Organised Mum 2015 Family Life Book

I just had to share my excitement! I finally ordered a Family Life Book from Organised Mum! Last year I decided too late I wanted one and they were already sold out, so this year I got one as soon as I could.

I've used their Life Book diary several times, and it is great, but now my kids are older and each in activities, and my husband has an erratic travel schedule that's hard to keep track of so this year I went for the weekly grid format so I can see what each individual person is doing each day.

The Family Life Book and Life Book diaries are 16 months, from mid-August (when school starts here in Scotland, THANK YOU OM!!) to the end of the following year. Some people complain about wasted months, but I absolutely need the planner this way and here's why: This time of year as the school year is ending (last day of school is today, hooray!!) I need to be able to plan into the next school year. For example, this week at my daughter's dance class the teacher told us the class will be at a new day and time in the autumn, and gave us the dates of the Christmas shows. With a 16 month planner I can write these dates directly into my diary without having to carry this and next school years' diaries around. Then when the new school year starts, I can transfer the dates over into the new diary and have the entire school year in one book. Brilliant.

I like the design this year, it's pretty and soothing to look at. And the paper is spectacular, white and thick so there's no bleed through with my favorite pens.

The Family Life Book's weekly grid has seven columns plus a column for meal planning, and space for To dos and Next Week. You can use these columns any way you like: one column for each family member; one page for you and the other page for your family; columns for home/ work/ volunteering, etc. I might have to experiment in pencil for awhile to decide how best to use these columns.

Someone commented on Facebook that she doesn't like re-writing everyone's names at the tops of the columns every week. So I butted in (as I do) and commented that you could use the two clear acetate pagemarker sheets that come with the diary on each page of the weekly layout, use a wipe-off marker to write column headings and weekly recurring events, and you don't have to re-write anything, ever! Just move the clear sheets week to week.



The Family Life Book Diary has all the same excellent features as the Life Book Diary, and I won't show every page here but there are tons of features. Here are just some:

There are three weekly routines layouts, so you can write routines for school terms, work, household cleaning and maintenance, rotating meal planning ideas, on and on.

There is a section full of monthly planning including budgeting and tasks for each month (great for monthly reminders like checking smoke alarm batteries or seasonal household maintenance).

There are monthly calendar pages, one page per month for August-December 2014 then the month over a two-page spread for January-December 2015.

I won't show photos but there is an entire section for planning Christmas, holidays and summer.

The Life Book diary has detachable shopping lists on the weekly pages. That doesn't work for the Family Life Book's weekly grid so instead there is an entire section of detachable shopping lists in the back of the book. I use sticky notes for my shopping lists, so I will use these pages (and there are a lot) for planning my children's birthday parties, permanent notes, and far-future planning and reminders.

The Family Life Book also comes with an address booklet that you can use year after year, two pages of stickers (which you can see I have already used some of), and a pocket in the back to put papers, birthday party invitations, directions, tickets, and whatever else so those little bits don't get lost or buried at the bottom of your bag.  The stickers are great for reminders of when your car's MOT is due, insurance renewals, doctor and dentist checkups, and to make special days stand out like birthdays and holidays. And they add color and jazz up your diary pages!
I didn't take photos of the inside of the address booklet but it has pages for contacts, quick call lists, services, and birthdays reference to make it easier to add those dates to your diary each year.

This year I treated myself to the crystal-topped pencil and stick-on loop (ordered together with my FLB, click here for link). I stuck it to the inside of the front cover so I can still slip my diary into the Organised Mum purple cover I bought a few years ago.

I had been using the Organised Mum Pick And Mix inserts in my Filofax (click here to see my extensive post on how I've been using) but when this diary starts in August I will transfer to it, and keep it in my kitchen in the Organised Mum stand I bought a few years ago so the entire family can see it and write their own things into it. That way I am not the gateway to planning, everyone can contribute and see what is going on.

Here is the front cover again, with the pencil and elastic strap!

