Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Family Command Center Update

Every home needs a family command center.  With all the different things going on and our schedules being so busy and hectic, it's nice to have it all organized.  Kids need a chore chart.  Bills need to be organized in a way that makes it easy to find, and sort.  An excellent way to do that is to have an incoming, outgoing and a to be filed area.  The blue box with the circles is my to be filed box.  I'm going to label it later.  I made it out of a box that goes on a book.  This was actually from my college years and I still had the book, don't need it or the case so I took the case and covered it with contact paper.  I wrapped it just like I would a gift except where the opening is at the top.  Then I put two holes in the back to hang it.  The board on the left was just one solid marker board on right and bulletin board on left.  I used washi tape to divide the marker board into sections.  My children's chores are listed in the two bottom sections and the upper section is for notes.  I glued and taped three envelopes together with washi tape to make individual files for things like coupons and receipts.  The to do list to the right of the notes and chore chart is a picture frame with a note card inside decorated with washi tape and check boxes drawn on.  To the right of that is where I tack up business cards and sort my incoming and outgoing mail.  At the bottom of that is a place to hang keys, but since I don't hang my keys up I used it to hang a basket to put dry erase markers and a marker board eraser in.  At the bottom is my calendar with a section on the left to make my grocery list.  I still have plenty of wall space available to the left but I haven't figured out what to do with it yet.  At the top of the wall, I plan on putting some inspiring words and a picture frame with a family photo.  I have seen a lot of different family command centers and all of them had great qualities, just not many that applied to me, so I made it my own.  I don't need a menu board as many of the command centers I've seen online.  I like to plan it all out that day not a week ahead or even a day ahead.  For moms who work out of the home though, a menu is probably a great idea that way you know what to lay out that morning before you leave for work.  For me I like instead the idea of having a grocery list here, because I can write stuff down as I discover I'm low on it or out of it.  Then when I go shopping, I just snap a picture with my phone.  As for the to be filed box, I hate filing things.  Its just easier to me to put it all in a box like this one and when it gets full, I have to make myself file it.  It would be ideal for me to have a desk under all of this so I can sit down and write out bills as needed, but there's no room for one because of the island.  Anyway, I usually pull them out and stand at the island sorting through them, going from one website or app to the next paying them, then I put them in the to be filed bin.  The two that I have to write a check for, do not have a website for me to go and pay, so I write those two out and stick them up in the outgoing mail section, until I get around to heading to the post office, usually the next day, or on the way to do my grocery shopping.  I like to run my errands all on the same day if possible.  I am still looking for new ideas to improve my command center.  Anything that will help me improve my hectic life with two kids is great for me.  Maybe some of these ideas will work for you or maybe you can throw some ideas my way. 

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