Category: Toys & Kids

My Best Back to School Blogs

8/6/2024

Professional Organizer Back-to-School Organizing Blogs

Does your family have students heading back to school in the next few weeks? Have I got you covered with Back-to-School tips for making an organized transition from summer to school!

What's your Back-to-School challenge?

If TIME MANAGEMENT is what trips you up, don't miss my blog and interview with the fabulous Leslie Josel, inventor of the award-winning Academic Planner: A Tool for Time Management®

Back-to-School Time Management

Time Management for Back to School Professional Organizer Advice

Are you worried about how to TRANSITION FROM SUMMER mode to school? Use this blog to make a plan.

Make a Back-to-School Plan

Do you have a student HEADING TO COLLEGE? Here are my tips and tricks for an organized start.

Get Organized for College

If you're getting my newsletter, then you already have access to my top 3 Back-to-School blogs and more. If you're not yet subscribed, what are you waiting for?

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Create a Forever Keepsake with 4everBound Books

7/9/2024

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Here’s the problem: Your kid is a prolific artist. The artist part is great, but the volume is an issue. How many crayon drawings of your family, poster-paint apple trees, and construction-paper collages are you supposed to be able to manage?

If you’ve been following my advice, you’ve Set Up a System to Deal with School Papers: A temporary display space to show off this week’s latest greatest creations and a bin or portfolio for long-term storage.

But you’ll notice a secondary problem. You’ve saved all of your child’s wonderful creations, but they’re stored away where no one looks at them.

Why keep a precious memento stored in a bin,
never to be seen and enjoyed?

The typical options for putting children’s art into a usable keepsake each have their own problems.

School years scrapbooks work well as your storage system, but we tend to jam too many pages into the scrapbook’s pockets, making it a fight to get the papers out for viewing. The book becomes heavy and cumbersome and won’t lay flat.

Printed photo books are space-savers, but if you can’t bring yourself to throw away the original art (I couldn’t!), then you have to keep storing the artwork.

A binder with plastic sleeves is OK, but it’s a pain to put together and its utilitarian plainness doesn’t do justice to your child’s marvelous creations.

SOLUTION: 4everBound*

Owned and operated by Robyn and Peter Pomonis, 4everBound takes your precious paper mementos and hand-binds them into a beautiful keepsake book. Your child’s actual art pieces become the book’s pages. If a piece is too small, they mount it onto a larger page. If a piece is too large, they carefully fold it so it becomes a pop-out page.

Last year, I made a 4everBound book for my oldest daughter who’s now a young adult. It was fun to reminisce through her life from toddler to teenager. Although I had already pared down her work at the end of every school year, I still had too much even for the largest 90-page 4everBound book.

How do you go about paring down all these precious memories? Make it a game.

SORTING: THE YES/NO GAME

Gather all of your child’s artwork into one place and separate it by year. Don’t get hung up on perfectionism or you’ll get stuck on putting it in chronological order — just do the best you can.

Now play the Yes/No Game. Pick a year — I like to work backward starting with the most recent — and sort the papers into two piles: Yes and No.

By forcing yourself to make a binary decision, you’ll get through it much faster than if you have to rank the pieces. Don’t overthink your answers. If it’s a maybe, put it into the Yes pile at this stage.

Now for the hard part: Immediately throw away the No pile! Don’t give yourself time to think about it or you’ll start fishing things out of the trash.

Repeat this for every year’s worth of papers. Set a goal to sort one year’s worth every day or five years’ worth each week.

After you’ve gone through it once, count how many pages you have to see how much you still need to reduce. Play the Yes/No game again until you have the number of pages needed. 4everBound books are available in 30, 60, or 90 pages. Just go for the 90-page kit!

Professional Organizer pro tip for paring down artwork

THE 4EVERBOUND EXPERIENCE

Once you’ve begun the sorting process, you’re ready to order your 4everBound kit. You’ll receive a sturdy shipping box with a prepaid label, a thick plastic envelope, and instructions. All you have to do is put your pages in the envelope — in the order you want them to be in the book — seal it, put it into the box, and mail it back to 4everBound. At their shop, Robyn will hand trim, mount, and fold your pages then give them to Peter who binds them. Soon, you’ll receive a beautiful, one-of-a-kind keepsake that your family will treasure forever.

