My Planner Revealed (& a Few Free Downloads)
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.
What do you put inside a household planner to help you manage the day to day without going crazy? Here are the planning pages that make a great household notebook.
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I'll send you time- and money-saving tips every week!
My notebook, or household planner, is like my brain on paper. I have tried different systems over the years and even gone digital with some things.
Hello, contacts in my phone, thank you for saving me from copying over my address book over the last few years.
That said, I still enjoy paper for other things. I create a large to do list of my work projects each week so that I can see everything in one place. I jot down my meal plan each week so that the kids can easily access it. And, I keep a household planner, complete with a weekly schedule, or time budget.
Over the years, I’ve tried new things, experimented, and adapted to new and better ways of keeping a household planner and getting myself organized, and I’ve yet to find something better than my Print & Go Planner.
I developed the PGPlanner back in 2015 when I found myself wanting a simple, streamlined household planner that was easy to get me moving in the right direction.
My Household Planner Revealed!
Years ago I realized that in order to work really well for me, my household notebook needed to be spiral bound. I realize that for some this might seem wasteful because it’s a consumable product instead of a reusable one. But I actually use this planner, whereas I have shelves of abandoned binders that didn’t work for me.
–> Click here to get the PDF planner for yourself.
What I love about the spiral-bound planner:
- It’s compact. Since it’s spiral bound, it can fold back on itself and take up very little space on the countertop. This makes me more likely to have it handy, to write in it, to carry it around the house with me.
- It’s highly portable. Due to its compact nature, it’s pretty easy for me to tuck it into a tote bag and take it along to the doctor’s office, on errands, or on trips.
- It’s easier to write in. I love the ease of a spiral notebook and how it doesn’t interfere in writing in the same way that those three rings do.
This is what works for me. Maybe it will work for you, too.
I struggled for years to find a planner and accompanying checklists that would help me do my work. I’ve seen some good ones, but, I still found myself making up my own forms on the computer, tailoring my worksheets to fit my daily life.
Today I thought I’d spill my guts. Or at least the guts of my notebook. Here are some of the things I’ve included in my planner:
What I want
Not too long ago, I realized that I needed to be clear about my dreams and vision for my home and family if I were going to be productive and achieve any goals. Writing down that “What I want” vision in my notebook reminds me what I’m working for, namely peaceful days, intentional family times, a strong marriage.
This year I took it one step further and created a vision board inside my planner. I had so much fun making it and I love having images to help me really see what I’m working toward.
–> Click here to get the PDF planner for yourself.
Priorities for the Year
Once I can articulate my overall longterm vision, it’s time to break it down into yearly priorities. It’s a work in progress so I add to it as time goes on.
Goals or Systems to Develop
I’ve mentioned before why I am not focused on goal setting, but there arise benchmarks I want to hit. I’ve lumped those in with the systems I want to develop in this space so I can start envisioning what things to be working on during the coming weeks and months.
Monthly priorities at a glance
Facing every calendar page is a monthly priorities at a glance page. Here I can track the things I want to focus on that month in my marriage and family, home, business, and finances. I grab these from my vision pages and my yearly pages, not all at once, but a few at a time as they fit the coming month.
A calendar
While I rely on Google Calendar for a lot of things, I still keep a paper calendar handy for planning.
–> Click here to get the PDF planner for yourself.
My To Do’s and To Cook
Each week, I’ve got a two-page spread that helps me manage all the things of the week. I grab tasks and projects from my monthly page to jot down on my weekly to-do.
Then each day I grab a few from the weekly to-do to add to the daily to-do. I use post-it notes for the daily to-do’s so that I can stay on this same spread throughout the week.
If my week’s to-do’s exceed the space, I can layer my lists with 3×5 post-it notes.
My Time Budget
While I never loved the idea of a schedule, I’ve found that in this stage of life, with five kids at home, a homeschool, and a home business, I can’t get much done unless I allocate time blocks for different activities.
My time budget sheet helps me tremendously. I have a copy of this sheet for every week of the year, and reassign my time blocks each week so that I can account for whatever a week holds.
Those are the pages of my planner, with ample lined pages at the back for notes and miscellanea. Five years in, I’ve found that the Print & Go Planner is exactly what I need in a household notebook. If you’re looking for a planner to help you handle the basics, and then some, I hope you’ll give it a try!
What’s in YOUR planner?
This post was originally published on August 16, 2014. It has been updated for content and clarity.
Love your planning pages. The household chores list is awesome, thank you for sharing your planning pages with us.
