Recently, I (April) posted this question in our STEP Mastery Facebook group:
What would you think about a quick class called ‘Command Central in an Hour’–where I show you how you could build the whole thing using file folders and pieces of paper (or digital notes) and then we just started processing things together? Would that sound fun? Scary? Exciting? Crazy? What’s the first thought that comes to your mind?
The response was HUGE. Today, we are so excited to share a portion of that class with you–so you can get your STEP Command Central built today! Go ahead and gather these supplies, and then let’s dive in!
What You’ll Need:
- 9 file folders
- A small stack of blank paper
- Post-its
- Box or container to hold incoming papers
- Banker box, basket or bookshelf (for files)
- Sharpie (or something to write with)
Tip: If you don’t have blank file folders on hand, you can easily reuse folders by turning them inside out!
Ready to build?
Engage Daily – 0:00-4:15
If you don’t have a calendar in place, simply do a quick online search for “printable calendar” and print something off. Or you can use Google calendar–get the app here! Just get a calendar, super simple.
For your Next Actions List, take one piece of paper. Write at the top, “Next Actions.” Down the side, you can draw simple images, or write out the words:
- Home
- Phone
- Computer
- Errands
- To Discuss
This doesn’t need to be your permanent Next Actions List. Remember, we’re just keeping it simple for today. If you want to look into something different for the future, you could use:
- Franklin Covey’s Compact Progressive Task List (I prefer these….)
- A large Post-it (easy to stick inside a planner or notebook)
- Cozi
- OmniFocus
- Evernote
- Calendars 5
- And more….
If you don’t have your emails to zero, we have a free training you can check out here!
And then simply designate the landing spots that you will check each day. This is pretty much all you need to check daily.
Engage Weekly – 4:15-10:40
I love my Weekly Review! If I am worried about something happening next week or have a bunch of information to process, I know I will take care of it during my Weekly Review. That way, these things don’t have to sit on my mind–I know I can trust my system.
Here’s how to quickly build the parts of your system that you will review weekly:
Inbox: This is super simple. You just need a container or box to hold papers that come in each week. Don’t worry about going out to buy one–one of those boxes that holds cans of green beans will do!
Current Projects List: Label a Post-it note with “Current Projects” and put it on your first file folder. Inside your folder, you will keep two sheets of paper. Label the first with, “Current Projects,” and then down the side:
- Me
- Family
- Beyond
The second is for your “Next in Line” projects.
Routines: Label a Post-it note with “Routines” and put it on your second file folder. Then take a blank sheet and label it as follows:
Along the top, this stands for:
- Daily
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Quarterly
- Yearly
And down the side:
- Me
- Family
- Beyond
Waiting: This is just a simple folder labelled with, “Waiting.” Then put a blank paper inside, where you can write down things you are waiting for.
Goals: Label and put a blank paper inside.
Read / Review: This folder is empty, ready to add things like newsletters, manuals, etc.
Engage as Needed – 10:40-end
Filing Cabinet: This is where you will use the banker box, basket, or bookshelf to hold files. (If you already have a filing cabinet, feel free to use that!)
Support Materials: Label this folder and leave it empty, ready to hold any papers related to your Current Projects or routines.
Tickler: Label and put a blank paper inside. Typically, I use 12 folders labelled with each month, but you don’t need to start with that. Just start with this one.
Someday & Incubation: Label 2 folders with “Someday” and “Incubation.” You can put a blank page inside each, to write down your ideas, if that feels helpful to you.
To Review
Your 9 folders are labelled as follows:
- Current Projects
- Routines
- Waiting
- Goals
- Read / Review
- Support Materials
- Tickler
- Someday
- Incubation
You’ve created sheets of paper for your Next Actions List, Current Projects List (and Next in Line), and Routines. You have an Inbox to hold incoming papers and a box to hold your files. And that’s it! You’ve built your STEP Command Central! Congratulations!!
Related Resources
We’re in the middle of collecting 25,000 photos of STEP Command Centrals. Want to be part of the movement? Even if you’ve just built the basic set-up described above, YOU can join Club STEP! Simply take a photo of your new STEP Command Central, and then click here or on the image below to learn how to send it in! Prizes and fun are on the way, and you won’t want to miss this! (Scroll to the bottom of that page for the submission form.)
And if you want to go deeper and really learn how to USE your STEP Command Central, more coaching, support, and the full “Command Central in One Hour” video is inside our Steps to Everyday Productivity (STEP) program. Click here to join our free training and learn more!