Just looking through the book, it's amazing how much is incorporated. It really is designed to manage your, and your family's, entire lives. Between the book itself, the stickers and the address booklet you can:

• Track your schedules for home and work, and for each member of your family.
• Plan meals and write your shopping lists.
• Stick to your budget, track income and expenditures.
• Remember upcoming bills like insurance, car tax, MOT.
• Plan for Christmas ahead of time, make your budget for gifts and other holiday expenses.
• Plan the summer holidays, travel, camps and activities.
• Remember birthdays and anniversaries each year.
• Have contacts and important numbers easily accessible.
• Have a place to keep everything so nothing is forgotten!

It seems to me that if you keep all of your and your family's weekly plans updated, fill in the budget sheets each month, use the stickers to remind yourself of when things are coming up, use all the sections of this diary, take this book with you everywhere, and look at it often, you can't not be organised!

A common question from customers to Organised Mum is which should they choose, the Life Book diary or the Family Life Book diary? The Life Book has a traditional weekly layout (you can see this in my review of it here), and the Family Life Book has a weekly grid, otherwise the features of the books are the same. If your children are small and pretty much go everywhere with you, you probably would be best off with the Life Book. Similarly if your weekly schedule is mostly set and not complicated, the Life Book is probably best for you. The Family Life Book is probably best for you if you have to track different schedules each week, such as when your children are in after-school activities. The Family Life Book is also useful if you or your spouse/ partner travel often or work shifts, or otherwise have varying schedules. The grid makes it easy to see what each person is doing every day.

**Edited because I meant to add: the Family Life Book and Life Book diaries have A5 size pages. They are easy to take out of the binding and punch to fit your A5 Filofax, Classic size Franklin Covey or Desk size Daytimer binder.

I ordered this diary from www.organised-mum.co.uk. I have ordered from them several times over the years and they have excellent customer service. They ship internationally, I have ordered from them shipped to the US several times and have found their shipping prices to be very reasonable.  I am not affiliated in any way, just a happy customer!

Edited to add: here is how I have adapted the weekly pages to suit my needs:

I have added Weekend To-Dos, weekly expenses Totals (which I add up each week and put the totals into my monthly Budget pages), a larger area for To-Dos, and Next Week at the top of the right page. I LOVE the stickers! Also you can see how I've added month tabs to the weekly pages (yellow), months (blue), and monthly budget pages (green). I love how these weekly pages are so adaptable!

Organised Mum Pick and Mix Filofax compatible inserts and 2014 diary

Recently I bought a bunch of the Organised Mum Pick and Mix inserts for my personal size Filofax: the 2014 Family diary, the Shopping and Menu Planning, the Finance and Budget pages, and the Family Schedules, Events and Occasions. (The only packet I didn't get was the Addresses one.) These inserts are all fantastic, great value for the money, and they work extremely well together. Let me show you what I mean.

There are tons of photos in this post, don't forget you can click on them to enlarge. My photos are not the best due to lack of adequate light this time of year. I can assure you the pages look much nicer in person! The paper is pleasantly white, and the grey print is easy on the eyes.

The Diary pages have a Family grid layout so you can see what each person is doing each day. There are 5 boxes for each day to use for each person, home vs work, morning/ afternoon/ evening, exercise/ blogs/ dinner, or any other use you can think of.  Right now Organised Mum isn't sure if they will make these for 2015, so I am on a campaign to try to convince them to! These pages are an excellent layout and very efficient use of space on the personal size pages.

The left page shows the dates, moon phases and UK holidays each day.

At the top of the right page there is a month reference calendar. At the right there is a lined area for Things to do and Next Week.

Here's how I use these pages. The first three squares each day are my morning/ afternoon/ evening. I put my weekly goals at the top of the left page. One square on the right page is for both my kids (they don't really each need their own square yet) and one for my husband. Instead of Next Week I use that space specifically for household cleaning and chores that need to be done that week.

Be sure to see Crazy Life Of J's excellent post with her video on how she uses these Organised Mum diary pages too! I especially like her photos of her weekly pages with everything jumbled together in each day, and her change over to the Organised Mum pages with her days organized into categories for herself and her husband.

These diary inserts come with lots of other pages too, which I will not show because I don't want to give everything away. These include Useful Numbers for quick reference, and Dates To Remember for things like renewing insurance, passports, drivers licenses, boiler service, and any other dates that recur. There's a vehicle maintenance record for four cars, and a back-to-school checklist.

