You know school is in session when the papers, worksheets, art projects and drawings start piling up on your kitchen counters. Lauren answers a listener question in this Tip Tuesday episode of The Intentional Edit Podcast that will solve your school paper dilemmas for good. You can start easily implementing these strategies today!
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Full Episode Transcription (not edited):
You know, school is back in session when the papers, worksheets art projects, and all those drawings start piling up on your kitchen counters and your kitchen table. And they just seem to be everywhere. I’m answering a listener question and this temp Tuesday episode of the intentional edit podcast, and we will solve your goal paper dilemma for good. You can start easily implementing these strategies today. Hey friends, quick tips that make a big impact in your daily life are my favorite ways to implement systems around the house. I’ve been sharing easy strategies and my go-to organizing products for tip Tuesday on the intentional at Instagram feed for a few years. Now I’m excited to bring it to the podcast with short episodes, answering your questions every Tuesday. If you want me to answer your questions, go to the podcast page on intentional, edit.com and submit your questions there.
(00:49):
Let’s get started on this tip Tuesday episode of the intentional edit podcast. Hey there, I am happy to have you here and I’m so glad you’re joining me for this tip Tuesday episode today, I’m answering a listener question. I don’t know if you are back in school yet, but so many people are at Siemens lake. Most people go back sometime around the middle of August. When we go back to school, it’s a great time to set up these new routines and systems in our home so that we can have success from the beginning of the school year and let that carry through all year long. I want to answer this listener question today, and it’s all about the school papers and art projects, and just so many things that come home from school. What can you do with those things? So the question that came in said two kids in grade school this year.
(01:42):
And after the second week, we already have worksheets pages, art papers, and flyers coming home daily. What do I do with all these things? Do I need to keep them all guilty feelings about throwing them away and having the kids see them, but I can’t keep them all. And really don’t want these worksheets and pages from workbooks in the school. What should I do? Thank you for submitting that question. If you want me to answer your question on a tip Tuesday episode of the podcast, go to intentional, edit.com and a little button pops up that says record. Now, all you have to do is click on that and then you can leave me a voice message just like you would leave a voicemail for a friend. I will listen to that message and answer it on a future tip Tuesday episode. My favorite thing to do is answer your questions, because I know I’m giving you exactly what you want and figuring out what you’re struggling with.
(02:40):
So that you question by me answering your question. It helps other people find solutions to those same things, too. So if you are feeling like this mama where it’s only the second week of school and all these papers and projects and all these things are piling up, but you will feel guilty about getting rid of them. Let me give you some strategies to deal with this. First of all, saving some things is great, but we don’t have to save everything. There’s not an adult out there that has ever been presented with boxes and bins of all of their school papers. And thanks like thank you so much to their parents for saving all of this stuff more often than not. It’s not even gone through. And it’s just tossed when you save a curated collection of things that are the most important, those things are usually more appreciated.
(03:35):
And to be perfectly honest, someone don’t don’t even look at any of that and they just get rid of it. There’s a couple of things you can do. One, if it is a worksheet or a paper, that is a common thing that is more like a repetitive task that is done. Like these worksheets that come home, you don’t need to save those for the long term. You can toss those and not feel guilty about it. If it’s a busy work from school, something to occupy the minutes of the day, again, don’t need to save those when it is something that is special or has a milestone on it, hand prints a picture of the child, something significant. Those are the things that you want to keep. Sometimes there’s a lot of those. You don’t need to keep them all. One thing that I like to suggest is when the kids are younger and the art projects and the fun things are coming home, have a place in your home where you can display those maybe one or two per child, and they can easily be swapped out.
(04:40):
So when one comes home, then put it up. It’s on display. And then when the next one comes home, that other one comes down and you put the, the next one up. So you’re putting their favorite things. You’re sharing the things that are most important, but you’re not cluttering your walls all over and making it feel very restrictive and just like a cluttered space, because you’re trying to put all this stuff up when it’s all up, you can’t see what is going on anyway, and you’re not enjoying the pieces. So let the pieces shine on their own or just a couple of them. When one another one comes home, the other one comes down. A great thing to do is have a container, some type of plastic container. I love the hour bins from the container store or something similar to that, where you can get them in a large container that fits the larger pieces of art that your kids will come home with and have one of those per child that will help you.
