If you're the one carrying everyone's schedule around in your head or planner – practice pickups, the dentist, who has a half day, when the field trip permission slip is due – you already know that trying to keep all of the details in your head is not ideal. Not only does it make your mental load very heavy, but your family can't see for themselves what is going on. The result? You also get constant questions about what is happening and when.
There is a better way to keep your busy family organized and on the same page. The key is to make everything visible to you and the rest of your family members. Not a binder or a planner that lives in your bag. Not a digital calendar that your kids can't see or add things to. Nope.
A family command center does just that.
My husband and I have used a family command center for over 16 years (yes, we used one even before our girls were born). I can tell you from experience that it will help keep you sane when life gets incredibly busy.
What is a family command center?
It is a designated space in your home that acts as a hub for your household for the purpose of keeping everyone on the same page and preventing important dates, papers, etc. from falling through the cracks.
What should your family command center include?
What you include in your command center really depends on your family's own needs, but they typically include things like a shared family calendar, a place for papers and mail, a notepad or board for notes/messages/lists, and hooks for keys.
If you aren't sure where to start, there are lots of family command center systems with modular components out there so you can choose exactly what you need.
How to Set Up a Highly Effective Family Command Center
Here's how to actually set up a family command center so that it lightens your mental load and gets used by everyone.
Pick a spot your family already walk pasts.
The trick isn't finding a "planning corner." It's picking a highly visible spot that your family already passes multiple times every single day, so checking it becomes automatic instead of one more thing to remember.
Kitchens and mudrooms/entryways are the two spots that come up again and again from customers who've made this stick.
Pictured above: Reusable Large Wall Calendar in Rainbow | 16 x 20 inches | Undated
If there's a wall your family walks by on the way out the door, that's a perfect spot! Not the home office. Not the bedroom. You want to take advantage of placing it in a high-traffic spot.
Our family command center in our current home is by the door that leads into our garage and it is the door we use 99% of the time to enter and leave our home. In other words, it's a high traffic spot.
Include a family wall calendar.
I am genuinely shocked by how many busy women I talk to that do not have any sort of shared family calendar that their kids and/or partners can easily see and use. Instead, they keep a paper or digital calendar that they are solely responsible for updating. It's a terrible disservice to them and their families (and yes, I do tell them that).
Y'all, this is a hill I will die on. Every single family needs a shared family wall calendar! A small desk calendar or an app buried in a phone fails for one simple reason: it's easy to ignore and can't be accessed/updated by everyone. A physical wall calendar solves that by being genuinely hard to miss and easy to access – which is the whole point.
We use a small, single-use rainbow calendar for our family calendar. We hang it on our refrigerator because we like to see three months at a time, and we couldn't fit all that where we drop our mail and keys. But as you can see, it's all in the same high traffic area and is literally impossible to miss.
And you don't have to wait until January or the start of the school year to find a calendar that works. Just find an undated wall calendar you love, fill in the dates and go. All of our calendars are intentionally undated, so that you can start whenever you're ready.
Pictured above: Single-Use Small Rainbow Wall Calendar | 8.5 x 11 inches | Undated
Get your whole family to use the calendar.
The real shift isn't hanging a wall calendar. It's getting everyone else in your family to use it, so you stop being the only one who knows what's happening. We hear how impactful this is from customers all the time.
"I started traveling for work a lot recently and my family was anxious because I wasn't around to keep everyone on task with their appointments, classes, etc. I got these calendars and my kids helped me fill them out. Everyone is so reassured knowing where they need to be and when, and the kids love that they can write in their own events too – unlike our online calendars, which they didn't have access to." - Deanna
That last part is worth sitting with: a shared digital calendar only works if everyone has access and actually opens it. A wall calendar has zero login required. Anyone tall enough to reach a marker can add their own practice, playdate, or "don't forget" note.
Pictured above: Reusable Large Wall Calendar in Rainbow | 16 x 20 inches | Undated
Use color and accessories to keep it from turning into a mess.
Once more than one person is writing on the calendar, color-coding is what keeps it readable instead of chaotic. A simple system – one color per family member, using colorful calendar stickers or washi tape to mark recurring events – means anyone can glance at the wall and understand what they are seeing at a glance.
Pictured above: Reusable Large Wall Calendar in Green | 16 x 20 inches | Undated
Keep the big picture and small details separate.
A monthly wall calendar is where the big picture lives. The family calendar should include the events everyone needs to see coming. But if you cram it with all the smaller day-to-day details (packing lists, what's for dinner this week, who's driving carpool), it will start getting confusing. And once that happens, it's not nearly as helpful.
Instead, I recommend using something like a weekly planning pad, memo board or even a simple notepad nearby for adding all the important details without over-cluttering the wall calendar itself.
The bottom line
You don't need a super complicated system to keep your busy family organized and on the same page. But you do need a visible system somewhere everyone already looks, big enough to actually see, and simple enough for the whole family to use so you don't have to manage it by yourself.
