Command Centre: Schoolwork File Bins

Is your kitchen table covered with piles of your kids’ schoolwork?  Or maybe you have piles in the living room.  Or your kids’ bedrooms.  Or the kitchen counters. Somehow schoolwork seems to keep coming into our homes, and no matter how organized we think we are, it has a way of taking over.  

Today I’ll show you the system I implemented years ago to help stay on top of all the work my kids take home from school.  I love it and it’s made a huge difference in our home.  

Why My Old Systems Didn’t Work

I’d tried various systems {unsuccessfully} to manage my kids’ schoolwork.  They mostly failed because I didn’t maintain them.  And that was primarily because I stored everything in the basement since there was so little room on our main floor.  

There were several problems with everything being stored in the basement.

• I had to touch the papers too many times.  Once when they come in the door.  Again when I put them on top of the stairs to go down to the basement.  Then someone else would often bring them downstairs before I would and put them in a pile on the counter in the basement.  Then I’d still need to put them away.
• Because I’m not in the basement very often, the papers would build up.  Eventually I’d deal with them but often they’d sit in bigger and bigger piles on that counter.  Then it became a big project I’d have to set aside time to tackle, which psychologically made it harder to get done (plus there are always other more urgent things to do).
• I wasn’t purging the schoolwork at all so it just made the task of dealing with it even more overwhelming.

The other issue with my “system” was that I just put everything into a bin for each child and rarely labeled the date on each paper, so there was no real way of knowing what was from what year and it wasn’t practical to look through it (and what’s the point of keeping it if you never look at it?).

So, in coming up with a better system, these are the things I wanted:

• A place to keep schoolwork on the main floor so I would remember to deal with it regularly and not have to touch each paper so many times (that’s just wasted energy!)
• A system to keep work separated by year and vertical instead of piled in a bin so we could easily look at their work
• Limits so that the things we kept were more special and could be appreciated more.

Our Schoolwork System

I was setting up our new school work system at the same time as I was planning out my kitchen command centre, and I decided the best way to handle my schoolwork problem was to incorporate a spot for storing these papers in our command centre so that it would be on our main floor and I’d be more likely to stay on top of the piles.  I decided to use a file bin for each of my kids and have a hanging folder for each year to keep their work in.  

I purchased 2 file bins that were durable enough to use for many years.

I added hanging folders and tabs and made a label for each year using my label maker.

Then came the longer part… going through each kids’ work, sorting it by year, and purging a lot of it so each year would fit nicely into one hanging folder. 

I involved my kids in this, which made it take even longer, but I think it was worth it.

My son did NOT like to get rid of things and he had the most work to go through.  But, I talked with him about it a few times in passing and then in more detail.  And then out of the blue one day, when I was sorting work by grade, he asked if we could get started on deciding what to keep!  After I got over the shock, I jumped at the opportunity and we got started. 

We made several piles:

• Recycle
• Take a picture first and then recycle
• Keep (we sorted them into early in the year, middle of the year, and late in the year so we could see some of his progression)

He did REALLY well.  Far beyond my wildest dreams {yes, I dream about organizing schoolwork… does that make me crazy?!}.  

At first he wanted to keep a lot, but then he kind of got into the taking pictures idea so he put a lot in that pile.  As time went on, he started to realize how much of his work was the same and he added more to the recycle pile.  

We did a grade at a time, starting with grade 2 and working backwards.  He enjoyed looking at how far he’s progressed.  And he worked fairly quickly, which was fantastic. 

Initially his bin was jam packed full (with a few piles on the side) but after all was said and done this is how it looked.

He wanted to keep his agendas (those spiral bound things that take up a lot of space) because they have interesting notes and show progress in his writing throughout the year.    

He didn’t do much with his grade 3 folder because he wanted to go through it all at once at the end of the year.  But, as schoolwork came into the house, he recycled or took pictures of more of it. 

Here’s my daughter, hard at work {taking her own pics with her DSI}.

She had less to go through since she was only in grade 1, but she took a LOT longer going through everything.  She wanted to look at each thing, and had a lot of fun looking back at things she made when she was younger.  She was usually really good at purging toys, books, and clothes, but she had a tough time with her artwork.  

She put a LOT in the picture pile.  It took a few sessions to go through her work, and lots of patience on my part, but she got better at making quicker decisions as she went.

Here’s her bin at the end of that process (it also started out nearly full).

Both kids learned how to decide what was special (things that are unique, created for someone in particular, show progression in writing, drawing, etc.).  And they learned that if everything is important then nothing is important {one of the best tips I’ve learned from Peter Walsh!}.  The also recognized that keeping everything isn’t practical since they already had so much and had many more years of school ahead of them.  Using these bins and folders helped establish limits for them.

It was a long process, but WELL worth the effort. And we actually had fun while we were doing it – which I was not expecting!

From that point forward, when my kiddos brough schoolwork or artwork home, they added it to their current grade’s folder if they wanted to keep it (or if they want to decide at the end of the year).  If something was too big to fit, we took a picture of them holding it and then threw it out or displayed it for a little while first. 

And because the bins are part of the command centre, right below their backpack bins, this system was simple to maintain too.  No more touching papers several times, only to have them end up in piles that became overwhelming. 

How Our Schoolwork File Bins Worked

My kids are much older now and this paperwork system has worked well for over a decade! As they got older, more of their work was done digitally, and there was less artwork, so there was less paperwork overall. But they also became better at just recycling papers that they didn’t think were special enough to keep.

My son is now in university and maintained his bin all the way through elementary school, middle school, and high school. When he started university he wanted to be able to add a file to keep materials from some courses, so he decluttered some of his folders to create a bit more space and I added a new folder. He also wanted a folder for important documents (banking, employment, taxes, etc.) so I added a folder for those papers too. Here’s what his bin looks like now:

This bin is his to use and keep (and take with him when he eventually moves out). I’m so glad we set this up so many years ago!

My daughter is in grade 12 now and has also maintained her bin for over 10 years. Here’s what her bin looks like now:

She likes having the tabs on the left side rather than going across the folders. She finds it easier to see them when they’re all in a row behind each other. I like this better too.

I’ve created file bins like these for several of my clients too and they’ve all loved having a simple system to keep their kids’ schoolwork organized and decluttered. If you’re in the Mississauga area and would like one of these, please email me!

Tips for Creating School Work Bins

If you set up your own file bin system for your kids’ school work, here are some tips:

• Choose a different colour folder for each child
• Declutter papers so each year’s paperwork fits in a folder
• Store important paper such as report cards, certificates, etc. at the front of each folder so you can find them quickly
• Allow your kids to decide what is special to them
• Try to include items that show growth and development through each year
• Focus on keeping papers that they put a lot of thought, creativity, and effort into

How do you organize your kids’ schoolwork and artwork?  What do you feel is the most overwhelming part of dealing with it?  Please leave a comment with your tips, comments, or questions!

If you need help decluttering or organizing, contact me for in-person services in the Mississauga area, or virtual services anywhere else.

Happy organizing!