A couple of years ago, I posted about the advantages of creating a "command center" in your home to keep everyone in the family informed and on the same page in a low-tech manner. I showed you an example of the elements we included in ours here at Chez Sheridan and provided a few tips on developing your own. If you missed it, you can still read it here. While ours has served us well, I was ready for a change...something simple yet a bit fun and whimsical that everyone in the family could get into. I decided to go with a chalkboard and wanted to share with you just how easy this is! 

As I mentioned in my original post, an effective command center should be located in a central spot where all family members will see it. I have this weird little wall between my kitchen and the main living space in my home that makes the perfect spot, but it's also one of the first things you see when you walk in the front door. As you can see from the photo, I'm not very artistic, but part of the fun of the chalkboard is that you get to play around with it and it's a fun way to get your kids (and spouse?) involved too. I'm pretty sure I can trick my teenagers into keeping themselves informed if it involves doodling with chalk!

To make your own chalk wall, all you need is chalkboard paint, painter's tape, some chalk, and an eraser. It really doesn't get any fancier than that. I bought a can of chalkboard paint for about $8.50 from WalMart and still have about one-third of it leftover after two coats on my little wall. Simply tape up the trim with the painter's tape and roll it on. It dries to the touch in less than two hours and is ready for a second coat in four hours. Allow it to dry for three days before writing on it. Then "season" it by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk all over the board. Erase it and you are open for business!

As I said, I can barely draw a stick figure, but there are lots of great resources on the Internet for inspiration on fonts and designs you can use to spruce up yours. This was my first stab at it, but I look forward to getting better with practice and adding some color next time. At least my kids won't be bugging me about what's for dinner tonight and will know what's on the calendar in the coming days.

Get creative and encourage other family members to contribute, too. After all, the whole idea is to foster more communication between you. The more they are looking at the board, the better the chances they'll absorb the information on it, right? Enlist their help in keeping it updated by assigning "chalkboard duty" to a specific person each day or week. Add reminders, an inspirational quote, or some seasonal doodles. My photo only shows the top half of my wall, but I deliberately left the bottom portion blank for my kids and their friends to write on. The more involved they are, the more organized and on top of things they will become.

With a little chalk and some creativity, even keeping the whole family informed can be easy peasy!

Running an efficient household requires some organization and lots of communication, especially in today's hectic world. In some ways, this has become easier with the advent of shared calendars, electronic reminders, to-do and shopping lists, and menu planning apps. But there's something to be said for leveling the playing field with an old-fashioned, low-tech solution that everyone in your household can access the same way. One has only to glance at Pinterest to see that household "command centers" are more popular than ever for keeping families connected and informed. 

No two command centers are the same. Aside from being an effective means of communication and organization, yours should also reflect the personality of your family and blend in with the rest of your home, something that takes a little planning.

Here are a few tips for setting up an effective command center in your home:

1. Location, location, location - Finding the right spot is key. Ideally, you want a central spot, like the kitchen, where everyone will see it as they are preparing for the day ahead or near the most-used entrance/exit so that it is the first and last thing family members see as they are heading in or out the door.
2. Keep it simple - Nothing kills organization and communication like a cluttered, visually-noisy message board. You don't want vital information getting lost among a gazillion pieces of paper or important meetings overlooked on a crammed calendar. Give some thought to the most important components to include in your design, and consider the amount of space you have available to comfortably display each element.
3. Remember function over form - Obviously guests are going to see your command center if it's centrally located in your home, so you don't want it to be an eyesore, but as with all other organizing systems, you won't use it if it isn't easy to use. Therefore, take into account the mechanics of changing calendars, writing on whiteboards, pinning notes and reminders, etc. Make sure you can reach things adequately and easily maintain your system, whatever it is.
4. Consult your family - You may not need tonight's dinner menu posted, but the kids may want a few hours to get mentally prepared for liver night. Since this system is for everyone's benefit, make sure you design it in a way that will benefit everyone by asking for their suggestions on what to include.
5. Measure twice, drill once - It's helpful to create paper templates of each item and tape them to the wall in the layout you want before you put holes in the wall, just to make sure everything fits the way you envision it. 

To get you started with a few ideas, here's what I've incorporated in my family's "Command Central". We were very tight on space, so I had to be selective in what I included:

Dinner Menu:  I've included a spot for posting the weekly menu. To save space, I display only today's dinner (to warn the kids) and tomorrow's (to remind me what I need to thaw out or prep). The cards area easy to swap out and can be saved to give me meal ideas for future weeks.

Weekly Calendar:
My husband and I share a Google calendar, but I post just the key events and reminders for the coming week for the kids' benefit. I purposely chose to make this a "white board" (just a glass picture frame that can be written on with a dry erase marker) rather than a traditional-style calendar to give me more room to write in. I find that merely transferring the weekly highlights from my online calendar to the board helps me better focus on the week ahead.

Mail holder: I collect the mail and sort it immediately into a file system I have that works great, but occasionally my husband gets mail he needs to deal with himself. Rather than leave it lying around on a table for him to ignore, I put it in the top slot of the mail sorter. After several weeks in here, I feel I can safely throw it away, and it least it isn't getting in my way in the meantime. ;-)

I use the other slots for important/emergency phone numbers so that we don't have to look them up and for my kids who are at the age where I am just beginning to leave them home alone for short periods of time.

The full-year calendar (with paydates circled) attached to the front comes in handy for quick reference without consuming lots of extra space.