There are also monthly pages, which are extremely useful. The month is on one page with the back of the page lined for things to do that month.

I'll show you in a minute how I use these month pages with other pages spliced between. The only thing I would change about the diary packet is to make the months on two pages with the back sides of the pages lined, so you can still splice things between the months but have larger daily spaces on the month planning pages.

Next, the Personal Finance and Budget pages.This packet is excellent value for the money, and helps you save money too by helping you track your finances. There are pages for each month, which are labeled for the month but not dated so you can start at any time and use them for a full twelve months.

Each month has a page for Things To Do that month and monthly income:

Bills and Direct Debits:

Daily Outgoings on a double-sided page so you can track the totals each day of the month:

Monthly spending totals for your categories:

Savings, repayments, and final monthly totals:

I'll show you in a minute how I use these with the month pages from the diary inserts. But first:

The Personal Family Schedules, Events and Occasions pack is my favorite besides the diary. There are loads of useful pages including Weekly Routines pages to track five people's weekly schedule:

More wonderful pages: Weekly Don't Forget list so you can list all the gear you need to take to each person's scheduled events each week like sports gear, music, dance outfit, water bottles, etc. It's nice to have this to refer to at a glance so I don't forget anything!

More great pages: Holiday/ vacation planning, packing lists, holiday to dos and shopping:

There are also Party Planning pages with guest lists, invitations sent and RSVP, to do and shopping, gifts list and thank-you cards written.

There are also loads of wonderful Christmas planning pages! Pages and pages of Christmas plans, cards...

Here's my favorite: Christmas Countdown pages to plan tasks 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week before Christmas, and Last Minute:

Menus for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and other holidays:

And here's another wonderful planner: the Summer Holiday Planner so you can see the entire summer on one two-page spread:

So here's how I splice the Financial and Holiday/ events pages into the month pages. This is July, when school ends and we are planning a trip to the US to see family:

Here is the back side of the July monthly page, which I haven't started filling in yet. I put the blue page in, it tells things that happen every year in July, so I can easily move it year to year. I have one of these blue pages for every month's annually recurring events like birthdays and holidays.

 Next I have July's Financial pages:

Next I have the Summer Holiday Planner since that's when the summer break starts:

Then I have the Holiday plans and Packing List to start preparing for our US trip:

I'll start filling in things to do and buy while we are in the US:

So I have all the pages I need to prepare for, and use during, our summer holiday right there in July where I need it and can refer to it easily.

Here's another example: in August the kids go back to school, and we have my child's birthday party.

The Family Diary pages have the Back To School checklist built into August so you can't miss it. I won't show it, but it's extremely useful for making sure you have everything your kids need, ready when school starts.

Next I have the August Financial pages:

Then I have the Party Planning pages (from the Family Events and Occasions pack) for the birthday party with pages for Invitations:

Party To-Do and Shopping, and Gifts and Thank-yous:

Party Plans and Ideas:

So all the back-to-school and party planning pages are already right where I need them in August.

Last but certainly not least, the Personal Shopping and Menu Planning pages. I keep these in their own section for easy reference.

There are weekly menu pages which are printed back to back. These could also be used as undated weekly diary pages, exercise trackers, or lots of other purposes actually:

You could also do 2 or 4 weeks of set menus, then rotate them for simplicity and variety.

The shopping pages are double-sided with categories to organize your lists easily:

There are also Essentials lists, which I really like. These make it much easier to write your weekly shopping lists when you can see what you normally keep stocked so you don't forget any essentials.

So there are the excellent Organised Mum Pick and Mix inserts and 2014 Personal Diary Insert. Organised Mum, please make all these inserts and the diary again for 2015! 

The paper is white, which I prefer, and the print is gray which is easy on the eyes and doesn't interfere with color-coding. I don't know the paper weight, but it is fantastic. Absolutely no bleedthrough and almost no shadowing at all even with my Signo RT gel pens, which bleed through other papers. There is no problem at all using both sides of the pages, which is especially important with the diary pages of course, but also means you can use both sides of all the pages to the fullest, getting the most for your money.

Organised Mum ships internationally!

If you have any questions about these inserts please let me know and I'll be happy to answer!