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The Simplest Way to Organize School Paperwork.

School has barely started and you likely have already started collecting all the paperwork that comes home with your child each day. It can feel like a hurricane of paperwork flies through your door each time you open it to let your child in. This post is for moms who want to find a simple way to organize school paperwork so that they can keep up with as the years go by.

Do You Want to Micro or Macro Organize Your Child’s School Paperwork?

If you love to organize and want your kids school work to be super (micro) organized, and don’t mind spending a lot of time on it, this post may not be for you. As a professional organizer with ADHD, I actually only macro organized my own kids paperwork because I knew that realistically, my kids would likely only be looking at this stuff every 5-10 years down the road.

If Like Me, You Have ADHD, and/or Don’t Have a Lot of Patients For Organizing School Paperwork, Then You Have Come to the Right Place.

Let’s start by discussing how much to keep and how much to toss. You know you want to keep and organize a select number of school keepsakes for your child to enjoy when they are older, but how much is enough?

What I Learned About Organizing Kids’ School Keepsakes as a Professional Organizer

When my daughters were young, I spent many of their growing-up years feeling guilty. I fretted over not having time to preserve and organize my kids’ school keepsakes and other memorabilia perfectly.

Looking back, I also remember having high expectations. I wanted to create a beautiful handmade scrapbook for every single year of each one of my children’s lives. I dreamed of filling them with photos, artwork, and other keepsakes to capture every memorable moment.

Let’s see, I did the math and with three daughters, by the time they would each reach 18, I’d have made 54 scrapbooks… LOL!

Kind of lofty expectations, don’t you think?

You Can Let Go of The Guilt

Fast forward several years….and I now know that these were seriously unrealistic expectations. I also know that when it comes to organizing school paperwork and keepsakes, it is best to keep it simple. And you need to keep less than you might think.

My Professional Organizing Career Actually Changed My Perspective Significantly.

Many of my clients who were empty nesters struggled with their adult children’s keepsakes too. I would often hear, “My kids’ keepsakes are taking up too much of my storage space.” They are often surprised that their children are less interested in their childhood keepsakes than expected. Or my clients hear this, “I want it Mom, but can you store it for me?“

Let’s take a look into the future for a moment.

If you spend too much time fussing over and saving every scribble your child brings home, like my clients, you too might also end up with a storage room full of your kids’ school keepsakes someday.

Here is what you need to know…if you save several totes worth of your kid’s school keepsakes and other memorabilia, you might just get stuck with it forever. Your adult child likely will be okay with taking a few keepsake totes to their own home someday.  But if you have multiple totes of keepsakes, it may be too overwhelming for them to take home.

Conclusion:

Set reasonable and easily attainable goals for keeping and preserving your kid’s school keepsakes and other memorabilia so that you can keep up as the years go by. Your child will be satisfied enjoying a sampling of childhood memories rather than an extensive collection of every experience they have ever had.

To get more school organizing tips to help your family stay organized and in control as the weeks go by be sure to read my other post, “Top 10 School Organizing Routines for Stress-Free Family Mornings.”