How To Organize Your Home For The Smoothest Back-To-School Transition

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The start of the school season can feel pretty chaotic since both you and your family need to get used to a new daily routine. There's also plenty of paperwork to fill out around this time, and lots of shopping to do. To reduce overall stress levels and make going back to school as exciting an experience as possible for your kids, it's a good idea to organize your everyday living spaces so that they're ready to go for the first day back. On the surface, this might seem like a daunting project. Thankfully, you don't have to straighten out your entire home without a strategy. Instead, you can just start by focusing your organizational efforts on the zones of your house that are important for two everyday tasks: Study and getting out the door on time in the morning.

A neatly organized desk or workstation for your kids can help make completing homework assignments as pain-free an experience as possible. This sort of setup also makes it easy to keep all of the school supplies in one accessible location. Meanwhile, straightening out the parts of your home that are important for your family's before-school routine, helps ensure that you won't have to waste as much time putting together lunch boxes or locating a missing water bottle in the minute before you're supposed to leave. While you're cleaning up your kitchen and living room to get it ready for the school season, you might also want to learn how to DIY your very own household command center, since it's great for daily schedules and to-do lists.

You can help your kids prepare for school by setting up homework workstations for them, or by guiding them through the process of cleaning the desk in their room. Start by taking everything out of the drawers and cubbies, and identifying and tossing whichever old school supplies from last year are no longer worth keeping. Disinfect and dust everything, and then focus on finding a home for all of this year's papers and school supplies. File organizers are a must for keeping all sorts of papers and permission slips easy to locate. Small plastic cups and tubs are great for dividing up desk supplies, such as crayons, pencils, scissors, and glue sticks. Something like 4E's Novelty Small Plastic Storage Baskets, for example, could be great for categorizing things like markers and highlighters by color.

You could also spruce up your kid's desk by putting a small shelf next to it for displaying art projects or storing books. Organizing your kid's homework station could be a great time to break out your label maker. You can label drawers, folders, and storage bin sections, so that it's easy to see and remember where everything should go. You could even label items by name, so that it's easy to figure out whose stuff is whose. If you don't have a label maker at home, you could try using ONUPGO Waterproof Chalkboard Labels instead, since they're reusable and have an easy-to-activate adhesive backing. Or, you could even try out this genius way to make chic home labels without a label maker.

Straightening up your kitchen and your entryway can help make everyone's before-school routine a bit more of a streamlined experience. In the entryway, you can start by moving summer items that aren't needed any more to other spaces. Then, you can dedicate specific zones or sections to your kid's jackets and backpacks, so they always know where to find them. A shoe rack, and either a coat rack or a set of hooks, are also nice and easy to use, which makes them great for whenever your family is in a rush to get out the door.

In the kitchen, you'll want to follow a relatively similar process. Start by getting rid of clutter, and cleaning out a space in the fridge for lunch boxes and water bottles. Choose a cabinet or drawer that's easy to reach, and use it for snacks and other essentials, such as utensils and clean plastic containers. Make breakfast foods easy to access without assistance, and consider putting up a morning routine task list that's in an easy-to-see location. A bulletin board could be a nice addition to this space, since it makes it possible to quickly glance over notes and schedule reminders. A U Brands Light Wood Cork Bulletin Board, for example, should work perfectly, and is relatively inexpensive. Looking for a slightly less task-oriented way to prepare your house for the coming days? Why not use cut flowers to ease back-to-school stress in your home?