Home Management Binder: Health & Fitness

Update: this post now contains links to download the printables shown here.  To see all my free printables available for download go here.

Welcome back to the Home Management Binder Series!  I am sharing my process of creating a home management binder, and hope to pass along some inspiration to others for managing their household.  For those of you just joining us, here is a quick rundown of the schedule for this series.

8/24 - Introduction
8/31 - Schedules

9/7 - Family

9/14 - Pets

9/21 - School

9/28 - Cleaning postponed

10/5 - Home

10/12 - Finances

10/19 - Food and Grocery

10/26 - Health and Fitness

11/2 - Beauty

11/9 - Crafts and Projects

11/16 - Vehicle

Feel free to follow along (or jump in and out depending on your needs) and make your own Home Management Binder as I whip mine into shape!  Many of the organizational tools and tips you''l see here can be used in other types of home management systems as well, if binders aren't your thing.

This week I'll show you how I keep track of my health in my Health & Fitness section of my binder.  In the past, I've taken for granted my physical health.  I've been fortunate enough to never have to watch my weight, or have any serious health concerns.  However, I would like it to stay that way.  So this section was born to help me dip my toe into the fitness pool and hopefully start some lifelong good habits.

At this point I, by no means, have an intense exercise regime, just some good stepping stones to ease myself into the whole exercise thing.  Hopefully this section can help other lifelong couch potatoes to get inspired to start taking care of yourselves.  Or maybe those of you who are ahead of the game and already exercise, just need a way to organize all you do for your health.  Either way, read on!

This section is another that gets subdivided into smaller, more specific sections.  In this case, the sub-sections are health and fitness (duh).  I put the fitness section first because I (hopefully) will be accessing it daily to keep records of my workouts and my fitness progress.

The very first page in my fitness sub-section is my weekly workout schedule.  I used a similar system as my weekly cleaning schedule (to be revealed in a couple short weeks), with each type of workout designated to a different day of the week.

I apologize for the flash in some of these pictures, we're expecting a hurricane and have had nothing but clouds for days!

I included six areas of exercise that I wanted to address (cardio, yoga, flexibility, arms, abs and legs) then gave myself a day off in the middle of the week.

After my basic schedule, I have six pages that correspond to each exercise type.  These pages are for recording my progress in each area for the current month.

This system is a little complicated, so I'll use my arm exercises to try to explain it.  Since my schedule says I work on my arms on Thursdays, there will only ever be a maximum of five days in a month that I will exercise my arms.  Each day that I am focused on my arms will get a box in my monthly arms record.  In each box I have columns for the name of the exercise, the number of repetitions of that exercise, the time it took me to do the exercise and any notes I want to remember. I included multiple lines in each day for the multiple exercises I may do.  I hope that wasn't too confusing, but it was the only way that made sense to me.

I know it may seem like overkill to many people to keep a record of every exercise performed, but that is my main motivator.  I love keeping records of anything I can, it helps me feel accomplished, and helps me track any progress.  So this may not be for everyone, but it may be worth a try for someone struggling to get themselves to workout.  It's the same great feeling as checking things off on your to-do list.  You still do the activity, but you get that extra boost of feel-good when you get to check it off or record it.

Next I have my health sub-section.  This includes mostly doctor related stuff and anything else needed for keeping me healthy.  First up is a medical contacts page.

Download here

This is just a place for me to keep all contact information for my various doctors.  This includes my regular MD, dentist, optometrist and any other health care professional.  This will avoid having to keep all their business cards for contact information, with invariable get lost in the shuffle of day-to-day life.

After my medical contacts, I keep a yearly calendar for keeping track of taking my daily vitamins.  Again the purpose of this sheet is more a motivator for me as I'm trying to get in the habit of taking a multi-vitamin and a couple other vitamins daily to make sure I get everything my body needs.

Download here

Since the boxes for each individual day are pretty small, and I want to track the intake of several vitamins, I knew I wouldn't be able to squeeze check marks in.  I think my approach is going to be color coding my vitamins and then putting a dot rather than a check mark on the day I take them.

My last couple pages are doctor visit notes pages.  I printed out a page for each type of doctor I see, then Included a spot for the date of the visit and any notes I had.

Download here

With multiple doctors, it can be hard to remember when the last time you went was or if you're due for another check-up soon.  This way I can always see when my last visit was.  It will also help me remember any notes I got from the doctor about my health.

There you have my finished Health & Fitness section of my binder.  I hope you can get some motivation for keeping track of your own health!  Since this whole fitness thing is new for me, does anyone have any tips or suggestions for me?  What about keeping records, does anyone else feel like they haven't done something until its written down somewhere?

Next week I'll be showing all of you my beauty section!  I'm especially excited to get this part of my life all organized and scheduled (I know, I'm a nut ;)  Hope to see you here next week.