How to Create a Home Management Binder: Tips for Organising Your Life

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the never-ending mess? Do you feel like you’re constantly playing catch-up, and can never seem to get ahead? Or do you panic when it’s time to find an important document in your house?

If so, it might be time to create a Home Management Binder. A homemaking binder will help you organise every area of your home and your life.

This step-by-step guide will teach you how to put together your own DIY home organisation binder, what to include and life management tips. This is a home organisation project you can easily put together in a single afternoon!

And if you don’t want to create your own, you can also buy my printable version to save loads of time!

The Ultimate Guide For How To Make A Home Management Binder

A home management binder is the ultimate tool for keeping your household organised.

By centralising all of your important documents, dates and to-do lists in one central place, you will save time and energy trying to find things.

Not only will a Home Management Binder be a huge help to keep on top of things around the house, but it can also be used as a family command centre, allowing you to keep everything in one area and to organise your whole life in one place.

This is a great way to get everyone involved in the running of the household and keep everyone up-to-date on what’s going on.

What Is A Home Management Binder?

A Home Management Binder is a system to organise all the important pieces of your life into one place.

It can be used to record important home maintenance and family information to keep these essentials in one easy-to-locate place.

However, a home management binder can also be much more!

You can create a system to store everything from bills and receipts to school forms and warranties.

You can also use it as a family calendar, menu planner and financial goal tracker.

The beauty of a Home Management Binder is that it can be completely customised to suit your family’s needs. It also helps cut down on paper clutter since your most important documents are all kept in one tidy place.

SHORT ON TIME? GET MY PRINTABLE BINDER KIT

How To Create A DIY Home Management Binder

Creating a household management binder is simple. Start by gathering all of the materials you’ll need.

Alternatively, create your own printable pages to record all the information you wish to include in your binder.

Or to make it really simple, use lined or grid paper and create your lists and records by hand. This is a little tedious, but still far better than having no organisation system set up!

Once you have everything you need, you can put it together in your binder. If you don’t have a good printer at home, visit your local print service to do this instead.

I used a simple 2 ring binder with page protectors and section dividers to easily flip through the different sections.

One of the best things about using page protectors is that you can use dry-erase pens on the protectors so you can write and erase on pages you use often, rather than having to reprint a new version each week.

This is a great way of keeping track of cleaning tasks, shopping list or pantry inventories while cutting back on the amount of paper waste.

Digital Vs Paper Home Home Organisation Binder

While a paper Home Management Binder is a great way to get organised, there are also some amazing digital options available.

Digital home management suits anyone who is looking to eliminate paper clutter entirely or for someone who prefers to utilise electronic planners and systems.

Popular electronic home management systems include using Excel or Google Sheets to create a basic spreadsheet with tabs for each category.

Trello or Evernote are other popular digital organisation systems that allow you to store notes, lists, files and photos.

Or one of my other personal favourite tools for digital organisation is Airtable, which is somewhat of a combination between a spreadsheet and a project management system.

It takes a little time to learn the basics, however, it is a very powerful digital tool that is cloud-based, allowing access from anywhere.

What To Include In A Homemaking Binder

Now that you know what a Home Management Binder is and how to create one, it’s time to start filling it with all the essential information.

I like to start with the basics and add more as needed.

Aside from the printable pages, you will find in a home management binder kit, it can also be really beneficial to include plastic sleeves or binder envelopes for storing receipts, warranties, user manuals, health records, and your insurance policies.

Including photocopies of important documents is also helpful for quick reference.

This includes copies of documents such as birth certificates, passports and immunisation records, while the originals are kept in a safe place.

If you have children, you may even want to store items such as school report cards.

Although you could just as easily create a personal binder for each family member for storing individual records.

Our kids each have their own binder, with items such as school photos, report cards, awards and special items they may like to keep for when they are older.

Home Management Binder Categories

The categories and type of information you include in your household binder is completely up to you. However, as a guide, here are a few of the most common types of information to include:

• Home Maintenance Records
• Warranty information
• Emergency information
• Family health information
• Financial records
• Important dates
• Cleaning schedule or cleaning checklists
• Meal planner
• Monthly calendar or household planner
• Important phone numbers
• Service provider information
• Insurance information
• Household inventories
• School activities

Each of these categories can be further divided into subcategories. For example, under Home Maintenance Records, you may wish to include a home inventory, appliance maintenance records and repair contact information.

Create binder tabs for each of your main categories to give you easy access to the information you are looking for.

As your family binder grows, you can add more categories as needed. For example, as young kids reach school age, you may wish to include a section for school forms or report cards.

The sky is the limit when it comes to Home Management Binder categories!

What Not To Put In Your New Home Management Binder

Keep in mind that your Home Management Binder is not a catch-all for every single piece of paper that enters your home.

It’s important to be selective about what you include, otherwise, you’ll just end up with an unorganised mess.

These documents should instead be kept in a fireproof safe or box where they will be protected in case of an emergency! You can get an inexpensive fireproof document storage box for this purpose.

How To Create Your Own Home Binder Printables

If you’re not into using a Home Management Binder kit or would prefer to create your own printables, there are a few different ways you can do this.

One option is to use a word processing program such as Microsoft Word to create your own basic printable pages and tables.

Or if you’re after something a little fancier, you can use a program like Powerpoint or Illustrator to create customised printables.

If you’re not confident with using design software, there are also some great online tools that allow you to create customised printables without having to download any software.

Canva is one of my personal favourites and is super easy to use. This is what I use to create all of my own printables and their free account gives you access to thousands of templates, graphics and fonts to create the perfect documents!

Once you have created your printables, all you need to do is print them out and insert them into plastic sleeves or punch holes in them to fit your binder.

Where To Store Your Home Management Binder

Ideally, you will want to store your Home Management Binder in a central location where everyone in the family can easily access it.

A good spot is usually on a bookshelf or in a cupboard near the kitchen. If you have a family command centre, this is a great place where it will be easy to utilise when needed.

The key is making it easy, otherwise, it will feel like a chore to update and utilise your home management binder system.

If you plan to use your home file on a daily basis, to access your daily schedule and update your weekly meals, you definitely don’t want to make it hard work!

A Home Management Binder is a great way to organise all the important information relating to your home and family. The categories and type of information you include in your household binder are completely up to you, but this guide will help you put together your own household organisation system so you can skip the panic next time you need to find an important document or date!

I hope this guide helps you create your own perfect life management binder!