Just like with all other aspects of life and homeschooling, homeschool organization isn’t just about the school books. It’s about organizing your life as a whole to equip homeschooling.

For instance, when I say the word organization, my mind is immediately taken back to the early years of mothering when life required a routine purging of the kids’ toys. The day would begin by dumping every play thing from closet bins, under the bed containers, and toy buckets into the middle of the room. With a large trash bag and a few plastic containers, we would begin weeding through the pile, making quick decisions on what to keep, give away, throw away, or put away for a later date.

To homeschool moms, organization is about the linen closet, the kitchen junk drawer, homeschool books and supplies, the pantry, bedroom closets, and dressers. Those are the majority, but homeschool organization isn’t limited to school books and home management.

The word organization has a few different meanings:

• The act of organizing something, putting it together – i.e. homeschooling
• The structure of arrangement of related or connected items – i.e. budgeting
• An efficient and orderly approach to tasks – i.e. home management

As we continue to process Step #2, we are following up on homeschool scheduling and planning. By following the method, you’ve created your schedule, put it to work, and come up with a routine that works for your family. Next you began planning checklists and becoming proficient in understanding your responsibilities, expectations, and limitations. Now, it would seem that you’ve made it. You’re going to obtain your goals.

But there is more to the recipe of success than scheduling and planning. What is needed next is a few tablespoons (maybe a few cups) of homeschool organization! Before we dive into the specifics of how to organize, let’s review why homeschool organization is necessary and what areas of your life you should be assessing to determine your organizational needs.

Homeschool Organization: Why Organize?

Schedules help you understand a realistic approach to what can be accomplished in a day; homeschool planning checklists allow you to stay focused on prioritized tasks; homeschool organization prepares the way to execute both the schedule and the plan. Without organization, the schedule is derailed and planning is put on pause or halted all together.

When considering homeschool organization, it’s easy to see the physical benefits. A tidy closet, a structured pantry, dressers with neatly folded and arranged clothing. You can walk from one side of the house to the other without contending with obstacles and clutter. But beyond the physical appeal of organization, the emotional and mental effects are tremendous.

You know that feeling when it’s time to school and the assignment requires colored pencils and you can’t find them? What about planning a dinner menu and shopping list, but it takes a half hour to figure out what ingredients you have or don’t have because the pantry is such a mess? Perhaps, like many, Sunday morning comes around and the chaos ensues as you dive into laundry baskets looking for a clean shirt and matching socks for the kids.

By having a dedicated space or container for the homeschool books and supplies, you aren’t spending time searching and hunting last minute for items to keep school on track. By maintaining a structured pantry, you reduce your meal planning and shopping time. When it’s time to get ready for church, you can keep the emotional Richter scale to a rumble and prevent a full-blown catastrophe. As we can see, our emotional state is greatly affected by organization.

Besides an Instagram picturesque pantry and the DEFCON levels steady at a five in your home (this is lowest state of readiness), there are two additional benefits of homeschool organization that have even greater impact: awareness and focus.

Awareness, in this context, is the superpower of a woman understanding what is emotionally going on within her. You know what I mean. You’re irritated and frustrated, but you can’t seem to figure out why. It’s easy to recognize where the feelings of exhaustion and being overwhelmed have come from when it’s about your schedule or checklists. But with homeschool organization, our awareness of our emotional state is often skewed.

For example, perhaps you’re struggling with feelings of not being appreciated, but because the kitchen sink is piled with dishes, you assess the situation and wrongly connect cause and effect. Perhaps you are fearful of a financial problem, but the dirty clothes are creeping their way up the laundry room door frame. For whatever reason, we typically begin our assessment of our emotional issues with what we can physically see (schedule and plan).

With long-term imbalances to scheduling, planning, and organizing, it’s easy to mask what is truly going on in our emotional and mental states. With homeschool organization comes the ability to properly connect what is bothering us to the real issue.

Recently, with the holidays coming to an end, I had a refrigerator stuffed with leftovers going bad, Christmas décor to put away, and mountains of work laying on my desk. For weeks, I thought my irritation was because these things were not organized. But once I got things squared away, I was able to realize it had nothing to do with these things.

Don’t get me wrong, not having my things in order really bothers me. But this time, the underlying issue was related to a relationship. By having life back to a semi-organized state, I was able to recognize the real issue and address it.

The other benefit of homeschool organization is the ability to focus. The more your living spaces are squared away, the more focus and attention you can give your schedule and plan.

Think about the last time you really felt on top of your home, school, and personal organization. How did this affect your ability to focus on your checklist? For me, it’s critical. Not only can I assess my emotional and mental health, but I have a focus on my tasks that remind me of Bradley Cooper’s attention and awareness in Limitless. There is a strong relationship between the level of organization and the level of focus.

Homeschool Organization: Preparing to Organize or Organizing to Prepare?

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of homeschool organization, it is best summed up in the word preparing. You prepare to cook by organizing the kitchen. You prepare to use the living room for entertaining and fellowship by organizing the space. You create your meals based on your refrigerator and pantry organization. You prepare for school by organizing your supplies and homeschool area.

