Beyond Folders : organization tips, clutter

Tips for Taming Teen Clutter

Community Manager — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:43:00 GMT

Teen clutter seems to proliferate faster than a hot You-Tube video goes viral. Stop the runaway mess before it engulfs your home (or your teen's room) with a few simple steps.

Make your teen a partner in clutter control. Teens crave privacy and self-determination so consider letting them have more leeway in deciding how clean to keep their own rooms. For example, clutter may be off-limits in the family room, but permitted within reason in their bedrooms. When you enlist your teen as a partner, and respect their growing ability and need for self-determination, you better the odds of harmonious cohabitation.

Bedroom Boundaries: Determine your own clutter threshold for the household and lay down clear ground rules. Examples might include a "no food" policy for bedrooms, requiring a clear exit path between the bed and the door for safety reasons, and a rule that if any bad smells come from a bedroom, it then needs a thorough cleaning by the teen. If these conditions are all met, grit your teeth about the piles of laundry and other annoyances.

Everything in its Place: Take time to evaluate your teen's room to determine if they have the needed tools for neatness. Do they have adequate storage? If not, consider investing in inexpensive shelving such as Ikea's Expedit units which can easily hold files for school papers and baskets and bins for corralling small items and clothing. Work with, not against your teen: if they don't fold and store clothes neatly, buy bins to hold clothing piles and install a rack of pegs or hooks to easily capture garments.

Less is More: If the room is overstuffed with toys and clothes, encourage a purge. Donating or selling the unused items can net your teen some money and creates a more manageable set of belongings. Maintain order by doing a big purge at least twice a year. Good times for purging are after major gift events such as Christmas or birthdays.

House Rules: While teens may have leeway in their rooms, parents have every right to set conditions about how shared rooms are managed. Rather than nag constantly, assign every family member a chore that keeps order in shared rooms. And give family members a designated basket or bin to be kept in the mudroom or family room. Odds and ends can be tossed in the bins during nightly clean up and emptied on the weekends.

Tame the Back-to-School Clutter Explosion

Community Manager — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:02:00 GMT

If back-to-school is adding up to a clutter explosion in your home, you'll love our easy-as-ABC lessons for taming the chaos.

Designate a Drop Spot: Backpacks and sports gear can easily engulf a home; pick a convenient drop spot for off-loading when the kids arrive home. Make it easy to make it stick: a simple hall bench; set of cubbies or even wall hooks can do the trick. Offer simple rewards when all items are stowed away regularly.

Kitchen Command Center: Deputize a bulletin board or white board to track all family commitments, sports schedules and major tests and projects. When invites and event notices come in, log the date on the calendar, then toss the paper.

Homework Helper: Corral pens, pencils, glue sticks and other homework supplies in a portable homework caddy. Keeping study tools close at hand will prevent students from wandering off in search of needed items and individual items from migrating all over the house. Consider color coding your kids so you can tell which child is leaving supplies scattered around the house.

A Look Ahead: Model good organizational habits for your kids by spending the end of the day planning for the next morning. By taking just 15 minutes to round up school supplies, paperwork and special items such as snow boots or umbrellas, you can minimize stress during the morning rush.

Weekly Clean Ups: Keep chaos at bay with weekly clean-ups. Update the family command center calendar, restore missing items to their rightful place and restock school supplies that are running low. Revisit your children's personal planners or calendars and provide feedback on how they managed their schedules and workloads for the week. Praise successes and offer suggestions for improvement where necessary.

What are your back-to-school clutter-busting tips? Share your thoughts here and on the Pendaflex Facebook and Twitter pages.

Got Clutter? Deciding What to Keep, What to Purge

Community Manager — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:45:00 GMT

Minimalists of the world, this post isn't for you. You already turn a steely eye on all items and paperwork, paring down your life to the strict essentials. This post is for anyone with a kitchen drawer full of doodads and closets that might generously be called...full.

If you crave a simple, streamlined home and work space, but are undone by deciding what to keep, what to toss, check out our round up of resources. You'll be clutter free in no time.

Paperwork: Piles of papers are a major source of stress. Figuring out what papers need to be kept, and which you can happily toss is easy using our past post File or Toss? A Handy Guide for Assessing Your Paperwork. You'll learn tips the time-frame for keeping certain documents, which papers need to be kept for a lifetime and which papers can be circular-filed immediately.

Kitchen: Is your pantry a repository of dusty canned goods and spices past their expiration date? Tame kitchen clutter with the useful tips here and here. While you're at it, consider organizing your kitchen with an eye towards wellness and healthy eating with the tips in our past post Organizing Your Kitchen for Wellness.

Closets: Are your closets full to bursting? Create breathing room with the tips in our past post Organizing Your Closet for Sweater Weather. Don't let the name fool you, this post has closet cleaning tips for more than just sweater season. So if you can't figure out where the heck your bathing suits and flip flops are in your avalanche of clothes, this post is for you as well.

How do you assess what to keep, what to toss? Share your thoughts here and on the Pendaflex Facebook page.