips, stay at home wives with spotless "guest ready" homes sharing stain removal tips and first aid protocol, grandmothers who are delighted to pass on their household knowledge and recipes, etc. I fell in love with the idea of a management binder for the home and so took off running.
The first thing was to read everyone else’s. Everyone starts there. You read what others have shared and try it in your home. What works for you stays along with you own methods and become routine then the routine is analyzed for benefit, written and becomes a part of your family's binder. Each section grows little by little until it's a fairly portable, organized, wealth of information on your family's household affairs. Ultimately a stranger should be able to run your household fairly well just by using your binder (especially babysitters). They know what to clean and how, what to cook and when, what projects need to be addressed, who should be doing what and when, etc.
My binder has ten sections:
· inspiration (quotes, articles, rules that inspire me to be a good home keeper, etc.),
· schedules (my master schedule, year by month, and yearly calendars, etc.)
· cleaning (daily cleaning zones, stain removal guides, proper cleaning instruments/techniques, etc.)
· kitchen (master grocery list, meal planner, recipes, etc.)
· finances (paid and unpaid bill pockets, calendar of bill payment, budget, etc.)
· emergency (first aid procedures, emergency contacts, disaster plans, etc.)
· family (phone numbers, birthdays, etc.)
· general (home remedies, order forms, etc.)
· faith (daily focus, prayers, concepts, etc.)
· entertaining (etiquette rules, place setting rules, decoration ideas, etc.)
Of course when I have children my binder will drastically change. A mothers HMB is almost always 50% children issues (vaccination charts, chore lists, after school activity timelines, grade tracking, etc.)
I'm almost done with the information and have started on the aesthetics. It is beautiful. It's something I'm very proud of and am excited to put to use :)
