Friday, April 8, 2011

The Domestic Executive's Daily Planner

**I am going to attempt to explain this idea in writing. If I hear from many of you that I didn't explain the concept well enough, then I will do this in video form. So please tell me if you would like to see this on video, many people understand things better if they can see it.**

I am a box checker. I am also the person who could waste away the day on the couch watching T.V. or in front of the computer only to realize, at 6 PM, that nothing has gotten done and no dinner ready for my hungry men. And then there are just the things that I forget to do, like dust the blinds and wash the baseboards.

I was wandering around on a website and ran into the concept of the daily planner. I fell in love with it immediately. It consists of pages that are printed everyday with your personal schedule of chores that you check off once done, thus appealing to the box checker part of my brain. It includes things like; Bible study, making beds, lunch, dinner, load of laundry etc. These are things that should be done everyday and honestly, if I didn't have some of them written down, I wouldn't do them. One of my daily chores is to refill the ice trays. I am always forgetting to do this, dinner time rolls around and I have a freshly brewed pitcher of sweet tea and no ice to cool it with.

The planner also includes a list of weekly chores, monthly chores, bi-annual and quarterly chores. Weekly chores are things like mopping, scrubbing toilets... and you get the idea. The same with monthly and quarterly chores, things that need to be done, just not on a weekly basis.

I was not, however, a fan of printing one page each day. It is a big waste of time and resources, not to mention, I would forget to print it and that would be the end of my planner. I read that one mom took her daily chore list to Kinkos to have it laminated. Since I'm too cheap to do that, I devised my own solution. I printed it and bought page protectors and a few dry erase markers (I like the various colors). Every night I erase my day away and start anew each morning. I love it!!

I also have my weekly chore list in a page protector. Because Christian doesn't always have the same days off every week, I plan my weekly chores around him in order to make the most of his days off. I simply printed a blank 7 day calendar and every week I put Christian's work schedule on it and then plan which days I want to do which weekly and monthly chores and write it under that day. At the end of the week I wipe it clean and start again. Most of you could print one schedule and keep it for a while, not having to re-arrange your chores every week.

I have also made pockets for coupons I want to use that week and recipes I'd like to try that week.

You can visit http://moneysavingmom.com/downloads/household-management-forms to get the forms. You can completely customize everything. I suggest making sure you put chores on your list that you would forget to do otherwise. It's so much fun to check off the boxes. =)
I am including pictures of my forms and book. And like I said, I am more than willing to do this again in video form.




Here is the cover of my book. I Just played with it and made it fun. I picked a picture of a happy homemaker for the uplifting that I hope it will give me... so far it's worked. =)


















I know this is kind of small, I'm still trying to figure out how to do all of this stuff. I can use any advice on how to make the blog as a whole better as well. This is my daily chore chart. I have sections for things to do, I need to buy some rice. Sections for dates to remember,our menu for the day, how God has spoken to me that day, a verse of the week and special things to pray for. Oh, and my neat little boxes to check after each chore and little glasses to color in after I drink water.










This is my weekly chore chart. Like I told you, I just printed a blank 7 day calendar off of Google. Each week I write in Christian's work schedule and then decide which days I want to do what chores and then write them in with my dry erase marker.











My monthly and semi annual chores. Most of them have been done in March, but I started this at the end of the month so not a lot of time to get them all done.
















So, I hope this will help make your Executive duties a little easier to remember. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. This little book has made the last few weeks so much easier--especially when I want a cold drink and there is ice. As always suggestions on improvements are always welcome.

Cathy.

3 comments:

  1. I use to do a variation on this. I really need to get back to it. I'm not a box checker though, I like to mark the whole thing out. :) Thanks for the website!

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  2. I used to do this too! Page protectors and all. I should get back into it cause I do forget the monthly stuff a lot!

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  3. I've never done this before, but I just printed out a page and made my lists. Working on my first box to check off now :) Thanks a bunch, Cathy.

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