These calendars will help you organise and plan holidays, activities, upcoming events and more.  I have included the to-do list on the side to help you achieve your goals each month.

I choose to start the week with Monday as I find it easier to plan and it just makes sense to me.  This calendar is blank not including school or public holidays because they are different in every state.  I will include a printable soon which will include all holidays at an easy glance for you.

There are a few designs to choose from, Chevron (my favourite), fun and bright for the kids, blue and grey for those who like muted tones or need to print black and white and yellow and grey as I love these colours together.

What’s your favourite design?

Please let me know in the comments below

Hope you enjoy!

© 2010 The Organised Housewife | All rights reserved - This post {Free Printables} 2013 Monthly Calendars with to-do list is provided for the convenience of The Organised Housewife readers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited.

We are trying to streamline our home office to become paperless such as having statements emailed, however we still end up with a lot of paper.  It’s very important that you dispose of your personal documents properly.  Most of the information found on your documents are confidential, to protect yourself from identity theft you must dispose of these documents properly.  We use a cross-cut shredder as it’s more secure than the strip shredder.  We shred items such as:

• All documentation with our full name and address
• All documents with account numbers (bank account, membership accounts etc)
• All documents with our date of birth
• All documents with our signature
• All bank/credit card statements
• Pay slips
• Old credit cards
• Medical records, prescriptions
• Tax records
• Basically anything that has your personal information on it

There are services which will destroy and dispose of all your documents securely, which is very important for businesses.  However for your home office you could put your shredded paper to use, below you will find a few creative uses for your stock pile.

Creative uses for shredded paper

Use for craft activities  |  Make and Takes

Shredded Paper Bowl Tutorial  |  The vintage dresser

To line chook boxes  or other pet cages |  Civil Eats

Cross-cut shreds (more secure than strip shredding) can be used for packing when moving or posting items {image credit}

Recyled paper  | Carolyns Homework

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In November last year I was asked if I could put together a planner similar to my Blog Planner, to suit a small business owner.  After 5 months I am thrilled to be able to release it!  It has taken awhile, but I am so pleased as this planner WILL help you organise most aspects of your business.

The Small Business Organiser

The idea of  ’The Small Business Organiser‘ is to keep all your business paper work organised and together in one folder.  

ON SALE – $14.95 until the end of April (Regular Price $19.95)

The Small Business Organiser is a 100 page downloadable document available instantly for you to print after purchase.  It will help you organise each of the  following:

Calendars – To help you keep on track

Planners – To help you work out the best times and days to work, balance family life, to plan social media updates and organise deadlines

Goals – Determine your short and long-term personal, business and website goals, creating lists to help you achieve them

To-Do Lists – Keep to task by creating a to-do list, lists for personal, business and the website

Statistics – Record your statistics and sales data to see how your small biz is growing

Advertising – List all the advertising you have arranged in print media, on blogs or on other websites.  Recording the dates, rates, traffic and if you will renew.

Products – Product wish lists of items you would like to stock in your shop and recording products you have on order

Product Reviews & Giveaways – Reviews are a perfect way of creating awareness for your products, this sheet will keep track of which reviews you have scheduled, traffic and sales created from review along with if you are running a giveaway alongside it and recording once you have posted the item to giveaway winner

Blog – Most online business also have a blog running with their shop.  This section allows you to brainstorm some blog topic ideas, remind you to take photo’s to add to your post and list what products you would like to blog about

Expos & Markets –  A checklist  to help you remember everything needed when running a market/expo stand, budget to ensure that the efforts is worthwhile, along with packing checklists and itinerary if you are travelling away.

Extras – Password register and list companies you would like to contact.  Also included in this section is a website maintenance log if your website crashes you can see what last action you recorded for it to be the possible problem.  Each section has it’s own divider page for you to laminate, and add to your own folder.  

Procedures Manual – To help other members of the team complete tasks

Address book – to record all your business contacts

ON SALE – $14.95 until the end of April (Regular Price $19.95)

View Shop |  Join our Affiliate Program

Reviews

The Small Business Organiser that I received from Kat has been really helpful in assisting me to actually sit down and organise myself for the first half of this year. For me its been especially effective in monitoring the online advertising / marketing of my business including booking in online newsletters , monitoring banner advertisements on various blogs or sites and seeing on paper how everything is fitting together.  Also its been great to compare the prices (on paper)  of each banner advert and monitor its return on investment (let alone actually stocking to my advertising budget) . 

Thanks so much Kat for making something so simple but so geared towards small to medium business owners like myself .  I’m feeling VERY organised for once .   

Shelley, Lime Tree Kids

I love to be organised in both my home and work environments but found that with two energetic young boys and running a small business from home, I was sometimes struggling to keep on top of things. I was ending up with notes and reminders spread throughout multiple notepads and diaries, not to mention the hundreds of post-it notes and scraps of paper that seem to end up everywhere (and get lost along the way)!!

