My Kitchen Command Center (aka How I Stopped Forgetting Everything)

Life Hacks

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Need tips to organize a daily schedule for kids? Every household needs a command center! This is a place for schedules, reminders and other important things to keep every member of the family on the same track.

This post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclaimer here.

Daily schedule on blackboard

Motherhood is a BIG job, and it actually includes two separate types of tasks: the parenting part of caring for kids and the household management part!

Our life has gotten progressively crazier and crazier as our family and my businesses have grown and I had begun to drop balls every day. Forgetting piano lessons, church activities, work commitments…I was constantly apologizing for my overloaded brain!

I’ve really missed having my little desk area in the kitchen like we did in our last house (see the tour here), mainly because it helped me organize my life! So instead of that, I was keeping my planner and calendar on the corner of the kitchen counter and it was kind of driving me crazy.

The paper planner kept me from having to glance at my phone all day to keep track of my appointments; I’m really forgetful and always need regular reminders throughout the day.

Enter this blackboard! I hung it up on the wall under our kitchen clock, where I glance multiple times a day anyway, and on it I have 3 main sections.

What to include on the board:


On the left, I write the day of the week and a rough schedule of the day. For example:
Liam piano: 10am
Vivian tutor: 12pm
Mom work call: 1:30pm
Girls Dance: 4pm

On the right we’ve decided to write a prayer list for my kids to remember who in our family and community needs to be included in their prayers.

Finally, on the bottom I have the menu plan for each day of the week. And recently two kids have had to go on daily medications that I can’t forget to give them, so those go on the board too!

This has helped us immensely since starting back up with the chaos of the school year. My kids all know what’s going on every day without me telling them, they know when to get ready for appointments or lessons and even babysitters know what’s going on when I have to leave or work.

A bonus has been that the kids don’t negotiate for pizza or fast food at dinner time because they already know what we’re having (and because it’s on the board, I’m committed and can’t give in to pizza every night).

It’s kept me from having to keep my planner on the counter and I avoid having to glance at my phone all day to see what’s coming up next.

I also bought chalk markers in a variety of colors in order to color code obligations per child or per type of appointments, etc. I think this will really help the kids keep track of things too.

So what do you think? Do you have any other kitchen command center ideas or how to keep track of a daily schedule for kids?

UPDATE: Our command center blackboard is still going strong and I use it every day! We have changed it just slightly though – I now put up the entire week’s schedule at once on Monday. I much prefer to write on the board once a week rather than once a day! And it’s helpful to see at a glance how busy our week is going to be.

We also moved the prayer list to the bottom right of the board and I included a place on the bottom left for a list of phone calls and errands I need to do. That way, when I have a free minute, I can make that call to reschedule a dentist appointment, or I’m reminded as I run out the door to take that return back to Target.

blackboard command center

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    […] If you want to know my other FAVORITE household organizational tool, check out this post on our kitchen command center. […]

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