The kitchen is often the central hub of a home.  It’s the place where families gather to share a meal, where entertaining takes place and often where mail & other important papers end up. 

Many families keep a small work desk in their kitchen where they coordinate the family’s schedule and keep other important papers.  If you have a work station in your kitchen, it is important to have good systems in place to help you stay  organized and productive.  

How to Keep Your Kitchen Office Organized

Create an Action Filing System: We recommend having an “Action Filing” system in this area where you keep all papers that require some type of action.  You can use a small desk top organizer that holds hanging file folders.  The files would be named things like: (Bills to Pay, Calls to Make, Upcoming Events, To Read, etc.)  Ideally, you will have another filing cabinet or drawer in another room where you keep reference files like insurance policies, bank statements and so forth.

Create a family calendar: Keep a family calendar in this area.  This can be a paper calendar, a dry-erase board calendar or simply a print out of the month from your outlook calendar.  Keeping a calendar with the families activities in a central location like the kitchen will help with staying on top of your daily activities.

Hang a bulletin board: Think about using a bulletin board for storing upcoming theater tickets, sport tickets and invitations.  This way they are always visible.  Be sure to also put these events on your calendar.

Create a binder:  Use a 3-ring binder with dividers for each child or family member to keep sports schedules, team rosters, lunch menus, and upcoming school activities. 

Create a home for kid’s school work:  Does it drive you crazy when the kids come home from school and toss their school work on the kitchen counter?  Create an inbox for each child so they know exactly where it goes.  Use a medium sized basket or bin to store their school work.  Once the basket is full, it is time to go through and make decisions on what to keep and what to toss.  Just keep a few of your favorites and store these in a bedroom or storage room in a container.  

We hope you are able to implement some of these ideas on how to keep your kitchen office organized and that they will help make your kitchen work station headache free! Need some help getting organized? Let us know!