The Kitchen – Family Central

The kitchen is the hub of family activity and is usually the best place to communicate with each other. It often becomes a dumping ground for mail, kids’ backpacks and accompanying school papers and projects, telephone messages, recipes, and other household junk.

Consider setting up a command central or message station where there is a place for all these various incoming (and outgoing) papers and objects. You can get as fancy or as simple as you like with this. I have two small magnetic baskets on my refrigerator – one holds keys and the other holds ID cards that are shared by family members (such as children’s gym membership and health insurance cards in case one or the other parent is not around at the time of visits to the gym or doctor). A family calendar is magnetically held to the refrigerator, as are resources and references for school and town information.

A desk under the telephone holds phone books, message pad paper, pens and other office supplies needed for leaving notes. A bulletin board holds kids’ artwork.

To cut down on the dirt in the house, there is a shoe rack just inside the door for family members to put their shoes and keep their slippers for a quick change when entering and exiting the house.

Thanks to Organized a to Z partner Amara Willey of Time to Get Organized for contributing this article!

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