How to Create a Family Control Center

Your family control or command center is the area where you track all your family happenings and post your weekly plan for your household. This is a priceless tool for organizing yourself, your meals, your finances and the general running of your household – this is a physical dashboard to driving your life! If you don’t yet have a control center, today is the day you will implement one.

Today’s Goal: A functional household command center where you can organize a month’s worth of cleaning, household tasks, meals and important events and social obligations.

How to Create Your Control Center:

1. Take a “before” photo.
2. Clean your control center area. Wipe down shelves, cupboards, and drawers. Sweep, vacuum, and clean glass surfaces.
3. Toss, donate or recycle unwanted items.
4. Gather the essentials to create your control center – such as magnetic clips, a whiteboard, chalkboard or bulletin board, plus a calendar, and chalk or dry-erase markers.
5. Hang your control center items in a central location within your home, so it is easy to reference on a daily basis.
6. Assign a color to each family member.
7. Plan your meals on the calendar. Make a list of missing ingredients.
8. Create a cleaning schedule. Plan a “speed cleaning session” for each day, or assign each room, or area of your house to do a different day, and add that to your calendar.
9. Fill in the color-coded family member’s activities, appointments, events, etc. Store the dry-erase markers or chalk for updates.
10. Create a CONTACT sheet. List your WiFi log-in, important phone numbers and notes, and post them on the board for visitors or babysitters.
11. Take an “after” photo and share in your social media stories tagging Organizedbyburley, so that I can see your posts.