(05:39):
It’s a reasonable size box, but it’s not enormous. And it will help you keep these things to a minimum. Sometimes they might wanna display something and, but not wanna keep it. And that’s fine. The things that are important and need to be kept and are wanted to be kept, put those in the box. That’s the keeps safe box of the school and art projects and just papers and things like that. Go in there. You can have one for each child, put their name on it. The best of the best goes in there. The things with the milestones, the things that are most important, the things that are most significant, the things with the hampers, the footprints, the personal stories. If they did a survey at the beginning of the year, and it’s an all about me thing, things like that, that are personal to them.
(06:22):
Those are the things you keep the worksheets, the repetitive work. That’s the stuff that doesn’t need to be kept. One other thing I have for you is if you do not have room to keep these things, take a picture of the things that that are the best of the best, that are the favorites that they really love. Take a picture of these. You can have it as a digital file, and you can even place these in an album on your phone or a file on your computer, save them all in there. And then when they are older or done with school and not bringing this type of thing home anymore, you can have those put into a small little book, like a tiny little four by four book, or you can do a bigger album. Of course, if you want to, but then all those things are in there.
(07:08):
And it’s a fun little thing to flip through. That is another option. That’s more of a long term thing that would happen a little project. But if you get in the habit of just taking the picture and then discarding or throwing away the original, you still have that picture. You can still see what they did and you can choose to make some kind of a little scrapbook out of it later on, or you don’t have to. And then you just have the digital file, which isn’t taking up space. One thing I will say about this because I was a teacher of both elementary and high school. If you have kids that are bringing home papers and things that are graded, I like to make sure that you keep those. When the kids are a little older, this isn’t applying to preschool, kindergarten, first grade type of thing.
(07:53):
But when the kids get a little bit older, usually the teacher has some type of system in place where the things that come home might not be important, but they might have a portfolio or something where these paper items are supposed to be kept in the classroom at the bare minimum, designate a place in your home where each child can keep the papers that come home for the semester. These are things that are graded because if there were ever an issue where they didn’t get credit for something, or they were said to have not turned something in, or they have a zero for something, you can go back to this file folder or basket or whatever you’ve determined, worked in your home. And they can take that paper back to the teacher and say, I did get this, that, you know, a mistake was made.
(08:41):
I did turn this in and it was graded and here’s the grade. So you have that, that way. Another thing is when your kids have tests like midterms and finals and things like that, they need to be keeping those things until they have completed that course, whether that’s a semester or the entire year, but then they have the proof. And then they also have these documents to go back and study from and go back and reference as they are using them. So it’s a little bit different when they get older today. So much of that is digital. That a lot of that doesn’t even apply, but having a file folder or a basket or something where they can keep those things. If they’re older, again, these aren’t things you’re keeping forever, but you’re keeping them for the length of time that the course is. And then some of the kids that are older, they have a lot of fun.
(09:30):
Like they finished the course, they got there grade and it’s like, phew, I can finally throw this away. And they’re excited and have a little mini celebration for a few seconds because they get to throw that all away and their hard work is done and they’ve gotten their grade and you know, everything is good with that. I hope those strategies help you again, if you have questions for me and you want me to answer a question on a future tip Tuesday episode, go to intentional, edit.com right now, click on the button that says record now. And leave me a message. Ask me your question or tell me what you’re struggling with. And I will use that question, future it on a future tip Tuesday episode and answer the question so that I can help you and everyone else. That’s struggling with a similar problem. Thank you so much for listening. I will meet you back here on Friday for the next episode of the intentional edit podcast.
(10:28):
Did you love this episode? Quick tips that make a big impact in your daily life are my favorite ways to implement systems around the house. I’ve been sharing easy strategies and game changing products for tip Tuesday on the intentional edit Instagram feed for a few years. I’m bringing that to the podcast. By answering your questions with actionable ideas and strategies for you to implement@homeemailordirectmessagemewithyourquestionsorsubmitthemontheintentionaledit.com pod page. What are you struggling with? Are you looking for product recommendations, home solutions? What is overwhelming you today? No questions are off limits. Seriously. I need to know what you are struggling with. So message me. Now. I’ll be answering one of your questions every week for tip Tuesday on the intentional edit podcast.
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Lauren is the founder of Intentional Edit, a home organization and lifestyle company focused on consciously editing to create efficient and organized spaces. Lauren believes that a functional home that looks and feels good has a positive influence on all aspects of life. Creating systems that allow for the home to function more efficiently, therefore, eliminating most of the clutter and chaos is her priority. While trends come and go organization is always in style!
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I’m Lauren, and I’m passionate about being organized and efficient and making spaces beautiful at the same time. I hope to inspire you to live your best organized life.
