Control Journal

I spent the last couple of days writing a handbook for how to run our household. It's called a Control Journal and it's kept in a 3-ring binder. The idea is that it could be used by a babysitter, or someone other than me, if I were sick or on vacation. It also includes a lot of info about running our family (birthday lists, contact lists, bill pay lists, etc) that DH usually has to rely on me for since all that info is in my head.

DH read the handbook last night and proclaimed it "awesome".

Our Control Journal includes daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly deadlines for running our house. Like, how often to change the furnace air filter and how often to treat the septic system.

Then we have a section called "inventory" which catalogs everything in our storage room and its approximate location. We will have to add other catalogs for our storage shed, and various other closets, later.

Next we have a section called "emergency" which is written as if for a babysitter, but is also helpful for DH and me if we had to react and were not in a focused state of mind. In that section we describe what to do in case of various scenarios such as power outage or fire. Locations of fire extinguishers and flashlights, etc. There is also a simple evacuation step by step list. Finally a list of emergency contact people and phone numbers, like landlord, various doctors, and daytime and nighttime veterinarians.

After that there are a few sections with other contact names and addresses, including bill pay info and info regarding our various insurance policies.

Since the book is in a 3-ring binder, we can update it as often as we like. And it is easy to take with us if we wanted to grab and go. Each section is written as a separate Word file, so the individual files are simple to update and re-print if we want to. Each Word file is backed up outside of our home, in 3 different locations.

I got the idea from www.flylady.net