Home Command Center

Managing a home is a lot easier when you have tools and systems in place to make things run smoothly. When you add in kids, activities, church, family events and obligations, sports, household chores, meal plans…. it’s a lot to manage! Creating a home command center to manage the details can help everyone in the family to see things that are happening, so the responsibility isn’t on just one person!

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I have to admit… I resisted the home command center for a long time. I didn’t even have a wall calendar until this year! I really didn’t want extra clutter on my wall or in my kitchen. But as the kids get older and they have more activities, I needed everyone to be on the same page. So I finally created a command center for all our home management systems and tools.

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Creating a Home Command Center

My command center is pretty basic, and I used things that I had on hand already. We have a little wall next to our fridge, near our mudroom, and we had an old sewing table sitting in our garage that fit perfectly along the wall! I used command strips to add an old white board and a wall calendar that I probably bought five years ago and never used (good intentions anyone? ;)

I found an old hook and used a command strip to put some home management pages on a ring.

On the ring, I have the Household Restock Page, the Master Cleaning List, and the Master Meal Plan.

As things run out in the house, anyone can write them down on the household restock page. The kids can use the Master Cleaning List page to guide them as they clean rooms, or I can use it to help me make sure the tasks that need to be completed are done when I do a big cleaning day.

The Master Meal Plan page is my favorite. I’m not big on weekly meal plans. I tend to plan my meals based on what we have in the pantry, and I use a meal formula to create easy meals. (I have a whole post about this in Cultivate Your Home and in my How to Do it All e-book). But having our regular meals written down helps me when I have one of those “I have no idea what to make for dinner!” nights.

In addition to writing down all our regular meals, I wrote lunch ideas, snacks, etc. This is mostly for my kids, so that they can look here instead of always asking me, “what can I eat??”

On the mudroom door, next to the command center wall, I put a pocket chart from my teaching days (also attached with command strips). I used this to put the chore cards from the My Responsibilities Pack. You could easily do this with a magnet or Velcro strip too, instead of a pocket chart.

The chore cards are laminated and can be labeled with my kids’ names. They start out the day in the “to do” side of the chart, then the kids move them over to the “done” side, after the chores are done. I can write ALL on any chores that the kids need to do together.

I also have a little basket on the sewing table where we can keep extra chore cards, mail that needs action (like a bill that needs to be paid), and dry erase markers. I told my kids it’s not a drop zone, because let’s be real, we have a kitchen island everyone already uses for that. ;)

We use the dry erase board mostly for simple reminders or tasks that I don’t ant to keep reminding my kids. For example, when we have to wake up early for a track meet, I’ll write a list of all the things my kids need to get ready. I’ll write down: water bottle, sweatshirt, snack, shoes, jersey. So they can gather up what they need to , and I don’t need to remind then 1000 times. ;)

I’m really happy with this little command center! It’s not fancy, but it serves our purposes really well.

What are your must-haves for your home command center?