The Command Center: Where Your Organized Life Begins

If you feel chronically disorganized and just don't know where or how to start, I would tell you with much enthusiasm to begin by developing a Command Center for your home.

We hear this term more often now, but what exactly is a command center?

It is a zone or location in the house where the day to day management takes place. It’s your family headquarters. It should include a calendar, important information, to-do lists, files, a laptop, an inbox for the family manager(s), and whatever else is required to keep things organized and moving smoothly in your lives. While some parts of the command center are common for all, there are some parts that are specific to your personal daily or weekly routines, your children’s ages, your preferences, and anything that helps you to streamline your responsibilities. It can be in a corner of a room or on a particular wall in your home. Size is not of importance, but efficiency is. 

Let’s talk calendars! I incorporate three into our everyday lives. I am a big fan of the dry erase calendar. The more people in your household, the bigger it should be! While I also have a planner to write in as well as the FamCal app for all of our phones, there is no amount of technology that replaces seeing a week to week schedule in front of you all at once. I often find my husband standing in front of it scratching his chin in deep thought. It’s like a family battle plan. And as for the good old-fashioned paper planner, I don’t think I’ll ever not want one in my life. It seems to serve as the rough draft of our lives. Every thought, reminder, activity, meal plan, and chore finds its way into my weekly planner. There are lots of scratch-outs and changes made because life is a constantly changing adventure once you throw in a bunch of kids. Now that my older girls have phones, I have added the FamCal app to keep us all in the loop. I add the regular day-to-day schedule and activities for all to see, but when one of us needs to add an upcoming event, it can be done on the spot with notifications for the rest to see. No one seems to ever be without their phone and things are best handled as soon as they come up or as soon as the thought comes to mind, so the FamCal app is ideal. I can add reminders that pop up refusing to be ignored so no one really has any excuse for forgetting that Mom is picking them up from school today or that they have a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon. They can even add reminders for themselves about projects or social plans. It’s like the living calendar. You can opt for any of the these three calendar options or use a combination of them that works for you and your family. 

The family battle plan!

The next thing you’ll need is a good multi-tiered paper tray to keep those daily details in order. Let’s start with a “To File” tray for anything you’ve reviewed but would like to keep for records: statements, receipts, teacher newsletters, policy renewals, guidelines, etc. If you don’t have time to put it in its file, it doesn’t have to get lost in a pile. Put it in the “To File” tray. You will make a habit to give this tray its own attention each week, but in the meantime it is safe and easy to find. 

The next tray should be labeled “Planner and Passwords” or “Important Information” because, well, nowadays there are far too many passwords for any human being to remember and keeping the same password puts you at risk for cyber theft. Create yourself a booklet or some cheat sheets with passwords. One of the best things I ever did was to develop cheat sheets and either laminate them or stick them in a page protector. Some people hear this and think I have too much time on my hands to be sitting around playing with word documents and laminators, but the time that these have saved me is inestimable. I have a sheet for Household Services that includes the company, address, customer service number, account number, website, email, and sometimes a small detail like the size septic tank we have. Whatever I know I will need when I contact that company… it’s right there for me. This can be done with credit cards, bank accounts, and medical information too. In addition to info for our insurance and doctors, I include each family members’ last check up and next check up because I’m often surprised at how often this information is required. Another sheet can be dedicated to personal information like driver’s licenses, social security numbers (who can remember a slew of kids SSN’s), 529 plans, insurance policies, car and bank info. You decide what goes on these sheets and then put those most important pages in your paper tray or a safe if that feels more secure.

My favorite cheat sheet in the “Important Information” tray is the one dedicated to my kids. I have their schools’ info at the top with address, phone numbers, receptionists, school day hours, usernames and passwords for portals and apps, and even bus information. Then each child has their own paragraph with school emails, teachers phone numbers, room numbers, emails, specialist days, lunch and recess times, activity details, and even Scholastic codes. When anything comes up I grab my cheat sheet and waste not a minute of time. And trust me, something always comes up. As my girls have entered middle and high school, I also take a copy of their schedules (which can be rather complicated) and laminate those as well. 