Just think what fun you’ll have snuggling on the sofa and leafing through the memories with your family!

Not just kids' art — 4everBound preserves all kinds of memories

Do you have paper or paper-like mementos that you want to bind that’s not children’s artwork? 4everBound can handle that too! Preserve family history by having them make a book of letters or documents. Memorialize your achievements by binding a book of awards or racing bibs. If it’s paper or paper-like, 4everBound can make it into a book!

Watch my interview with Robyn and Peter Pomonis, founders of 4everBound, and learn about some of the most interesting books they've made.

* I receive a small commission when you buy through my affiliate link.

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Summer Blog Bonanza

6/6/2023

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Summer blogs by a professional organizer

As we wrap up the school year and head into summer, have I got some blogs for you! Because organizing kids’ artwork and papers is a ubiquitous dilemma, I’ve written about it a few times. These three blogs tackle different aspects of the problem and will help you sort through what you have and set up a system to deal with it all so you can start with a clean slate in the fall.

Congratulations to those of you with graduates heading off to college in the fall! Get Organized for College is a not-to-be missed blog that’ll clue you in to everything you need to know about organizing the dorm room.

And for those of you who just can’t wait to set out for summer fun, my
Say YES to Summer Adventures! blog will make it easy for you to enjoy the season, whether you’re by the pool. the lake, or the beach.

QUICK TIP:

There are plenty of companies that preserve your kids' art in printed digital albums, but most parents (me included!) can't bear to throw out the original artwork. 4everbound has a unique solution: they bind your ACTUAL PAPERS into a book. Amazing!
Order your 4everbound kit with my affiliate link and they'll know I sent you.

Home Organizer recommends a 4everBound book

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3 Mistakes Parents Make When Saving Kids’ Papers & Art

6/14/2022

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Mistakes parents make when saving kids' art, according to a professional home organizer

How much of a child’s artwork, school papers, and mementos does a “good” parent save?

I once read about a mom who saved each year of her children’s school memories, pre-K through 12, in a separate (clean, new) pizza box. Her plan was to deliver the 15 “pizzas” to her kids once they moved into their first apartments. Gee, thanks, mom.

Another mom I know had bookcases overflowing with album after album containing every page her child ever scribbled on. Luckily, she couldn’t keep up with this for long, so the albums only went up to about first grade for her first child. I shudder to think how many albums she’d have filled if she’d kept going!

Let’s get real. Your kids don’t remember much about kindergarten and they don’t care about their brilliant 4th grade report on butterflies. They might like to reminisce with you over an album or a few mementos, but don't make the mistake of overwhelming them by saving everything.

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Back to School: Make a Plan

8/17/2021

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Back to School Plan from a Professional Organizer

Masks or no masks? Bus or no bus? Digital or paper? What’s the plan for school this year?!?
When faced with back-to-school confusion, what does a professional organizer do? Make a plan!
Taking control of the things that are within your control will help you and your family feel calmer and more confident about the start of school. Here are my top tips for a smooth transition.

Your Back to School Plan

1. Start going to bed and getting up earlier—not just the kids, but you too! It’s time to admit that vacation is coming to an end. Use the extra AM time to work your way into a good routine. You’ll all be less stressed after banking some good sleep.

2. Establish your school-year screen time and device rules now. Get the kids’ buy-in by explaining to them the need for rules, then asking for their input and having a conversation. Just remember that the parents have the final say! ...

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Get Organized for College

7/21/2021

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Get organized for college with a home organizer

It was a crisp fall day in 1989. Students were going in and out of the dorms like ants carrying trunks, suitcases, and tote bags. Befuddled parents were standing outside, trying to be helpful but mostly chatting with other parents and taking in the scene. This would be their beloved, newly-adult child’s home for the next year and they wanted to memorize it all.

State-of-the-art ‘80s dorm must haves were an answering machine, a boombox with a CD player, and a word processor (or, if you were lucky, a DOS-based computer or Macintosh SE). Throw in a wall tapestry and a Klimt poster and you’ve got a pretty fine room!

Now that my oldest daughter is heading off to college this fall, I figured I probably shouldn’t rely just on my own experience to help figure out what she needs. So I polled my mom friends with kids currently in college to find their best move-in tips. Now I get to share them with you!

