Five Ways to Create Order Out of Back to School Chaos

Whether you dread the start of a new school year or celebrate, it’s fast approaching again. I personally have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m glad for the reintroduction of structured productivity into my kids’ daily schedules. On the other hand, I feel guilty about my shortcomings in the organization department. Every September it becomes evident just how lax I became in the previous three months.

Each year, the scenario in my house goes something like this: I find myself madly scrambling about the house at the last minute looking for left over school supplies, taking inventory of the kids’ closets, making a list of needed items, and rushing out to the store. To my dismay, I find the notebook, book bag and pencil displays have either been rummaged through or taken down and replaced with Halloween costumes and Christmas trees. I barely manage to find what they need before I ship the kids off to class.

Then the receipts for lab fees, permission slips, medical forms, class rules, volunteer forms, and various other paper handouts make their way into my home. As I look at the growing mound of paperwork, I feel like I should plant a tree to make good with the environment and then hire a file clerk. This is only the first week of school and there hasn’t been enough time for artwork and hard earned A’s to make it home and vie for a prominent place on the fridge.

Try as I may to organize myself, my kids, and my home, by the third week of school I have a mound of papers and various other school items on my dining room table that I have no idea what to do with. But if I don’t do something, there will be no room for the turkey, let alone any family, come the end of November.

Returning to the daily grind puts a slight strain on the entire household, especially on those rough mornings when nobody can find anything and we can hear the bus roaring up the street. This year, I decided I was not only setting a bad example for my kids, but I needed to create order before chaos could reign. So I decided to call in the calvary. I sought advice from a seasoned professional whose job is to organize people’s homes and their lives. Dawn McCloskey, professional organizer and owner of Ultra Organized in Atlanta Georgia, responded to my concerns that I was unorganized and thus, unprepared for back to school time again.

McCloskey confirmed my suspicions that teaching organization to children is important. “By modeling and teaching organization skills to children at a young age, you are teaching them skills that will stay with them a lifetime. They’ll be able to do their homework, locate their belongings and become more independent. Assignments will be completed on time, mornings will be less stressful, and paperwork will not get out of hand,” she pointed out.

Well sure, it makes sense, but how does an otherwise unorganized person begin to create order? McCloskey offered the following suggestions:

In/Out System

Create an In/Out area for each child - a box, drawer, or basket - where all paperwork from that child is placed. The parent’s job is to review the papers and put anything that needs signed or returned to school back. The child’s job is to transfer those things that need returned to school to their backpack before going to bed at night.

Archived Paperwork

Create a plastic tub with the following files for each child:
Artwork
School work
Report cards
Greeting Cards, awards, other mail

Make it each child’s responsibility to file everything that comes into the house after it has been reviewed. At the end of each year, sort the items that should be kept, punch holes in the papers or slide them into sheet protectors, and store them in three-ring binders. Each child can have a different colored binder.

Displaying Artwork

Designate a wall for displaying artwork using a clothesline and clothespin. When all clothespins are used, have children decide what can be archived, what can be thrown out and what should be kept up before hanging new drawings or projects.

Resource Notebook

Children bring home a lot of reference papers – menus, phone lists, sports schedules, etc. Keep these readily available in a resource notebook stored in the “family command center,” which should be a central location in the house. The notebook can include reference materials for all family members including take-out menus, phone numbers, and a calendar.

Using an Agenda

An agenda will help ensure children complete their assignments on time. If your child’s school does not require one, purchase one or make one for your child from a spiral notebook. Have the child write their assignments, the books needed to complete the assignments and the due dates in their agenda each day. Young children who learn to use this system will be way ahead of the class when they reach high school.

Organization may be more difficult for some to achieve than others, but by working towards it and then following through with it, the time spent achieving organization will be returned at least two-fold. Things will be where you need them to be and those feelings of panic or sense of overwhelming stress will disappear. Not only do you benefit, your children do too – and not just for the school year, but for a lifetime.

To read more articles pertaining to organization, visit the Ultra Organized webite at www.ultraorganized.com.

Jennifer Beam is a featured writer for Xomba.com. Read the rest of her work here .