My Homemaker's Journal

I mentioned before that I made a homemaker's journal. It is the cornerstone of our house! It has been so much easier to keep track of everything. It has been a lot of trial and error to get to where we are now. I will break it down for you. Keep in mind that this is what is working for me. Your family is different than mine, so you might not use the same technique.
The main tool is my planner. On the monthly pages I record appointments and schedules and what our school theme for the week is. On the weekly pages I write up my checklist. One side is for household projects and the other is for Crazy Elephant projects. Here is how a typical week plays out:

Monday: Laundry, list/update (TCE), sewing, getting photos ready for the week (TCE)
Tuesday: Sweep/vacuum, food prep for the week, list/update, blog
Wednesday: Family day
Thursday: Bathrooms, list/update, blog
Friday: laundry, list/update
Saturday: general tidying up, clean/set up school room for next week, list/update, blog
Sunday: church

I don't write school on my check list, but I do have pages written up for each day of school too. They are in Jayne's school binders with each week's materials. I started writing up my planner pages for the month and I like it that way. I do it the same time I write up our menu and grocery list for the month. The planner and my TCE notebook (previous post) go in the homemaker's binder. The binder also has detailed cleaning instructions for different rooms in the house. We don't use them often, but they are great to have for when we do. There is an inventory sheet to use as a guideline for writing up the grocery list. It includes all the foods and non foods that we always want in the house. There is a yearly calendar for checking. It includes things such as spring cleaning in April and winterizing the house in September. It helps us to remember to do them. I also have my spring cleaning chart that I use for making my spring cleaning check list.

I also have a homemaker's journal folder in my Internet favorites and on my desktop. That way I know where to go for my homemaking sites and downloads. That would be for recipes, sewing instructions, cleaning tips, etc.

As far as keeping the house clean, start by determining your standards. Clean for us is tidy, but lived in. It is not immaculate by any means, but it is tidy. Jayne picks up all his toys every night. I do the dishes each day which includes wiping down all the kitchen surfaces. Laundry is 2- 3 loads per week. When we tidy up on Saturdays we usually pick a room that really needs it and focus on it. There is still lots of time to do school, cook, work, and do daycare. We are all working on not just leaving things where they are and putting them away when we are done with them, that goes a very long way in keeping things clean. I am not sure if I have missed anything, but I have run into school time. So, feel free to ask questions, I am an open book!