From here on out, I'll be your commander!

Anyone who is into organising will understand the concept of a command centre - Pinterest and Instagram are full of inspirational pictures of various set-ups. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the idea, it's a space in a central place in your home which holds vital family info like shared calendars, home management binders, to dos and paperwork.

I decided to combine a command centre with a mudroom-style entryway to meet our family's needs. It's located right next to our front door as that's what made the most sense to us, but I know the kitchen is also a popular spot. I thought I'd do a quick tour of the set-up to share the inspiration behind each part of it and how it's helping to make our lives simpler.

Here it is, our command centre:

Each part is numbered so you can match it up with what I've written below.

1. Corkboard

A catch-all memo board for any loose papers we need quick access to, such as coupons, stamps, receipts, etc (it's also the home for our bin collection calendar!) It's handy for remembering to grab things on the way out the door; a recent example is that I had my covid vaccination card pinned there so I remembered to pick it up before I headed to my second jab appointment.

2. "This week" chalkboard

I opted not to put a family calendar in our command centre because we already have a shared Google calendar for family appointments, and my husband and I both prefer digital input. However, it is handy to have the week's headlines at a glance as we're heading in or out of the house. The one we've got came from B&M and cost less than a fiver.

3. To do list

Again. most of what we need to do on a daily or weekly basis is captured in a digital planner, but this notepad is useful for scribbling quick notes so that things aren't forgotten in the hustle and bustle. We also use it to track our bigger weekend clean-ups around the house.

4. Wifi password

We have our wifi password written on a photo frame. It's on the outside of the glass so that I can wipe it clean when we periodically change our password. We've done this so that anyone coming into our house can access our wifi without feeling like they have to ask for it.

5. Key holder

Pretty self-explanatory this one. We wanted something that didn’t necessarily look like a key holder and found this beauty on a stand at the Kent County Show one year.

6. Individual dump boxes

I know my husband well enough to know that if I created a system that was too elaborate, I'd be the only one following it, so we've gone for open baskets foe everyone to dump their stuff in as they come in. These baskets catch wallets, loose change, sunglasses, face masks, hats, gloves - pretty much anything that comes out of a pocket when you get home. A lot of the time, my husband's basket catches his keys as well, because he can't be bothered to hang them up - it works for both us, he gets to dump and go and I'm still happy because they're contained somewhere. My husband and I have a basket each, the kids are both small enough that they share a basket at the moment, and the fourth basket is for the dog's poop bags and lead. The dog's harness is too big for the basket, so we hung a little hook on some empty glass space we had on the porch door (see 6A).

7. Paperwork

We have three magazine holders to handle all papers. One for incoming papers that haven't been read/opened, one for papers that need action, and one for any outgoing papers. We're attempting to go paperless, so any papers that need scanning before we recycle them go in the action box; with a newborn in the house we're a little behind with our actionable paperwork so that box is currently fuller than I'd like, but at least it's still organised. We have a privacy stamp (like this one) that we use to blot out any personal information before we either recycle the paper or use it as kindling on our log burner. This is a system we're still working on, as we have a habit of leaving little piles of paperwork in random places where we've read mail while doing something else, but at least we still have somewhere to corral it all eventually.

8. Shoe baskets

Like the catch-all baskets above, we have individual baskets for shoes below (again, the kids share) to house shoes that we take off when we get home, or want quick access to (most of the shoes in the house are in under-bed storage). The idea of the baskets is that if your shoes are overflowing out the top of the basket, you have too many shoes at the front door and need to take some upstairs. Previous to the baskets, there was a massive, messy pile of shoes on that shelf - it was challenging to dig out a matching pair and horrid to look at. This hides most of the mess in containers, but still allows the speed of dump and go (seeing a theme yet?).

9. Bag hooks

This came purely from laziness. The first iteration of this system saw bags stored in the shoe baskets, but this became problematic as it meant there was only room for one pair of shoes in each basket. That wasn't working for anyone so now we hang the bags up.

10. Shopping bags

We're trying to reduce the amount of shopping bags that come into the house. I got into a terrible habit of forgetting to take bags out with me and having to pay for new ones when out and about. As well as purging the bags we currently have at home, I've hung a little hook in the dead space behind the stair gate in an attempt to encourage me to grab some bags on the way out the door. It's not foolproof, but it's certainly helping.

So, there you have it, our command centre. It's by no means a perfect system, but each part of it has been designed to make our lives that little bit easier, and that's the whole point of organisation. The main thing for us to work on now is consistency in using it every day to make sure we're getting maximum benefit out of the system. As always, I'll continue to tweak it as I find certain elements that aren't optimised for our needs, as no organisation system is ever static.