I have found the Small Business Organiser to be an invaluable tool in helping me to gather all of my business related notes and goals in the one place. This has also had the added bonus of allowing me to see and review where my business is at now and where I want it to be heading in the future. I also love the flexibility of the organiser, allowing me to use as little or as much as I need for my business whilst knowing the organiser will grow with me as my business grows. 

Amie, Fluffy Tails

This is just what I need, this is sure to help me get myself more organised and having it all laid out in front of me will make it so easy to track what is going on

Rebecca, 4myEarth

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As I sit down to write some tips on organising your office filing and paperwork, I recall the phone conversation I had with a girlfriend this morning.  She has been flat out at work recently, and also very busy at home with her husband and daughter, and today was the day for the whole world to come crashing down around her.  And, the very thing that got her to tipping point was the sight of weeks worth of business and personal filing taking up space on her desk, and cluttering her thoughts.  So, it was fitting that I had planned to write this post today because I got a real life example to draw from. 

Below are some tips on how to avoid getting to that tipping point with your filing.

Clear the backlog

Step 1 – sort through the pile of paperwork including magazines and newspapers, and group into two piles; trash or file.  You might like to bring a rubbish bin into the office so you can get rid of trash immediately.

Step 2 – now that you have a neat pile of paperwork to file, devise a filing system that works for you.  If you work with others, consider whether they would look for the information in the same place as you.  Your system may include files for tasks to complete, invoices to pay, interesting articles, client files, or outgoing mail.

Step 3 – file that pile away into your filing cabinet/folders.  You might even find that on second glance, you really don’t need to keep some of the paperwork. I love kikki-K filing products, but you can find some great filing options at IKEA, Target, Kmart, or Big W as well. 

File daily

Now that you have your backlog cleared, you can take some simple steps to ensure it never needs hours of attention again.  The first step is to file daily.  Take 30 seconds to file the paperwork now, and avoid having to spend an hour of your family time on the weekend sorting out 1-2 weeks of paperwork.  The second step is to adopt the FAST approach:

• File it
• Action it
• Send it
• Trash it

This system doesn’t just work for your paperwork, you can apply the FAST rules to your inbox and digital filing as well.  This means all your information is stored in a simple, easy to use, totally tailored filing system just for you.

About Get Me Organised

Kylie has a passion for being organised.  After the arrival of her second daughter in August 2011, Kylie decided to embark upon a new career helping businesses become more organised, so that she could have the flexibility to be both a Mum and a career woman.

Find Kylie: Website  |  Blog  |  Twitter

This post was written by a guest contributor. If you are interested in ‘being my guest’ please visit Be my Guest page for more details.

© 2010 The Organised Housewife | All rights reserved - This post A little fling with your filing is provided for the convenience of The Organised Housewife readers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited.

My gift to you this Christmas is a selection of 2012 Monthly Calendars with To-Do List.  I created these for you to download, save and print when needed.  

There are 3 different colour concepts to choose from.  My favourite being the yellow and grey, there is also a pretty pink, red and blue selection along with colours suitable for the kids.  Enjoy and hope they help you be organised in 2012  

Note:  I do apologise, I tried to create one file for you to download the whole year conveniently but was unsuccessful.  They will be here all year for you to print and save when needed, just visit printables in the menu for easy access.

If you download these printables, please leave me some comment love as I appreciate hearing from you

2012 Monthly Calendars

© 2010 The Organised Housewife | All rights reserved - This post {Free Printables} 2012 Calendars with To-Do List is provided for the convenience of The Organised Housewife readers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited.

I love birthday cards to send my thoughts, love and wishes through sentimental messages to my loved ones, family and friends.  Perfect to let them know you are thinking of them even though you may not have spoken for a little while, as we all realise life sometimes just get’s a little busy.

However, in saying that I select who I give cards to as I know not everybody enjoys the sentiments a card gives, some just enjoy the present that is attached (mostly kids) and some think they are a waste of money.  In this case I make tags to accomany the gifts.  I re-purpose the cards we receive by making them into tags.  I keep all the sentimental cards and cards that have a beautiful personal message inside, I can’t bring myself to throw these away.  But be honest if you keep onto all the cards you receive you will have a box full in no time.

When it comes to children’s birthday’s, ie the parties kids are invited to by their school friends, I would prefer to put a home-made tag on their present and add that money I saved into their gift as I know they would appreciate it more.

Here is how I make our birthday tags:

Find an old birthday card

Trim card to remove back, cut to smaller size

Punch hole in top corner

Now I have 2 tags!

I love using rafia to decorate wrapped gifts

Easy…and you have saved yourself a few pennies!

What do you do with the cards you receive??

© 2010 The Organised Housewife | All rights reserved - This post {Re-purposing} Creating gift tags from old greeting cards is provided for the convenience of The Organised Housewife readers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited.

Mail Station

With a shelf and a few magazine holders you can create a space for mail and accessories.

Find a fact sheet HERE on how to make your own mail station.

© 2010 The Organised Housewife | All rights reserved - This post {Organising} Mail Station is provided for the convenience of The Organised Housewife readers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited.