Mission Control - The Saga Begins

I recently decided to create a household binder (or Mission Control as I prefer to call it). I know that I'm not exactly inventing the wheel here, as household binders are all over the internet, but here is my version.

As a starting point I looked through all our paperwork, files and information I'd held electronically to see what I felt would be better integrated into one format/place.

Once I had collated the information, I listed all the categories that I wanted to have in Mission Control and created an Excel spreadsheet to use to develop the worksheets I was going to need. I use Excel a lot for work and for me I felt it would be the easiest tool to create the templates and also easy to add and update  information once the template has been created as well as new templates when required (I'm sure I'll change my mind and develop the ideas as I start using the binder!). Its probably not as sophisticated as it could be but it works for me!

Here are the categories I've decided to include and an idea of the sections of the category:

Bank Accounts - current and obsolete
Calendars - this year and next year
Christmas - to-do list, card list, address list, menu planner, shopping list, movie list
Contacts - emergency, important, mobile phone contact lists
Daily Affirmations - for the spiritual and wellbeing books that have a daily reading
Emergency Info - who to contact, emergency numbers, emergency kit
Health & Wellbeing - medical info, medications, alternative therapies, diet
Holidays - public/planned/previous, packing and what to wear checklists
House Maintenance - monthly and annual/internal and external
Important Dates - family birthdays plus annual holiday dates (Valentine's, Easter, Christmas etc)
Income & Expenditure - for monthly budget planning
Insurance, Pensions & Bills
Inventories - CDs, DVDs, books, tech, one for each room in the house (for insurance), major purchases, clothes etc
Savings Info - current savings & savings forecasts/targets
Subscriptions - magazines

This Week/Next Week - 2 weeks to view

To Do Lists - general & house (1 for each room in the house)
Useful Info - dialling codes, restaurants, websites, usernames

I'm conscious that I don't have chores/cleaning or menu planning info/checklists/to-dos anywhere in Mission Control - I'm a bit of a haphazard homemaker in that respect and yet to be convinced if I would actually use these if I included them, so I am still trying to make up my mind on those.

Some of this information won't be printed out and I will simply keep it in the spreadsheet for reference when required (the info I know will only be referred to infrequently).

Here are a few sample pages:

Yearly Calendar

Weekend Planner

Holiday What to Wear

House Maintenance Checklist

Holiday Planner

I'm still very much refining the content and have realised that even these sample pages that I created last weekend have since been edited! My process (which may seem a bit back-to-front but it works for me) is to quickly put together the template and then print it out (for some reason a piece of paper in my grubby little paws helps me think better!) and then brainstorm how will I use it and that's the point where the refinements come into play.

I've chosen a display book from Paperchase instead of a ring binder option. Its A5 size (148mm x 210mm which I believe is a similar size to US Junior Legal) and has 20 sleeves so will hold 40 pages. As the book's frosted I'll be able to put a title page in the first sleeve that will be seen through the cover. I think I'll probably need to have 2 of these but I have a nifty trick up my sleeve for storing them together...

Follow-up posts on the contents coming up!!