organizing tips - Stuff Parents Need

This is the second post in the guest post series from Julie Bestry. If you missed the first post, click here to get caught up (totally worth your time, I promise!).

Make Organizing Fun

Mary Poppins was right about that spoonful of sugar! If you make organizing fun, kids will enjoy mastering new skills. Get them involved in the game. Play an organizing version of Beat The Clock. When it’s clean-up time, play a kazoo to signal the start of the game, or put on silly, upbeat music to get them to pick up as many things as possible that don’t belong in a given room before the music ends.

Keep a small basket at the bottom of the stairs for items that belong on the upper floor, and make it a rule than nobody goes upstairs without carrying the basket (or, for little ones, carrying something from the basket) and putting it away. If anyone is caught ascending the stairs empty-handed, even Mom or Dad, they can’t pass Go or collect $200. Retu

rn to the starting position!

Put Some Structure In The Day

Although everyone likes novelty, children get particular enjoyment and comfort out of fulfilled expectations. That’s why they like hearing the same books read to them over and over. Using reliability, ritual and repetition in creating structure in the daily schedule gives children a sense of security.

Adults have structure in their workdays – appointments, regular meetings, deadlines, etc. Children have planned blocks of time at school, governed by the clock and the ringing of the bell. Carrying that structure over to family time means that meals should be at approximately the same time most nights, that kids need well-lit desks or tables at which they can do their homework daily (without having to move Mom’s hobby items) and that everyone has a reasonable expectation of “what comes next” in their evening rituals.

Kids (and parents) will feel more relaxed if they aren’t over-scheduled with after-school activities. Just as parents need downtime between walking in the door and cooking dinner, kids need a break at the end of the academic day to blow of steam, have a healthy snack and play. Create (and verbally call attention to) buffer time — make clutter-clearing time part of the schoolwork-to-dinner transition or into a post-dinner ritual.

Escape The Toy Box Jungle

Most children have far too many toys to keep them all in one bin or chest. (Smaller toys will fall to the bottom, never to be seen again.) Sturdy, low shelves allow easier access to larger games, puzzles and toys. Canvas or plastic bins (or even dollar-store dishpans) can work like drawers, sliding on and off the shelves. Laundry-style bins and baskets work well for storing stuffed animals, dolls and larger toys.

(Picture from Darah’s room. We turned a bookshelf on its side to make it just the right height for Darah. And we added some bins on top so that she could take out and put away her stuffed animals all by herself)

Older kids can make good use of stackable plastic drawers. And be sure to make the “One in, One out” rule part of the toy parade. If children know that to get a new toy they’ll have to relinquish older, perhaps no longer age-appropriate toys, they’ll come to understand that space isn’t unlimited. (And it’s good for Moms and Dads to be reminded of this for their own possessions.)

Create A Miniature School Room

Create a quiet, comfortable dedicated study area, and make sure that necessary resources (like dictionaries or computers) are close at hand. Set aside a drawer or shelf for school supplies to eliminate the possibility of students getting distracted from their studies by long, circuitous, Family Circus-style journeys to find a pencil sharpener.

For elementary school students, a simple in-tray may be enough to handle papers, but middle- and high-school students will need a basic filing system to manage incoming paper. A simple desk-top filing box or filing crate, plus sturdy hanging folders and 1/3 cut file folders in your child’s favorite colors, will work well to separate the individual courses and paper types (notes, handouts, quizzes, etc.)

Time Management Sometimes Means Saying “No”

Parents aren’t super-people—they can only handle so much: work, car-pooling, playing bake-sale gourmet and a few other tasks before getting worn out. Kids are the same way. Rather than signing them up for everything that interests them, limit activities to one sport or music lesson and one other club or activity per week. If they handle these well and keep their grades and energy up, they can increase their play-loads later in the year.

Just because there are a dozen activities that interest kids doesn’t mean they can participate in all of them, just like they can’t eat all the options at the candy counter. Help them learn to be judicious and select what will give them the most joy.

Be a Rocket Scientist and a Time Traveler

Most people think mornings begin when the alarm clock rings. In actuality, to successfully launch your family out the door for a great, organized day, build a launch pad the night before.

Establish some time between dinner and bedtime every night for creating a launch pad area for the next day, then time travel to the next morning to help your children think contextually about what they’ll need throughout the day. With your kids, gather up everything they need for school the next morning and place it all by the door they’ll exit: book bags with homework and notebooks, lunch money, permission slips, gym bags and musical instruments. If something won’t be ready until the next day, like a packed lunch or an art project, place a note on top of the book bag to remind them to grab it.

For younger children, build the launch pad while doing a running commentary of what you’re doing and why, so little ones get a sense of the meaning behind your activity. Re-stock the diaper bag, fill a tote with toddler books…and place anything you need to take with you on the launch pad. (Mom and Dad can use the launch pad too, for their keys and briefcases!)

Lay out clothes for the next day (from undies and matching socks to outfits and shoes) to make dressing quick and fuss-free the next morning. Chaos ensues if you ask a pre-schooler “What do you want to wear?” Instead, give a choice of two options: “Would you like to wear the blue fuzzy sweater or the pink turtleneck?” Grant independence but avoid the paralysis of too many options.

