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For a busy family, with ever-growing to-do lists, school calendars, and after school activities to keep up with, having a small arsenal of organizational “hacks” can be invaluable. I don’t claim to be an organizational pro, but I do think that years of moving house to house (military wife!) , has taught me a lot. These things may seem “little,” but they do add up and WILL save you time, and likely a little bit of sanity!
1.Outgoing mail/bill tote: Ever need to get a bill or a letter out quickly? Where the heck is an envelope, stamps, your check book, or a DANG (!!!!) pen? Yeah. You feel me. Let’s remedy this, okay?
Pick yourself up a photo storage box, or any other little storage tote you like. Fill it with all of the above items, along with tape and/or anything else you’re always struggling to find. Now, put that little box of Save-You-Time in a place where it’s easily accessible. This could be in your home office or it might be in a kitchen cabinet. Ours is housed in a cabinet that lives in our laundry room. I NEVER find myself trying to track down any of that stuff anymore. WIN!
If I sit down to send out Christmas cards, I pull out that handy-dandy tote and get to work. Our checkbook sits in there, too, since we only ever write checks from home. This is also super convenient for days when I am sending checks to school, or when its time to pay pre-school tuition.
2. Lunch drawer: I admit it. I despise packing lunches for school, because I feel like a mad woman trying to track down tiny containers, ziplock bags, ice packs, and plastic spoons! Recently, I found myself incredibly annoyed at doing this daily, so I decided to try and make my life a little bit easier by getting just a TAD more organized. So, I took a whole kitchen drawer and I made it all “about” school lunch.
In it, I have: several small containers with tight lids that won’t leak, sandwich-sized containers, ziplock bags in snack and sandwich size, a sharpie (for labeling, which we do daily on our school snacks), and –my weird secret weapon: old applesauce cup containers that I have washed and hoarded over time. Why? Because those little things are PERFECT to put a scoop of peanut butter (without a lid) and slipping into my son’s lunch container where they don’t slide around! I found that our lidded ones were too large, so I tried these and they were PERFECT inside our ziplock divided containers. MOM WIN.
3. Tupperware Drawer: This isn’t a new idea, that having your Tupperware and all of its seemingly endless lids scattered around various cabinets isn’t the picture of a happy kitchen. Not to say that Tupperware should EVER have any kind of bearing on ACTUAL happiness, but having that stuff tidy and neat DOES make for a smoother kitchen flow and way less frustration! So, my tip is to find ONE space in your kitchen for plastic Tupperware. If it’s a deep drawer, great! But, if it has to be in a cabinet, that’s ok too!
If it’s a cabinet, I recommend using a shallow container to keep it all wrangled. From there, sort through and pitch anything that’s stained or no longer sees use. Then, be sure that the lids you have match the containers you have, and pitch anything that doesn’t have a “mate.” Be sure to consider dishes that may be in your dishwasher before tossing anything! Now, find a smaller vessel that will JUST be for containing your lids. “Stack” them standing up for easy access, and then neatly stack your containers together. If they don’t fit in the drawer or basket, consider whether you actually need them!
4. Boxtop Canister: This one is self-explanatory! I keep all of our school box tops in a canister on the kitchen counter. I used to clip them and throw them in our junk drawer, and then would have to hunt them down in there when it was time to turn them in. This is a small thing, but its just one less thing that I have to think about in the midst of the crazy that is our life!
5. Marker Box/ Art Carrier: This one comes out from necessity. I have two little guys who love to color and draw, and a rather little house. We don’t have a specific space for making art, so the boys just color wherever “works” at the time. Oftentimes, it is at our coffee table. Sometimes, its at our kitchen counter. And occasionally we sprawl out on the living room floor and get to doodlin’!
We color all over, but we DO keep our supplies contained in one small cabinet in our living room. We always have blank paper on hand, as well as a caddy (similar one found here) that holds markers, colored pencils, pens, and pencils. The kiddos know where to find their supplies, and they know where to put them away.
6. Kids’ Art/School Project Box: This brings me here, where I will tell you a secret: I have SUCH a hard time tossing ANY sort of creative project my boys make, whether it’s a simple drawing or a school art project. But, I was buried in projects and drawings and I found myself stuffing them in random baskets that would inevitably overflow. I knew I needed a (literally) big solution! I found some HUGE but under-the-bed friendly, zip-up boxes for the boys’ room. We still try to be selective about what we keep, and all of it goes in those wonderful giant boxes. This way, we can go and reminisce when we want to, but we don’t have paper coming out of our ears☺
7. Kids’ Collection Drawer: I think “child” and “hoarder” might be synonyms. My children collect everything from stickers that have lost their stick, to rocks or acorns, to broken Happy Meal toys. They obviously need a place for these important-to-them things, so we assigned the top drawer in their night stands to do that job. When they find something they have to keep, that doesn’t have a “home” elsewhere, into their drawer it goes! When the drawer becomes too hard to open or close properly, we go through it. Usually, by the time we sort through the drawers, much of the content doesn’t hold interest to them any more.
8. Office Drawer Organizer for Kitchen Gadgets: Do you know how much easier it’ll be to find your tiny 1/8 teaspoon or 1 of your 1,000 rubber bands if you put a drawer organizer in your kitchen gadget drawer?! It will take you 4 seconds instead of 40, every time. Do it!
While you’re at it, sort through that dang overcrowded drawer. Toss out that spatula you’ve never used, the soy sauce packet from 2004, and 1 of your 3 garlic presses (because, how often are you using the other two garlic presses when you just so badly need that 3rd one to step in? No. Toss it!)!
9. Homework Shelf (or Drawer): This one is for all of you mommas, but could certainly apply to non-mommas, too. If your kiddo is given homework in the beginning of the week that is due at the end of the week (or the next Monday), do yourself a favor and create a space just for homework. I am not talking about a place to DO homework. My kiddo who has homework likes to move around and he kind of does homework wherever. The lifesaver is having a place where the homework is returned while he’s not working on it. He always knows where to find it, and where to return it!
It all goes back to creating simple, predictable routines for our families. His homework NEVER gets lost, or eaten by a dog or little brother. It is always in the same place until it’s due to be turned in. For us, we use that same living room cabinet that we keep our art supplies in. He knows where to go. We don’t have to search. Boom. PS. Non-Mommas could still use this tip for whatever it is that you work on daily (like if you are in school yourself). It’s all about everything having a place in your home and being intentional about your space.
10. Take a picture: And lastly, a tip that goes back to “less is more.” When going through items to pitch, and you’re holding an item that might have emotional value for you but deep down you really DON’T want to keep it? You have no use for it and you don’t find it beautiful? Take a photo of it. Even a few photos of it. If you think to yourself one day that you’d like to look at that item again (although I literally can’t tell you anything that I have pitched, in ALL my years of downsizing), you can look at the photo, smile, and put it away again, without jeopardizing precious space in your home.