I’ve recently been listening to your podcasts and I love your passion. I used to be very organized, with my Franklin planner, very regimented schedule (worked full time, masters degree classes 2 x week, worked out at gym 5 x week, tracked every rep and every ounce of food I ate). THEN….I became a mother. Anyway, my son is now 10 and I’m ready to be organized again. We have a good system for syncing our schedules (I use my personal gmail and “invite” my work email and my husband’s email – if it doesn’t really involve him, he can always decline.) I have ADHD and work very well with a schedule, but I beat myself up if I don’t stick to it. You mentioned in one of your podcasts about what a “perfect day” looks like, and also how you imagine there is someone with a clipboard somewhere judging you, lol. I do the same thing to myself!
Kelly, thanks for your comment! It sounds like you’ve got a great foundation to build on. We’re so grateful you’re part of our community! Be gracious with yourself and keep up the good work!!!
Hey Miss Taryn! Hope you’re having a fruitful summer! I am writing in hopes that you could send me an email about a problem I am having applying the system to my life. I think my problem boils down to this question: How do I determine if something I want to do is a PROJECT, or a GOAL? For instance, I want to save $1,000, is that a PROJECT or a GOAL? Also, how do I organize my thinking so that my projects flow FROM my GOALS (and, really, my values and even opportunities…)? And then how do I “organize,” or ALLOT TIME for my Next Actions? Do I have to think of how long each next action is going to take and then build that into my daily work… I have lots to do… so my time for projects, outside of exercise and health and basic home duties are about 6 hours a day…. HELP! My mind is still a squirrel cage!
Soul sisters. I think it’s time to ignore the clipboard…. 🙂 GREAT things are ahead!!! So happy you’re here!
This is what I have been wanting, a shortened version. I have watched and listened, read and read again, push pause go back watch again, listen again read again and again. Not joking. I keep repeating this process because I really believe your system will help me but I desperately needed a very short version. I love your enthusiasm and all of your ideas, it reminds me of myself honestly. For me all of your tips and tricks and thoughts became very overwhelming and that is when it would start over for me. Watch, listen, read and read again push pause go back………..
Thank you for this. After five months I now know how I can get started.
Great feedback!! Thanks so much. My biggest concern has never been that the system didn’t “work,” but I have been concerned that I wasn’t teaching it as simply as possible. We are all learning and growing together, and I hope by our efforts making this process simpler, you can unlock all the goodness that is waiting for you!!!
Hello, if there is a way to make it simpler for me too. I don’t have five months to wait at this time. Thanks
Thanks for asking, Dee! This video will do the trick for you! There is a longer version in the Bonuses section of your program. It’s also available in the Facebook group. We’d love to have you join us there! You can do this, Dee!
Love this! I have been listening to your calling and encouraging podcasts (-I also read David Allen’s book recently), and am starting my Command Central as we unpack after our move!
Your podcasts where you share your personal journeys and interview other STEP life-changes people have been super interesting and inspiring.
Molly, I am thrilled that you are here with us, and I can’t WAIT to hear how your Command Central-building goes. 🙂 Good luck with your move and thanks for your kind words!
Thank you, it took me a while, but now I get it! I am hard of hearing and had a very hard time following because you talked so fast, but I paused it a lot and labeled folders. then I saw it is pretty much all explained in type below, so then I “watched” again and that time I listened to you talking while I read and made my file folders and took notes. Now I understand!and will recommend your videos to my friends.
In the future, if you caption your videos, it will make it more accessible to the hard of hearing and any Deaf people who are fluent in English. That would be my only constructive critique, it would have made this so much easier to follow. It’s also what happened when I tried to follow your other videos, too fast no captions, I got lost. Did a lot of pause rewind, review, squint at the screen, pause, write down what I remember, rewind, watch to make sure I got it right, repeat. one video took me four times as long as it used to. But! I now feel like I better understand how to set up The basic command central, and I wrote on my calendar for tomorrow’s main goals, attend my online class and watch/take your email to zero challenge! I’m excited about that challenge, because I’ve been trying to organize my emails and I’m overwhelmed.
Thanks again!
Thank you for your feedback! We’re glad the video and article were helpful to you. We do want to do more for our community members who are deaf or hard of hearing and are looking into some options. We have a transcript available for our free class “How to Stop Drowning in Piles.” We’d be happy to send it to you! Send a message to [email protected] and we’ll get it to you. We’re thrilled to hear that you were able to set up your Command Central! We invite you to submit a photo of it to our #25kSTEPCommandCentral challenge! You can learn more about that here: https://learndobecome.com/step25K. Thanks for being with us!!
Enjoyed listening but appreciated the written info to fall back on quickly and the individual enlarged photos.😊
So funny I thought I would offer to CC these videos I am not sure if I even know how to do that BUT YES it is below. I found that out also hehe. Still I would love to CC them!