Demystify Organizing To Be A Role Model

“Do as I say, not as I do” doesn’t work, as children strive from the earliest ages to imitate their parents. So, if you have a habit of dumping the mail on the kitchen counter and not getting around to opening it for a few days, instructing kids to pick up bookbags from where they’ve dropped them may seem arbitrary. Maintain a calendar and check it daily to make sure upcoming events or appointments are remembered, required supplies or outfits are ready, and no conflicts have been scheduled. Let kids see and ask questions about the items on the calendar.

Finally, it’s not enough to be organized; explain to your children, in terms of outcomes, why organization is important. The idea of clutter being aesthetically displeasing won’t persuade the typical first-grader. Instead, focus on how disorganization can make you late for birthday parties. Talk about how buying new glasses to replace lost ones means less money to buy toys or go to movies. If kids understand how disorganization can adversely impact them, they’ll be more eager to cut the clutter, too.

Julie Bestry is a Certified Professional Organizer, speaker and author, who helps individuals and businesses save time and money, reduce stress and increase productivity. Although a generalist, Julie specializes in paper organizing, blogs as the Paper Doll, and publishes Best Results for Busy People: Organizing Your Modern World. For more information, visit Best Results Organizing at http://www.juliebestry.com.

I’m so deeply honored today to have Julie Bestry, a fabulous professional organizer from Chattanooga, guest posting here at Stuff Parents Need. I was introduced to her a few months ago at a meet-up for bloggers, and realized immediately that she had some nuggets of wisdom that you could benefit from hearing. And let’s be real, I need some help in the organizational department, myself! This is part of one of her post. Part two will go live in just a few days. Get a pen and paper out because I guarantee you are about to get some great ideas!

Organized Kids: An Operator’s Manual

What do parents need? Some serenity. Not lost library books, forgotten lunch boxes and missed parties. Teaching children organizing skills can be difficult, especially when parents don’t feel they’ve entirely mastered those abilities, themselves. As a professional organizer, I see how disorganization leads to morning arguments, wasted time and money and dissention in the family ranks. But there’s hope – you can be relaxed instea

d of regimented and still find matching socks. Simple strategies can transform life with kids from disorganized to delightful.

Building Blocks

Just as grocery shopping and a walk around the neighborhood are great opportunities to teach kids colors, numbers and the alphabet, even a two-year-old can benefit from having you point out basic organizing themes, like matching items and grouping them together. Seat pre-schoolers with you as you fold the laundry and have them find two matching blue socks, or help you put all the folded hand towels on one shelf.

A Place For Everything

Everything should have a home, but not everything has to live with you. That means that if something belongs in your home (or life or schedule), you need to create a defined place for it so there’s no question where it belongs. If it’s no longer used, enjoyed or appreciated, it‘s time to let it go.

For pre-schoolers, it helps to anthropomorphize possessions — pretend you hear the shoes in the middle of the floor whining because they’re lonely and miss their other shoe “friends” in the closet. If dolls and stuffed animals have secret lives, why not toys and clothes? By the time kids are too old to want to play along, the good habits will already be embedded.

For school-aged kids, consider advising that items abandoned (i.e., left far from where they belong) for more than two days will go into Time Out and won’t be returned for a defined period of time. Obviously, this works better with gadgets and toys than science books, but it’s a start.

Label, Label, Label

Once kids have mastered the idea of matched items belonging together, make it easy for them to know what goes where. For children who can read, label the interiors of kitchen and bathroom cabinets and edges of shelves so they can practice helping you put things away. Electronic label makers create easily-removed labels, and your kids can even help you create the labels – just proofread before hitting PRINT.

For pre-literate kids, post a photo of Barbie or action figures or LEGOs on the bins or drawers where those toys should be kept.

Put Yourself In Their (Tiny) Shoes

Those of us standing above five feet tall can forget what it’s like to be half that size. Make sure that the organizing tools you use for your children take their size, range of motion and manual dexterity into account. In children’s closets, be sure to have a low rod and shelves they can reach if you want to help them master dressing themselves and putting clothes away.

(Darah’s closet – not very organized, but the rod height is right!)

Use tubular child-size hangers – they’re sturdier, fatter, and easier for small fingers to maneuver, and brightly colored hangers motivate kids to hang up their clothes. Keep current-season clothes on the bottom rod and next season/next size clothing on the top. If your four-year-old likes to play dress-up in her best outfit, keep special occasion clothes out of reach, too.

Parents typically put underwear and socks in top dresser drawers, but if you want your kids to start dressing themselves, put foundation garments in the lowest drawers.

Tiny hands have difficulty manipulating hangers; add hooks to walls and the backs of doors (especially in the bathroom, bedroom and entry areas) so even toddlers can master hanging up towels, bathrobes and book bags. I highly recommend 3M’s Command-brand hooks, whi

ch come in all styles, from elegant décor to Disney-themed, hold a surprising amount of weight and can be easily removed without leaving any marks.

Use vertical space to your advantage to tuck away small toys and accessories with translucent shoe organizers or Simply Stashed organizers (above). (Stuff Parents Need readers can use coupon code BESTRESULTS for 10% off.)

Beds with oodles of fancy pillows may suit fashionable tastes, but it’s not an easy look for kids to replicate when they’re just learning how to make their beds. Consider skipping bedspreads and top sheets (which often tangle and come loose from their hospital corners) and stick with fitted sheets, comforters and one non-decorative pillow.

Stay tuned for part II!

Getting Your Kids Organized: Part II!

Guest Post on Teaching Your Kids to be Organized (Hallelujah!!!)