The next tray is especially helpful if you have children. It’s the “Upcoming” paper tray. Party invitation with details? Field trip form info? School event in two weeks? Sports schedule with field locations? Of course these are things you immediately add into your calendar, but you know you will need the extra info from the sheets on the day of the event, so throw them in the “Upcoming” paper tray for a quick grab on the day of. This is helpful even without kids of course. Have an upcoming endoscopy with instructions for prep? Buy tickets for a show next month and get them in the mail? Upcoming. It’s a very useful tray since there is always something coming up soon.

Naturally there is a “To Do” tray. There are always things that we cannot get to right away, but also cannot forget about. Throwing them in here instead of back on a table to get piled on is really the second best decision you can make. Learning to carve out 15 minutes twice a week to look at these trays is the FIRST best decision! All of the organization in the world will not help you if you don’t use it on the regular. 

Depending on your family situation, you may find this next tray labeled “Meal Planning” to be a big win. When I print a recipe I throw it in a page protector and into a binder for either Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, or Dessert. Cookbooks are great, but today we spend a few minutes on break (or awake in the middle of the night) and see a pin on Pinterest or a link on Facebook and we print straight from our phones. Binder cookbooks like this are a great solution. Print it, page protect it, throw it in a binder. When I look at my week on a Sunday, I see what days there might be time for cooking and when it might be best to throw together a crock pot early in the day. I grab my binder, remove the sheets that I want, scribble the meals into my planner, write down ingredients on my shopping list, and toss those sheets in my “Meal Planning” tray. Now much of my shopping list is done and I know exactly where to find my recipe when I stumble into the kitchen at 5 AM or I’m running out the door to an appointment. 

My last paper tray is “Mom’s Inbox”. It is a great one, but the one that requires constant attention. My kids come home from school and empty their bags and here is where they know to dump all of their graded tests, project information, artistic creations, notes from teachers, permission slips, birthday invitations, and phone numbers from friends. If Mom needs to see it, sign it, praise it, address it, approve it, or note it in the calendar, it goes here! It takes participation from both Mom (or Dad) and kids, but it makes everyone’s life so much easier. Cute art? Hang it up. Ugly test grade? Check in with your child. Maybe email the teacher. Field trip? Sign, return, and info goes in the “Upcoming”. Birthday party? RSVP, add it to the calendars, tuck the invite into “Upcoming”. Project coming up? Note deadlines in your calendar to check in with your child. Classroom need supplies? Add them to your grocery list. It’s the one-stop location for keeping current with the small humans’ lives. And the big ones, too! 

The final item in a good command center is the filing system. Even just a small filing cabinet will do. I keep the latest statements and renewals, bank papers, car work done, medical records, life insurance information, and of course, a file for each of my children that includes papers and information from everything they are currently doing. My daughter is a gymnast so you’ll find information from USA Gymnastics, her gym guidelines and rules, the year’s schedule in case we need to switch on a week, her school teacher’s newsletter, a receipt from her leotard, her latest school medical form from the doctor, etc. My son’s will look different in some respects because his has baseball season information, a warranty for his mitt, his class list with parent emails, reading hints from his teacher, and so on. Something comes up, I know exactly where I’ll find what I need. 

Because that is really what a Home Command Center does: exactly what you need. It is a central location for resources, coordination, and function. A family with a working command center has less stress, rushing, fighting, disappointment, frustration, and messes. Parents in successful Command Center homes have more time, patience, grace, peace, and clarity. And their kids can only benefit from the readiness and example that they see. 

Let’s develop your personalized Command Center asap. Let’s take the time to save you the time. Book a free consultation at thehotmesshealerma.com to get started. Every hot mess deserves to get healed.

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