The Ultimate Guide to Organizing Your Family Command Center

INSIDE: CHECK OUT HOW WE TRANSFORM THIS AREA OF OUR HOME AND GIVE YOU THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ORGANIZING YOUR FAMILY COMMAND CENTER

Welcome to our family command center makeover….Kuball style!

In keeping with our organizing journey, take it one space at a time.

As you can see from the multiple plastic bins in this drawer, I’ve done this before. I just FAILED to keep up with it. Today, we accept the challenge and take back of our family command center!

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Always start here:

Purge!

Take everything out the cabinet and drawers. Throw away what you don’t use!!!!

I threw away expired meds, almost gone glue bottles, and half decks of cards.

If something doesn’t belong here, now is the time to find it’s permanent home.

Consolidate

Why do I have 3 boxes of bandaids?

12 opened boxes of batteries? Throw them all into one bin. It’s easier to grab them that way anyway. Or use this to keep them organized.

Clean

Wipe all shelves and the drawer with Mrs. Meyers. It just works so great. I don’t know what it is, and the smell is also calming to me.

Reorganize

I had some bins but I needed a few more. Here is what I got from The Dollar Tree and Target for our family command center makeover:

Supplies:

• Long bins
• Medium bins
• Large bins
• Fold ‘n File
• File folders
• Hanging folders
• Book Holder
• Weekly dry erase board
• Monthly calendar

How to use your plastic bins

Keep like things together using plastic bins. Put less used things, things you want to keep away from short people, and dangerous items out of reach!!

Use bins to separate like this:

1. Medications – allergies, first aid, headaches, prescriptions, and dog meds
2. Batteries – separate them by size so they are easier to find
3. Office supplies – stapler, push pins, safety pins, and hole punch
4. Writing – pens, pencils, markers, and so on
5. Electronics – extra chargers, extra earphones, flash drives, and charging blocks
6. Cards – playing cards and handy card holding thingies
7. Random stuff – I mean it is a junk drawer

Once you have your bins filled with your command center necessities, you can start to put them back into your cabinet and drawer.

How to use your Fold ‘n File

Since the purpose of this is to keep you organized, it helps to know what you NEED to organize.

Use this for:

• Latest school pictures
• Needed forms – must be returned or held for tax reasons
• Holiday cards – sometimes I purchase too many Mother’s Day cards, this is where I keep them for next year
• Coupons – I still get some in the mail, do you? Of course, they come to my email too, but why not take advantage of both digital and paper, if you can!!!
• Receipts– hubby needs to hang on to some of these for work, so he got his own folder

I want to point out that there is NO mail sorter in this command station. I sort the mail as it comes in. We don’t need to hang on to things we don’t need and mail is part of that process. If it’s a bill, that I have to pay with paper, then I pay it immediately. WHY? Because I will forget to pay it if I don’t do it now.

How to use your book holder

The next step in our family command center makeover was finding an answer to our weekly dilemma regarding library books.

Normally, the library books pile up on counter or get lost in their rooms. We spend weeks looking for them OR we start looking for them when we get a note from the librarian saying the books were never returned.

Using these book holders from The Dollar Tree, we fix our problem and now each kid as a place to put their books.

***Update – during COVID these were used to hold their electronics. AND now they put papers they want US to see.

How to use your weekly and monthly calendars

If you have room to have these on the same wall as your family command center, more power to you! Our house does not have a great place to put all of these things on one wall, so we use our kitchen in several different spots.

The main command center is to the right of the fridge, so it stands to reason that our calendars could go on the fridge. Plus……..we actually look at them because they are placed there.

Weekly calendar dry erase board

I suggest this for several reasons:

• It is easily changed each week
• The spaces are large enough for multiple family member schedules
• It fits perfectly on a refrigerator door
• Everyone can see it, read it, and add to it if needed
• Super important documents can be put on the cork portion

Each family member gets their initial – followed by the activity of the day. You can also use a different color for each family member.

Then we add each family member’s extracurricular stuff, work schedules, appointments, and daily school specials.

Monthly calendar

This is one similar to the one I have but I found mine in Bullseye’s Playground for $1, it’s worth looking…..

We use this calendar to plan our meals.

We don’t do anything fancy for meal planning. Kinda just pick a meal and go for it.

Actually, I let the kids pick a meal each week, I help them with a few choices but rather than arguing every night….I let them pick and then I don’t have to think about what to make every night.

This completes our family command center makeover.

Before and Afters:

I didn’t do this in a day. It took time, over the course of a few weeks, but as each piece came together, it motivated me to keep going. Do you have a spot that needs a makeover but you are overwhelmed by where you should start? Let’s talk it out. Comment below and let us help you!

Happy Organizing,