Ahhh, back-to-school time. The time when a woman stops, looks at her family, her house and that giant school-supplies shopping list - and wants to scream, “We gotta get organized around here!”
And just as she’s about to ask for volunteers for ‘The Great Back-to-School Clean-Up and Organization Blitz,’ someone walks in the door, throws their sweatshirt on the couch and asks, “Do I have any clean gym socks?”
Let’s face it: Whether your children are starting preschool, junior high or high school, it would be a heck of a lot easier to just wait a decade or two to organize the nest - after it’s empty.
But if you can’t stand to hold out that long, productivity consultant Jan Jasper is ready to come to your rescue. Getting organized, when tackled the right way, can do even more for your mind than it does for your closets, says Jasper, author of Take Back Your Time (St. Martin’s Press). “When your home is organized, it becomes an effective base of operations and a relaxing refuge,” she adds. “When it’s not, it’s an obstacle course.”
Amen.
Check out these back-to-school cleaning-and-organizing tips from Jasper and Georgene Lockwood, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Organizing Your Life (Macmillan). We’ve also included some mom-tested tips.
Plan ahead for success
Set up ‘school central’. Using brightly-colored folders or containers, organize a simple filing system for school papers, artwork, etc. Make the area kid-friendly. If adding Cat in The Hat stickers to the folders makes your kids actually want to file their stuff, why not? And rather than saving all that artwork forever, let your child choose his or her favorites and keep only those. Send the rest to grandparents, aunts and uncles. Or use them for wrapping paper.
Set up ‘operations central,’ too.Every family needs a place for processing mail and paying bills, says Jasper. And it shouldn’t be the kitchen table. You’ll need an uncluttered surface to write on. Jasper suggests stocking this area with a calendar, scissors, pencils, pens, highlighter, tape, stapler, envelopes, address stickers, stamps, calculator, notepaper, paper clips, letter opener, bank deposit slips and sticky notes. Your workspace must be near the phone, since many pieces of paper can be eliminated immediately with a phone call. You’ll also need a filing cabinet (perhaps on rollers) and a wastebasket. Best place to open mail: next to the wastebasket.
Make organizing fun.Forget trying to cram a child’s toy back into the original box - if you can even find it. Instead, buy colorful baskets or plastic boxes for storing their toys. Label the boxes for older kids and use pictures for small children, so they can see where everything goes.
Make closets accessible. To get a jump-start on those hectic weekday mornings, position closet rods low enough so that kids can reach - and also hang up - their own clothes. And save the little hangers that come with kids’ clothes. They’re free, and young children are more likely to want to use their very own kid-sized hangers.
Cut bathroom clutter. Give each child a different-colored plastic bin to hold personal-care items, then arrange bins on the bathroom shelf. (Another advantage: We won’t get into the whole head-lice issue here, but suffice it to say, if kid #1 comes home from school with an itchy scalp, you’ll be glad kid #2 has a separate box for brushes and hair goodies.)
Create routines that work
Get the kids involved. Have a weekly chore list posted on the fridge, and assign every family member his or her share of tasks. (Rotate jobs so one person isn’t always stuck with cleaning out the cat box.) Even young kids can help pick up clothes and toys, set and clear the table and feed the dog.
Use rewards - and consequences.Post a list of choices for a weekly family reward for a job well done: family movie night, pizza night - whatever lights a fire under your cleaning crew. On the other hand, if your helpers don’t follow through, don’t do the job for them, says Lockwood. “The deal I made with the girls was ‘No TV until the chores are done,’” she says. “Sometimes, there was no TV.”
Minimize morning madness. My hat’s off to you if you can pull this one off: Jasper suggests folding and storing entire outfits together (everything except shoes) in your kid’s drawer. In the morning, just grab an outfit. Maybe more realistic: Re-pack backpacks each night and place them by the front door to cut down on late-for-school craziness.
Establish a to-do area by the front door. Drop off everything that needs to go out: dry-cleaning, library books, etc.
Recycle toys and clothes. Don’t ask your kids to throw out toys or clothes they’ve lost interest in or outgrown, suggests Lockwood. Ask them to recycle the items by giving them to less-fortunate children. Visit the hospital or shelter where their items are going so the kids have a clear picture of the good they’re doing, she adds. Also, rotate toys periodically so that those of current interest are handy and those that generate less enthusiasm go in temporary storage. When the ‘old’ ones come back after a designated period of time, give them to charity if the kids still aren’t interested in them.
Don’t forget the garage. Paint ‘parking spaces’ on the garage floor for bikes, wagons, etc. This makes it fun for kids to put things away.
Aim for fun - not for perfection.
Pile on the praise and try to keep your sense of humor about the whole thing, say our experts. Both go a long way toward making kids want to help. And notice the little things your family does, Lockwood suggests. “Put up a banner. Pin an ‘I’m #1’ button on for the day. Go on a picnic or a special day trip.”
It also pays to know when to cheat. For example, don’t do laundry more often than you have to. Buy extra sheets, towels and underwear on sale so you can skip an occasional laundry day. Go to the zoo instead. (And when you do get around to washing those sheets, try folding the flat sheet around the fitted sheet and pillowcases so everything’s bundled together at bed-making time.)
Most important: Hang up that Supermom cape right now, advises Jasper. “Being less of a perfectionist about keeping a perfect home will give you more time to enjoy life,” she says.
So take a vow to try these tips, enlist your family’s help and let the little stuff - like all those preschooler hand prints on the walls in the hallway - slide. I’ve pretty much decided I’ll wait and paint the hallway when my son’s in college.
Then again... those chubby little fingerprints don’t look so bad right where they are.
For more information
Messies Anonymous offers newsletters, books and other organizational help at messies.com. The free online version of their newsletter is terrific.
Visit Jan Jasper’s website at www.janjasper.com
To locate a professional organizer in your area, visit the Professional Organizers in Canada’s website at www.organizersincanada.com
Kathy is a freelance writer who lives with her husband, her teenage son, the family dog and too much ‘stuff.’ For more information, visit www.kathysena.com.
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