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Don't Play the Clutter Blame Game: How to Get Your Family on Board

3/16/2021

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Home organizer discusses the clutter blame game

“How do I get my kids to clean up their toys?”

“How do I get my family to stop leaving things all over the counters?”

“My kids have too much stuff!”

“How can I declutter when my spouse won’t get rid of anything?”

I hear these laments all the time. Have you ever said them yourself? I’m sure I have! Are you ready to hear my magic words for solving this problem?

STAY IN YOUR LANE!

Or, if you prefer, “Eat off your own plate!” or “Take the plank out of your own eye!” In other words, before you point the finger at others in your household, deal with your own clutter.

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Help Your Student Avoid Procrastination Pitfalls

10/13/2020

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Gain the study skills to get the work done without procrastinating

Did you know that 80-95% of college students procrastinate? Maybe you’re rolling your eyes and saying, “Duh, who doesn’t know that college students procrastinate?” And maybe you were one of those students.

But when you’re trapped in a procrastination cycle, it can feel as if everyone around you has it all together and you’re the only one who has, once again, gotten yourself into trouble with the doom of an approaching deadline.

In her new book, How to Do It Now Because It's Not Going Away: An Expert Guide to Getting Stuff Done, Leslie Josel tackles the sticky problem of procrastination.

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Back to School: You’ve Got This!

8/18/2020

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Back to School: Make a plan so you can handle whatever this year throws at you!

It’s August, so that means time to get ready to go back to school. Sorry, I mean remote learning. No, wait, hybrid. Or maybe a pod?

Wow! And I thought annual school-supply shopping was hard (Why are the supply lists so long?!). Now, we have to contend with shifting school start dates and 11th-hour plan changes.

This year, every decision we have to make around getting our children back to school seems fraught with frightening complications.

What’s a parent to do? Get organized!

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How to Get Your House in Order without Buying Anything New

4/14/2020

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A bright clean kitchen with yellow accents.

This month's blog is courtesy of Redfin.

With all the time you’re spending in your home these days, you’ve likely noticed that there’s plenty of items lying around that you hardly use, or food that’s gone bad but is still sitting in the back of your fridge. However, with this extra downtime and lack of visitors, now is the perfect opportunity to finally get your house in order. So, it’s time to toss out any junk that’s managed to sit on your nightstand for far too long, and throw out those old, expired salad dressings to go, along with the broken can opener that still hasn’t made its way to the garbage.

While the thought of decluttering and reorganizing your home can be overwhelming, it’s much more doable than you think. Better yet, it can all be done without needing to purchase anything new. To help you get started, we pulled together tips from decluttering and organizing experts living in Nashville all the way to professionals living in Vancouver, BC (and many more in between). Here’s how to get your house in order without buying anything new.

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Get organized
Tips to motivate and inspire you!

My Best Back to School Blogs

What's your Back-to-School challenge?

Create a Forever Keepsake with 4everBound Books

Why keep a precious memento stored in a bin,
never to be seen and enjoyed?

SOLUTION: 4everBound*

SORTING: THE YES/NO GAME

THE 4EVERBOUND EXPERIENCE

Not just kids' art — 4everBound preserves all kinds of memories

Watch my interview with Robyn and Peter Pomonis, founders of 4everBound, and learn about some of the most interesting books they've made.

Summer Blog Bonanza

QUICK TIP:

3 Mistakes Parents Make When Saving Kids’ Papers & Art

Back to School: Make a Plan

Get Organized for College

Don't Play the Clutter Blame Game: How to Get Your Family on Board

Help Your Student Avoid Procrastination Pitfalls

Back to School: You’ve Got This!

How to Get Your House in Order without Buying Anything New

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​Get organized​Tips to motivate and ​​inspire you!

What's your Back-to-School challenge?

Why keep a precious memento stored in a bin,​never to be seen and enjoyed?

SOLUTION: 4everBound*

SORTING: THE YES/NO GAME

THE 4EVERBOUND EXPERIENCE

Not just kids' art — 4everBound preserves all kinds of memories

Watch my interview with Robyn and Peter Pomonis, founders of 4everBound, and learn about some of the most interesting books they've made.

QUICK TIP:

Categories

Archives

Get organized
Tips to motivate and inspire you!

Why keep a precious memento stored in a bin,
never to be seen and enjoyed?