Create A Family Command Center

Keeping track of your families’ schedule has always been a difficult task; with so many moving parts, it is nearly impossible to keep everything together. Now, in a world with ever-fluctuating schedules and constantly shifting dates, balancing working from home has been made even harder.

The best way for your family to get organized and stay organized is through an established family command center. Equal parts front desk, home office, and information center, the family command center is the go-to place for you and your family to find your day-to-day answers. Depending on your home and your work-from-home needs, your family command center can be placed anywhere in your house that makes sense for you and your family; whether that is in your kitchen, mudroom/ entryway, or elsewhere. If you are in tight quarters, take advantage of the underleveraged space in your hallway by setting up your family command center there. A family command center can be updated and fine-tuned to meet any family’s needs, but commonly consist of a few core things:

A hand-written schedule never goes out of style. Use the schedule to balance family and work while keeping track of can’t-miss dates. By hanging a large, visible schedule in your family command center, the whole family has the ability to take responsibility and keep track of important events. Keep one in your family command center to keep everyone up-to-date and accountable.

No family command center is complete without a workstation. A necessity for the hybrid world we are currently living in, a workstation usually consists of a small desk, a desktop or laptop computer, and key office supplies like paper and pens. Separate from a dedicated office space is key to working from home and the family command center workstation is the perfect place for quick, day-to-day work, such as checking emails, paying bills, or finishing homework assignments.

As the central nervous system to your home, it just makes sense to have a filing drawer in your family command center. Use this space to safe-keep hard copies of bills, house paperwork, kids’ school records and more. By using drawers or shelving for these important daily documents, you’ll keep yourself and your family organized and on track.

Getting started is always the hardest part: for examples and inspiration for your own family command center, take a look here.

Work and home life bleed together often, but when you work from home, it tends to mix together a lot easier, leading to burnout, stress and irritation for you and your family. And with so many things to do every day, it is easy to get overwhelmed with a neverending to-do list. Balance and streamline your life by establishing and committing to a firm routine. Everyone’s routine will look different based on their daily schedule and tasks, but by blocking time in your day for things like your workout, uninterrupted work time, and time to be spent with your family, your routine can help keep you accountable to yourself, your productivity and your work/life balance. Though setting firm boundaries can be difficult especially while trying to work from home with kids, it is totally worth it. By establishing a firm routine, you will be able to maintain organization and balance in your life.

For those continuing to work from home, workspaces and offices are found in kitchens, bedrooms and even closets. But for you, nothing can replace a space that is comfortable and organized. Whether it’s an entire room or maybe just the corner of your bedroom, set up a dedicated space in your home for you and your work.

Different from the family command center, this space is for you to do what you need to do. Customizable in so many ways, your dedicated work area should be set up in a way that suits your needs versus the entire family’s. Whereas your family command center is great for day-to-day maintenance and upkeep of schedules and daily tasks like bills and homework, you can use your dedicated area for your work from home set up. You can additionally house equally important, but less frequently used documents like family passports, birth certificates and more. By separating these two integral spaces, you will help keep you and your whole family organized while maintaining the balance between your work and home life.