Defying Entropy

Entropy is a fancy scientific word that, at it's most basic form, involves the concept that nature tends to move from order to disorder. It partially explains the infuriating phenomenon that occurs when you find your house trashed 5 minutes after you finished cleaning it top to bottom.

Or maybe I've gotten entropy mixed up with having young children. Which can also be an infuriating phenomenon.

Either way, fighting the natural tendency towards disorder can be an exhausting battle. One look at my valuable collection of paperwork piles lying all over my counters, dining table and desk is enough to make anyone want to toss back a strong drink and take a nap.

EXHAUSTING!

And finding a system that works is even more difficult. So imagine my skepticism when Jason bought me a small gift a couple of months ago.

He admitted that he bought it for me on a whim. It was a good deal and he thought it looked like it was right up my alley.

And he was EXACTLY RIGHT!

The Family Life Organizer (henceforth nicknamed Flo), created by Pam Socolow at Family Facts, is less like a calendar (although it HAS a calendar section) and more like my personal external hard drive. It's like having 500 gigabytes of extra memory, so that my feeble brain space can be freed up to remember even more important things, like the names of my children or what I'm supposed to be fixing for dinner.

Flo is divided into 7 major sections: Calendar, Contacts, Kids, Good Like, Home and Auto, Healthcare, and Finance. And each section has a durable plastic pocket to keep track of any paperwork that needs to be saved.

Each section has tons of space to keep track of ALL the information you could ever imagine needing to run your household smoothly. And even some information you didn't know you needed, but boy, is it ever handy to have at your fingertips!

But the really fun thing about Flo is the unexpected bonuses! For example, you can keep a running list of wines you like or might want to try. There are travel planning worksheets, vehicle repair logs, sheets to record the brand/color paint you use in each room of your house, and almost 300 tiny stickers to use at your discretion on the calendar pages.

The layout is clean and simple, but not too girly/frilly, so your man (or YOU, if you are the man) can use it without having to turn in his (your) man-card. Each page gives you ample space to record the information requested.

Seriously, I never would have even thought of keeping track of some of the stuff within the covers of the binder, but Pam did, and it's helping me to be more organized than I ever have been. Plus, I'm fighting the piles, which pretty much makes me feel like a super hero. Pile Fighter!

And lucky for you, Pam @ Family Facts has graciously agreed to send one (1) Family Life Organizer and Planner to one of my readers!

AW YEAH!!!

I'm going to keep this simple- to enter my giveaway, simply leave me a comment on this post. You can post about it on Twitter for an extra entry, but PLEASE be sure to leave me an ADDITIONAL comment letting me know that you have done so (and please include your Twitter name (handle? ID?). If you tweet, but do not leave another comment, you will only have 1 entry. Thank you ever so much for understanding!

*Edited to add: Giveaway will end on April 16th at 11:59 PM CST

**Also edited to add: I am in no way being compensated for this review. Because I'm so in love with this product, I contacted Ms. Socolow myself and asked her if she would be willing to donate to a giveaway, and she was gracious enough to agree. *

Good luck!