I don’t use a household notebook because I work out of the house, and honestly, I haven’t found one that would work for me. My daughters (11 & 6) both have chores they complete on Saturday morning. I handle the laundry and cooking. My 11 yo does kitchen clean up. I just felt like a notebook wouldn’t be a good fit because I don’t have a lot of time home.
Since I’ve been home for 9 weeks on maternity leave, I now know what it’s like to be a SAHM and see the things that are needed in my home and what is needed of me to lead the pack. (My hubby was the chore driver for years until a few months back. I’m not sure what changed, but it became more of my role…)
Thanks for sharing the great downloads and also sharing the links to the others. I’ve followed Crystal & Erin for 2 years and never knew they had a Downloads section… Thank you!!
PS- I’m thrilled to see you active in the comments. I usually don’t comment because there wasn’t that interaction…
@Allie Z, I’m trying. Wish there were a few more hours in my day. Like about 24. lol
I keep a running list of meals that we like. It comes in really handy when I’m brainstorming a meal list for the month before grocery shopping.
Also. Every month, I print out a calendar and fill it out with chores. There are some chores that I do twice a week, once a week, twice a month, once a month, once a quarter, and once a year. Having print out calendars to look back on helps me keep track of when things need taken care of. Having a concrete plan helps give me motivation and helps to ease being overwhelmed with house work. I typically only have two or three items on each day.
@Jenni, scheduling your monthly chores like that is brilliant. I wonder how far behind I would get?
@Jessica Fisher, Yeah… I get behind sometimes. When I do get behind, I mainly focus on catching back up on those things that are less often than once a week. It gets overwhelming if I try to take care of EVERYTHING I missed. I do think I’m much more successful with a calendar than free-style housekeeping. 🙂 Otherwise it seems like a guessing game, and I often forget those once-a-month or less things. Also, organization motivates me for some reason.
I love these but am having a hard time figuring out how to print. Would someone please help? Thanks!!!!
Can you get to the pdf? Just click on the titled hyperlink which takes you to a page like this one. Click on the hyperlink and that will take you to the pdf. There should be a print button in the pdf screen.
Loved this post! It is always nice to see how others run their homes!
Thanks for planting ideas for me to revamp my household book!
I love your idea and will definitely use some of your awesome checklists! Thanks so much for sharing them with us! Question, though…since you check off what you’ve done throughout the day/week, do you remove and add new sheets as needed?
I made enough to get me through the first six month since I was testing it out. I remove the daily’s as they’re done. And I’m wondering if Fedex can take it apart and put it back together when I want to update it. Hubs suggested including pocket pages. It’s obviously still in the tweaking phase.
@Jessica Fisher,
Great idea on trying it for 6 months first! I suppose that’s the freedom you have when you make your own planner!
I love this! I am a bit of a calendar junkie and I tend to buy too many calendars and planners! I guess I’m trying to figure out where this would compare in price. Do you print the daily checklist front and back? Did you print everything off at home and take it to Kinkos (or similar) to have bound or did you have them print it all? I’m looking online and they only show the price to have something bound that only has 25 pages. Obviously this has much more than that! I’ve printed off a few of the daily pages to test out before investing in making this. I’m sure it’s worth it if it is actually used! Thank you so much and I love your site!
Thanks, Denise. Yes, the printing was a little tricky. I printed them at home back to back, making sure that things were in the order I wanted them. I inserted cardstock dividers. Then I took it all to FedEx (formerly Kinkos). They added the front and back covers and bound it. It was $5 and some tax.
@Jessica Fisher,
Awesome! I think the prices I saw included the price of having the pages printed there. Thanks so much for your help!
I’m a totaly list-maker!! Here’s my planner:
http://mycountrycupboard.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-year-new-datebook.html
I do have to re-write each list for each day, but I kinda like that it allows me to tweak here and there if I need to. I have detailed cleaning of one area for each day of the week, so as long as I stay on top of it the house is always “pretty” clean… but if for some reason I don’t get that day’s list done, it’s not the end of the world b/c I’ll get to it next week.
DH laughs at me because I get such a thrill out of “drawing a straight line” as he calls crossing things off 🙂
(I’m also OCD in that I have ONE SPECIFIC PEN I use with my planner. If I’m gonna have a list, I want it nice and pretty 😛 LOL!)
This is where I admit that I’m technologically needy….I signed up on Cozi’s website for a calendar, and when the opportunity came up for a data plan for our cell phones, I got a new touch screen phone (it was on clearance for $99!), and that’s what I use. Everything’s in there, but I DO like your planner idea – did you get it spiral bound at a printing shop?
@Andrea, yes, I took it to FedEx Office and for $5 they added a cover and back and bound it.