This is SO helpful! I have been a part of the STEP Program for about 3 years now. The first year I did almost nothing with it. I have printed off the documents and watched videos (more than once.) I have been using “next actions” for over a year now and wouldn’t dream of doing life without it. I listen to the podcasts while I do laundry or work out (so inspiring!) I have a space for my command central…but really needed this SUPER SIMPLE visual to get me jump started on actually doing it and becoming ONE of the 25Kers you are going to breeze through this year. (This video will be a HUGE help to many busy people, I am certain.) Thank you for adding this resource to our tool kit!!! #gratefulheart
Wendy, we’re so excited for you! This video is just a small part of what was shared and recorded that day. You can find more in the STEP Bonuses part of your membership. You can also find it inside our Facebook group. We’re glad to hear that the Next Actions principle has been helpful to you. It’s a small thing that makes a big difference! We can’t wait to see your Command Central! #25kSTEPCommandCentrals
Hi Apri,
Just recently joined. I had never seen this before and had never heard about it. So, of course, was hesitant. But after going back and forth to my computer for many hours somehow I just decided to dive in! Here it is only a few days later and already my email inbox is at zero and I have set up a command center!!! Amazing!!
Thank you, Donna (And I still don’t even really know my way around! I took your advice
and just kept going forward )
Donna, welcome to STEP! We’re thrilled to have you with us!! Congratulations on conquering your email inbox! Keep that momentum going. 🙂 We look froward to hearing your success stories in the months ahead!
I can’t get the video to play, and I’ve tried on 2 mobile devises and 2 different browsers…help?
Hi April,
Thanks for these great videos. I am confused on the difference between:
Waiting
Someday
Incubation
Thanks for asking, Nancy! The waiting folder contains tasks or items that need someone else’s attention. You’ve done all you can do and are waiting for them to finish their part so you can then move forward. Someday is for those things that you know you want to do, just not yet. Incubation is where you put things that you are still thinking about. You might want to do the project but you haven’t decided for sure. Thanks for being with us!
Hello! I’m so excited to start this program and get our lives organized. Do you think instead of having a cubby system an accordion style folder would work? I kind of want to keep it minimalistic. I’m just wondering if having an office type setup like yours is best for any specific reason. 🙂 Thanks for your wonderful videos and program.
Welcome, Brittney! We’re thrilled to have you with us and we look forward to hearing your success stories! An accordion style folder would absolutely work. The idea is to have a central place to keep your support materials. Enjoy getting started! Please let us know if you have any questions along the way. Have the best day!
It’s funny, I was considering going the accordian file route too and possibly having everything at my fingertips on Microsoft One note so I have that to refer to when I’m not at home for next action page.
This boiled down video and system is a wonderful way to enter the LDB system. I bought it last year and between work and family, I didn’t have the chance to start it. However, being a Franklin-Covey user since 1994, I recognized its potential.
I broke my arm badly two weeks ago and now is the perfect time for me to slow down and organize my home, work and volunteer activities. This quick and simple method gets me started and I look forward to expanding it. Thanks for the video and your system!
Thanks for your kind words, Pamela. We hope your arm heals quickly! Enjoy getting started and please let us know if you have any questions along the way. We’re thrilled to have you with us and we look forward to hearing your success stories! (Be sure to check out the Facebook group as well. The members there are so supportive and helpful!)
Just starting. I feel lost at times. Finished my command central.
Welcome, Isabelle! Congratulations on building your Command Central. You’re well on your way! Keep moving forward in the program and be sure to join the Facebook group if you’re part of our Mastery program. The members there are so supportive and helpful! We’re thrilled to have you with us and we look forward to hearing your success stories!
I get the idea of the 9 folders and the weekly next action page to move things along each week and the inbox for incoming mail. My trouble is getting into a routine where I can come home from work, take care of the daily mail, make something for dinner and take care of the next actions for that week. Some projects may turn into routines such as keeping better track of monthly expenses in the quest to buy a house. The quest to buy a house has been a multi-month project with the daily routine of checking the real estate site and checking emails from the realtor and the regular paper mail is a never ending project. It built up the worst during COVID as I was doing paperwork at work all day into the evening and didn’t want to do anything when I got home. Is there any way to streamline the process other than to go paperless where I can and maybe use the read/review folder or the tickler folder for the flyers I want to use for shopping and information I want to add to my computer (i.e. a updated balance of a savings or investment account)?
Great questions, Arlene! The short answer is to get your Command Central up and running. 😉 Once you’ve got your system built you’ll have more mental bandwidth to process each of these things and create projects and then routines to keep them maintained.