But being prepared goes beyond the rooms in your home.

Consider finances, for instance. You can have a goal, schedule, and plan for budgeting, but without the organization of your finances, it just won’t happen. Sometimes organization comes before and after the schedule and plan.

When getting a handle on your finances, the first thing to do is organize your spending and income streams. This is used as a guide when determining a financial goal. After creating the budget (schedule) and while executing it (plan), you will also need to organize to stay on top of unexpected items, spending, and deadlines.

The same is true of homeschool organization. You can purchase curriculum (your goal), schedule the time, and plan the assignments, but without organizing the tools and resources, you’ll not get very far in educating your little ones. Preparation is the anticipation of something happening. That is why organizing your homeschool supplies is preparing the way to execute the schedule and the plan.

Homeschool Organization Essentials

Now that you understand the benefits and purpose of organizing, it’s time to dive in. Where do you start? The answer to that is different for each person. Just as your schedule was based on your priorities, so too is your organizational agenda.

We also need to remember we are all at different stages of life; have different disposable income, decorating styles, and square footage; and, most importantly, all define “organized” differently.

I’m a Type A and ENTJ Myers Briggs personality. I’m a minimalist, and my sentimental belongings are confined to a small box. I love the color white and prefer a very limited number of appliances on my kitchen counter. If it’s sparse and clean, it’s beautiful—that is my motto. All but one of my kids are grown and gone, so I have plenty of storage space. As well, I’d prefer to spend money on organizational totes than a new blouse or purse.

However, I have a sister who loves the Victorian era. She has a claw foot couch and a coffee table with every inch covered with a doily or something floral. There are curio cabinets with all kinds of tea cups and dolls. She favors spending money on knick-knacks because buying totes requires putting things away. Although her home is beautifully decorated, it’s overwhelming to me; but it’s soothing to her.

With such an array of personalities, how do you determine the scope of your homeschool organization needs? Simply put, if it’s hindering productivity or preparedness, it’s time to organize.

Now that you know it’s okay to be you and that there is no system to conform to, let’s get started!

Begin by asking yourself what areas of your living space or life you feel are the most disorganized. Take some time to really think this through.

Make a list of the top 5 areas where organizing would most help you become prepared or productive.

Review the S.P.I.R.A.L. system and examples below and decide which of these your area needs:

• Straightening: fold the linen closet towels and bedding
• Purging: kids toys
• Information Gathering: budgeting
• Re-containerizing: pantry or Christmas décor
• Arranging: bookshelves, desks, paperwork
• Long-Term Storing: homeschool end-of-year

Begin working on the first item on your list. Based on the type of homeschool organization needed, implement the following practical yet simple tips:

Straightening

Begin by removing all items from the area.

Next, sort the items into groups. For example, the linen closet can be divided by towels, sheet sets, blankets, and curtains. For a dresser drawer with pants and bottoms, sort the capris, shorts, skirts, and pants (even separating jeans from other types of pants).

After sorting, nicely fold or straighten the items and place them back in a neat and orderly manner.

Purging

If you are purging a dedicated area, like a closet, pull all items out and empty the closet. If you are purging an entire room, start with one section at a time.

• Divide the items into 4 piles: keep, dispose, giveaway, store for later.
• Bag and throw away the disposal pile.
• Bag and drop off at a local thrift store the giveaway pile.
• Containerize and put away the store-for-later pile.
• Using the Straightening list above, organize the keep pile.

Information Gathering

Whether you are gathering information for organizing an event, tracking spending for your budget, or gathering information to make homeschool curriculum choices, I strongly recommend using a datasheet like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel to chart the information.

If you’ve made notes, gather them together and enter the data. By having it online, you can access it from your phone as needed.

Re-containerizing

When cleaning out the refrigerator, pantry, bathrooms, and laundry room, you can save space by combining similar items. In the pantry, instead of 3 bags of open sugar, combine them into a plastic container. Have 2 half bottles of ketchup in the refrigerator? Combine into one—after checking expiration dates. Same with items like shampoo, laundry detergent, and hand soaps. Every little bit of space counts.

Arranging

When arranging bookshelves, begin by determining a system. You may want to category your books by genre, alphabetize by author, or, for a more decorative style, align the books according to size. Choose what works best for your family.

For stacks of paper and clutter, organize into stacks of similar items. File away or put away using drawers, file folders, or file cabinets.

Long-Term Storage

Perhaps you’re moving and downsizing, the kids have grown and gone, or you’re in need of more space for a new little one on the way. Begin by investing in storage bins. They are worth every penny. I recently purchased replacement totes after twenty years of use. I definitely got my $4.77 (that was 20 years ago) out of them! Pack and store, making sure you purge first!

Homeschool organization doesn’t stop at the fifth item on your list. Rather, it’s a way of life. As often as you make time to schedule and plan, be sure to ask if there’s organization that needs to happen. Using the forms found in the right-hand column, you can begin organizing for your family needs.