The Dodo Household Stuff Book

When I was on maternity leave and spending a lot of time on internet parenting forums, I discovered a lot of mums talking about Flylady. Intrigued, I went off to investigate and discovered a lovely American lady who has a whole system set up with a website, daily email reminders and even an online store full of organisational tools to help people get control of their lives, taking "baby steps" 15 minutes at a time, to declutter their homes, bodies and minds. One of the things that she says is indispensable is a Control Manual, a place where you can keep track of your important numbers, "to do" lists, appointmenst and all the other zillions of things that we all have to remember every day. I thought that was a great idea but I couldn't actually be bothered to sit down and make one ! Well, those lovely but slightly loony people at Dodo Towers have done it for me !

I've already adopted the Dodo-Acad Pad for work, which gives me a place to keep track of not only appointments but also any other little notes I need to jot down like parents' phone numbers, urgent documents that need photocopying that I know I'll forget about otherwise and just general random doodlings when I'm bored or stressed ! It's brilliant, well thought-out and I use it several times every single day.

Well, the Dodo Household Stuff Book is another tool that is going to be extremely handy on a day-to-day basis. It's an A5-sized ringbinder with 50 sheets of looseleaf paper (with a cute dodo doodle on every page !) and a series of tabs to help you organise your home life. You can fill in a ready-made list of important phone numbers (doctor, dentist, plumber, childcare, etc) as well as "other kinds of numbers" you need to have at hand, such as bank account numbers, passport number, social security number, etc. They're the kinds of things you hardly ever need then spend hours searching for in a mad panic in an emergency. There's a wipe-clean weekly activities page, as well as monthly lists for birthdays and anniversaries (easy three-months-at-a-glance lists so that you don't suddenly discover a birthday two days before when you turn over the page in your diary and it's too late to send a card !).

I love the little flaps behind many of the pages which allow you to store important receipts, forms that need filling in, letters waiting to be posted or cheques waiting to be taken to the bank.There's also a handy compartmentalised transparent plastic pocket at the back for you to keep important cards in (maybe not your credit card but your national insurance card, loyalty cards etc) as well as an A5 pocket which I use to store bank paying-in slips, stamps and a couple of envelopes so I can deal with any outstanding paperwork quickly and simply whenever I have a moment.

Just like the Dodo Acad-Pad, it also has a large number of silly drawings and intriguing facts and quotes to make you smile.But the biggest smile will come from never again having to scrabble around frantically trying to lay your hands on an important piece of paper that has magically disappeared from the place you are sure you left it in (and, if you have kids and/or a husband, where you probably DID leave it !).

If you have a junk drawer in your house (and don't we all ?!), you'll be amazed at how much you'll be able to streamline it and how much easier it will actually be to get the information and documents you need at a second's notice. It's one less headache for busy mums (and dads) trying to keep track of several people at once and if you've ever suffered from "baby brain", you'll know how valuable anything is that can help you be a bit less scatty !

star rating : 4.5/5

RRP : £18.95

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