If you are part of our Mastery program, we invite you to join our members’ only Facebook group where there are more than 14,000 people all working on the same program. The members there are so supportive and helpful, and there’s always someone there with a great idea or an answer to your question. We’d love to support you there! Feel free to reach out to our team with any additional questions you may have, email(at)learndobecome(dot)com.
We’re thrilled to have you with us and we look forward to hearing your success stories!
I would like to watch the video zero emails. Where do I find it?
Vera, thanks for reaching out to us! If you are part of our Steps To Everyday Productivity (STEP) program, you can find information on inbox zero in Module 1. You can also request the information on this page, https://learndobecome.com/emails-to-zero-in-90-minutes-or-less. Once registered, be sure to check your spam or filtered folders in case it was delivered there first. 🙂 Enjoy!
Loving my new Command Central and it’s already helping!
I’ve got a question about the Support Materials folder, though. Why create an extra step? If I have something I need for a Current Project or a Routine, why not just put it in that folder? If I put all support materials in the support folder, then I have to pull two folders out, plus I have to go looking through the folder to separate out what’s for a project and what’s for a routine every time I open it.
I know I can change the folders to fit my needs, just wondering if there’s a logical reason to have a separate folder for materials that I’m not seeing?
We’re so glad it’s helping, Megan!
This is such a great question. The Current Projects folder contains the list of projects you’re working on. The same goes for the Routines folder. The Support Materials folder(s) contain the papers/files/information needed to work on a specific project or routine.
If you have 7-8 Current Projects, then you could potentially have 7-8 additional folders–one for each project. That way you’ve got just one folder to pull out as you’re working on that specific project.
While this may sound contrary to what we’ve shared in the video, it’s one of the many ways that you can customize the program to fit your needs. We go deeper into this inside the STEP program, and if you’re a Mastery member you can reach out there for even more insight.
I hope this helps to clarify things for you. Please let us know if you have any additional questions!
Hello, April, I was blessed to ‘happen’ upon the webinar and know instantly that it is what I need to learn in order to stop repeatedly building piles and crates of stuff, all neat, mind you, but stuffed and not executed…stared at: way too much to do, too many ‘needed to start years ago, but-still-plan-to(s)…s-o-m-e-d-a-y. Just made my Command Central with pocket folders I bought while out-of-town because my mind was on revamping my setup and taming my piles. This was God’s perfect timing: I literally got up from a nap, saw the webinar offer on my computer, watched it, set up pay for mastery class because I want to build multiple streams of income, all of which require a system for best use This is a step beyond, or in addition to, Stephen R. Covey’s First Things First, which is by what role I have in context. STEP takes out the mind-boggle (of what to do in these few minutes I have), and all I have done so for is make my Command Central! On to taking eleven thousand emails to zero- THAT shouted ‘Get this right now!’ So, thank you already.
Yolande, you are darling!! Super excited for you! It sounds like you are in an ideal place in your life to implement STEP and get your systems built so they will support your big goals. Way to go!! Thrilled to have you here! The Mastery community on Facebook is AMAZING. They can literally answer any question that might come up. Can’t wait to hear more from you!
Hello, April – This is quite ironic . . . I saw your program online last January & watched one of your free videos. Since I have a tendency to procrastinate, I decided to then sign up for this program – to really get things organized & deal with & then avoid the ‘paper piles’ issue. Well, true to form, I procrastinated just a bit, & just started on this yesterday (November 2nd); just a minor 10 month delay from when I first signed up. Oh well – at least I’m moving forward now. I do have one question – I’m not real sure I understand what the page is for that has the ‘NEXT ACTIONS’ as the heading with the: Home, Phone, Computer, Errands, & To Discuss headings down the side. This didn’t appear to be a ‘folder’, so where does this go? I ordered some folders online, but went ahead & got my sticky notes labeled & the appropriate pages that will go inside the folders. But what about that ‘Next Actions’ page??
Thanks, Cindy
Hi, Cindy! Thanks for asking! The “Next Actions List” is used for the specific project next action steps as well as for random “one time” tasks. The key factor is to use this list for things you want to accomplish during this week and you create a new Context Based Next Actions List (CBNAL) every week. If something comes up that MUST be done today or on a certain day, then you can add that to your daily tasks in your planner or online calendar. Projects have a monthly focus (no more than 7-8 total at any given time) and then the next action for each project goes on your Context Based Next Actions list (CBNAL). During the week, you will focus on project time and accomplishing just the very next action of your project. Every day you can use your planner to organize your day around your appointments and commitments, but the CBNAL helps to keep your calendar clear and your tasks for the week nicely organized.