It’s the new year and you’ve just put away the presents from the holidays and now you’re thinking, what can I do to organize my home? If you share your home with children, it can quickly get disorganized. That is why having a ‘command station’ in your home is a great step to getting your household organized so you can better focus on the New Year’s resolutions you’ve made.
What is a command station?
Stemming from a military term, a command station is a location in your home that holds important information for how your family operates on a daily basis. With work, school, events, church activities and many more things that pull our family different directions, we have found our command station helps keep our family organized with our busy schedules.
We have come up with some great ideas to help you create your own command stations. Remember, not all command stations are created equally. You can customize it for the amount of space you have and how much information you need to have to make your station effective and useful for your family.
1. A storage system. We found a great storage unit that was small enough for the wall area in our kitchen. I love that we can add to add the fold-able storage bins. I label each bin with my children’s name to keep the important papers and art work from school. The kids come home from school with plenty of paper work, so it’s a great idea to have an easy way to store them so they are not all of the house. Sturdy storage bins can be found at any department store.
2. Menu Board. My kids always ask ” What’s for dinner?” By implementing a menu board into our home, it has been a great tool to deter the dinner question. I especially love this menu board because it uses a dry erase boards. We have used chalk before and that works really well too. However, I am loving that I can avoid the dust that chalk makes.
I purchased the dry erase markers with the eraser on top. So instead of trying to find one eraser, each one of the markers have their own. I think that’s absolutely genius! I like to place the cookbooks near the menu board so then when we are trying to figure out what to put on the menu board then the resource is readily available.
3. Calendar: A calendar is an important tool to help keep your family organized. Whether its a dry erase board one or a printed one, it helps to keep everyone on the same page. We especially love calendars by Amy Knapp.
This calendar stays on your refrigerator and you can customize it easily.
4. Do you have a family binder? We actually have several family binders and they have different purposes. The one we have at our Command station has important information that could easily help a babysitter. It includes all of our emergency numbers, doctors contact information, allergy information, etc. Customize your family binder to include important information that you may need quickly.
5. Bills and Mail: We like having a place to organize the incoming mail that we receive everyday. The bottom bin is in the processing phase, so it may include open or unopened mail. When we have actually looked over a particular piece of mail and know that we will keep it and it needs to be filed away, we place that on the top portion.
6. Supplies: If I need to write a note, cut up a coupon, or highlight something in a book that I’m reading, I head to my command station. I have lots of supplies, including a stapler, paper clips, pens, and other items that the children may need for doing homework.
7. Adjustable Cork boards: In order to accommodate different spacing, I like the idea of have cork boards that I can place anywhere I want. We got these cork boards at a local department store.
While there are so many more ways to stay organized that we haven’t covered. We hope this offers a quick little guide on some of the possibilities. Want to contribute your own article? Contact us and we will be in touch.
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