For Busy Parents: The Command Center

One of my first questions for stay-at-home moms is "where do you sort the mail?" Generally this opens up a whole can of worms -- the billions of school memos, the catalogues, the bills to pay, the kids' craft supplies which have spilled over, the schedules, the myriad phone books (school, clubs, town...), and who knows what else has made it into the mix? Parents of today's children are like managers of a complex organization. Simple organizing systems of your pre-child days break under the complexity of parenting.

In every home I organize I try to create a command center -- a place for all of the in and out of paper, schedules, kids' memos, catalogues, and all the other "stuff" you need at your fingertips. This is generally separate from the home filing system, which is often off the beaten path tucked away in an office or a closet. Ideally, the command center would fit into the kitchen, laundry room, or mudroom, or somewhere else that you pass through multiple times throughout the day.

To find a location for your command center, reread the entry below on "zoning." You may think there is no room in your kitchen or mudroom for a command center, but open up all of the cabinets and ask yourself how often do I use these? If not every week, remove them from the high-traffic areas. I've never had a problem, even in the tightest of spaces, in finding a spot for the command center.

Next, determine what needs to happen here. Where do the bills typically get paid? How many catalogues do you tend to collect at a time? How complicated are the kids' schedules? What do you do with invites? Here's a typical set-up:

to be continued....