Declutter and organize your kids' room

Here's one of my latest articles in POC's MOm's corner. Another timely article at the start of the year.  Good luck to us, moms!

 

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Kids easily accumulate a lot of things and before you know it, their rooms are already cluttered and disorganized. Let me share with you some reasons why it’s worth your time to declutter and organize your kids’ rooms.

 

• It’s easier to clean and maintain rooms that are free from clutter and are organized simply because there are lesser things to clean and put in order.
• It’s easier to locate things in the room.
• You prolong the life of your kids’ things when they are organized and stored properly.
• Keeping your kids’ room and things organized sends the message to your kids that you want them to take care of their things and teaches them to appreciate their things more.
• You provide your kids a calming and restful environment that helps and encourages them to be calmer, disciplined and responsible.

 

Now, that you’re convinced that this is something good for you and your kids, let me share some simple steps and tips.  

 

 

1. Survey the room and identify areas that need to be decluttered and organized. Resolve to tackle one problem area at a time so as not to be overwhelmed and not to tire yourself too much.
2. List down the problem areas, rank them according to priority/urgency and set a date when you’d deal with them one by one.Once you have identified a problem area and set a date to deal with it, prepare to sort and purge by bringing out storage boxes or bins, baskets and a trash bag.
3. Start to declutter by sorting items into these categories: frequently used, not used often, to be donated and to be thrown. Purge as much as you can. Limit what you want as keepsakes by separating those you’d like to put in time capsules and scrapbooks. The rest that you haven’t used in six months or more (unless seasonal clothing), you get rid by donating or throwing.
4. Those that you’ve chosen to throw should be junked right away before you or your kids change your mind about them. Examples of things you can throw are toys that are already broken or with missing parts and beyond repair or you don’t have time to repair.
5. For those items that you put in the donate category, identify a person, family or organization where you will donate the items and set a date or mark your calendar when you’d actually bring the items for donation. This helps you make sure that you dispose of the items right away before you forget about them (and become part of the clutter again) or become sentimental.
6. After disposing of all that you no longer use, it’s time to organize!

Tip #1: Seasonal toys and books can be stored away in cardboard or plastic boxes. You can do the same with seasonal clothes or you can use your luggage to store them. These boxes can be stored at the back of your closets, cabinets or store rooms. I recently stored away my sons’ Christmas books which we used for our Christmas countdown last year. I’d be bringing them out again this year just before the start of the Advent Season. (You may click here to find out more about our Christmas books and countdown.)

Tip #2: Make sure you put labels on them (even when you use see through plastic boxes) so you would not have a hard time locating them when you need them.

 

7. Now, for those things that are favorites and are used often, here are some tips.

 

 

Click here to read the article in full.