Hints and Tips

Hints and Tips for the Life Book

The Organised Mum Life Book can truly help revolutionise a busy mum’s life. But the key to becoming organised is to invest a little time in making sure the Life Book works perfectly for you.

First take the colourful Life Book stickers and mark out everyone’s birthday for the year ahead. Also make a note the week before each date to buy presents and cards. Next mark significant dates such as term times, school holidays and half terms.

Now spend five minutes digging out paperwork and make sure car tax renewals, MOT dates and tax return deadlines are all marked out with the handy Organised Mum stickers. Don’t forget important reminders such as dental check-ups and annual eye tests. At the same time use your paperwork to fill in the first Budget planning page in September. Make sure you note down all the essentials such as mortgage payments, council tax, telephone, electricity and gas bills and it will make budgetary planning a whole lot easier in months to come.

Dig out your address book and transfer all the important details of friends, families and colleagues to the back of the Life Book. Make sure you have the address of everybody whose birthday you have listed to make posting cards as easy as possible. The next job is to turn to the sizes page near the front of the Life Book and fill in the clothes sizes for all the family. Ensure children’s sizes are entered in smaller handwriting so you can alter the information as they grow.

Turn to the Weekly Routine pages at the front of the Life Book and assign a page for everyone in the household – including the adults. Finally enter in any other important reminders such as out-of-school activities and reminders to pack PE kits/swimming bags/musical instruments for the school term ahead.

One last tip, which was sent in from Organised Mum reader, Nicole. She said: “I keep my Life Book on a recipe book stand in the kitchen - not in a drawer - so that it is to hand and you can tuck things behind the book without losing them!” Now all Life Book owners should be ready to tackle the year ahead with a little more organisation.

Hints and Tips for Organised Mum's Calendars

The Weekly Planner and Home Planner family calendars have many features not normally found on wall calendars and they are all there to help you become better organised.

We would suggest that the first things you do are:

• Copy on your yearly events such as birthdays, anniversaries and such like that will not change.
• Find all those bits of paper with things like the dates the recycling lorry comes and copy those onto the calendar.
• When letters come home from school/nursery with term dates and information on about school trips, put them on straight away. If you haven't got time, put the note in the pocket at the back of the calendar or diary so you cannot lose it.
• Use your stickers to highlight the important dates and to help you see the 'wood for the trees' nice and easily.
• Sit your partner down and explain that he needs to put his own information in too. There's no point having a family calendar if you're the only one that fills it in.
• Fill in the most important telephone numbers and doctors' details in the back.

I've filled in all the information I have to hand now, what do I do next?

If you have bought one of our calendars, It would be a real shame if your calendar fell out of use because it wasn't put in a location where it could be seen by everyone. We have ours on our Kitchen wall, some suggest it should be near your telephone, near your fridge or wherever everyone will see it. You'll know the right spot for it in your home, just make sure that it goes up there and always gets returned if its taken down for some reason.

Other Suggestions

How about attaching a pen to the top of the calendar so you've always got something on hand?

If your children are older why don't you ask them to write their own commitments down so that they feel responsible for time planning?

Extra Stickers

We have packs of additional stickers, not just for when you have run out of the ones that come with the calendar and larger diary, but we have stickers for you to track important events in your life and for trying to keep in control of things like school routines. We also have the family stickers for flagging up which appointment is for which member of your family. These are fantastic for older children who can simply look at the calendar to find out exactly what they're up to.

We also have stickers designed especially to help you to encourage your children's good behaviour - and they may even persuade your kids to leave your calendar / diary stickers alone!