Back to School Organization — Find Your Gold Home Organizing

We are one week away from the start of school.

Which means I’m on a mom on a Back-to-School-Organizational-Rampage.

In the best way :)

Going back to school can either be a manic, anxiety-ridden time of year…

OR…

It can be an amazing opportunity to sharpen your organizational pencils and kick off a new season with calm, clarity and love.

I vote for the second!

Here are 5 categories to organize, to make this your best school year yet!

1. SHOES & OUTERWEAR

An organized entryway makes morning and evening routines SO much more efficient.

And a BIG part of an organized entryway are the shoes and outwear.

First off, shoes….

I LOVE SHOE BASKETS!!!

Our clients are always trying to find the perfect shoe rack and are quickly frustrated with the pile of shoes at the door. I get it!

A large shoe basket at the main entrance keeps shoes off the floor, controls how many you can keep and is an easy system that ALL family members can follow.

The other, most important, way of keeping shoes tidy at the main entrance, is to ONLY keep the ones you use daily, front and centre.

Your formal or off-season footwear should live elsewhere - basement or bedroom closets are usually great spots.

*While you’re at it, this is a great time to deep clean and weatherproof your shoes and boots for the winter.

Secondly, outerwear…

This includes coats, hats, mitts, scarves, baseball hats - any items that you wear outside!

For coats, my suggestions are…

Keep 1-2 coats per person at the door - the rest can be tucked away for periodic use.
If you have hooks it might be helpful to designate (and maybe label!) one hook per person.

For smaller outerwear items like mitts and toques, try to designate a spot per person if you can. A basket or drawer or shelf - whatever works for your layout.

In our home we have one basket at our everyday door (the garage door) where we keep one of each item, per person (1 hat, 1 pair of mitts, 1 bottle of sunscreen, etc.). Spares are kept in our less accessible hall closet and categorized per person - easy to grab on days when we realize we are short one pink mitt as we are running out the door!

Just like with coats, having less will make them easier to manage. I promise!

And of course - Label, Label, Label

Your kid is going to lose stuff. That’s a 100% guarantee.

If you want any chance of getting it back, toss a label on it!

We have always used Mabels Labels. And I LOVE them. But any option is great.

In a pinch, masking tape and a sharpie also does the trick :)

2. BACKPACK STORAGE

Last year we added three small hooks at our backdoor for our bags and backpacks.

It was the smallest, yet biggest, home improvement project we’ve ever done.

It gets the bags off of the floor; they are low enough that the kids can reach themselves; and it makes morning and evening routines that much more organized.

Five out of five stars!

We used hooks that we had laying around in our garage, but I’m in love with these ones from Amazon.

If you already have hooks, try adding labels for each child - seeing their name encourages them to use the hooks. And avoid sibling arguments ;)

If you have a large mudroom, little backpack cubbies are great too.

These small (and easy!) details make it so easy for kids to follow routines.

Which, in turn, makes everyone happier :))

3. PAPERWORK

There are three types of paperwork that come home from school…

Creations that you want to keep forever.
Creations that you want to keep for a week.
“Adult” paperwork that you need to keep for reference.

Have a plan for where all three types of paper will live and you are set!

In our house….

Keepsake Projects (their Mother’s Day artwork, report cards, etc.) go into their (very basic!) school file boxes that I created.
Temporary creations go directly on our mantle. The kids love looking at them all week and every Sunday afternoon we toss them to make room for a new week of artwork.
The “Adult” Paperwork goes into the basket that we keep on our main entry table. I have a folder that I store our clothing labels and any school papers. I go through it periodically and let go of items we no longer need.

Set up a system that makes sense for YOUR household and you’ll never look back.

4. SCHOOL LUNCH ZONE

Five tips about school lunches….

Get rid of lunch boxes and bags that nobody is using anymore - another little one would love the heck out of the Paw Patrol bag that’s hiding in the back of your cupboard!
If you want your kids to help with lunches, store the supplies + snacks at their level (otherwise, keep ‘em high for now).
You can buy replacement straws for almost all water bottles (no need to replace the whole bottle!)
Prep as much as possible the night before! I don’t make the whole lunch the night before. BUT I always have everything ready to go and I roughly know what I’m going to make.
Make pantry items easy to see/grab. Try decanting, using clear bins/jars and/or adding labels. This will make morning easier, AND taking stock super fast when you’re making your grocery list.

5. CLOTHES

The start of a new season is the PERFECT time to review kids’ clothing.

My first step for ANY new season/stage is to assess what we already own.

Because it’s usually more than I think.

Which means less new items needed - yay!

If you have a ‘Grow Into’ bin, dig through and see what will work.

Check last year’s stock and see what might work again this year.

Then (most important, step!) get rid of everything that doesn’t fit or won't be worn!!!

THEN - once you know what you have and don’t have, you can….

Make a Shopping List!

And, ideally, stick to the list!

One of the #1 questions I get asked is how much clothing we keep per child.

Answer: We keep one week worth of clothing.

(plus a few spares for accidents, messes, etc.)

So for fall…

7-9 sweaters/long sleeve shirts
7-9 pairs of pants

September is a wild weather month here so I leave their summer stuff in their drawers for around 6 weeks. Once it’s definitely too cold for shorts I move summer stuff out so I only have to focus on managing a wardrobe for one season.

I always suggest having a few less items that you THINK you need - and you’ll probably still have more than you need :)

*Disclaimer: I keep spare clothes in our grow into bin. So as the kids ruin or grow out of pieces, I pass them on and replace from our little treasure box of clothes.