Organizing My Home – Homeschool Area

Guest Post by Liz Jenkins, CPO of A Fresh Space

As many of you may know, Kelly homeschools, and while this is a fantastic experience, things can get hectic and disorganized.  This can make it hard to not only gather up all the materials you need, but also to have the time to spend with the kids instead of scrambling to look for a pencil or the right workbook.  So while Kelly is naturally pretty organized, whenever kids are involved, the best laid plans can easily fall apart!

Homeschool Room - Before

Kelly had the spot picked out for homeschooling, was set up  and had been doing it for a while but was feeling like there wasn’t enough space for all of the stuff she needed to really do it right, and was getting a bit frazzled with keeping up with everything that was accumulating.

So we met and talked about what her vision was for the space – how did she work with the kids, what she needed to access daily/weekly/infrequently, what worked now and what didn’t.  Once we had those questions answered, we were able to tackle the space.

We sorted everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) out, grouped things together that were used together, got rid of anything that was broken/out of date/non-functional and created more storage than she thought possible by really looking at how she was using things and what needed to be nearby and what really didn’t.   Organizing is all about how things are used, when they are used and how easily accessible things need to be.

::  Checkout all the details on how we organized her homeschool area.

Homeschool Room - After

From Kelly:
I was amazed at how much space I had available when I put things into groups and got it all organized.  I actually had space left over. I think my favorite part of this was the feeling of satisfaction I got from feeling like I knew where everything was.  No more wasting time searching for things. All items were in their place, and since they were organized by the function, I just go to that “area” to find what I am looking for.

For instance, all my homeschool resources and work items are in two separate areas. Liz was clear not to mix them.  That way I can easily and quickly find what I am looking for. Knowing they are in their assigned area, I will quickly be able to file them back where they belong.

What you can’t see here are the neatly labeled areas. How nice it was to have everything in it’s place….and labeled. I am now a labelmaker fan. Yes, I have been labeling everything. But, I can quickly glance at something and know exactly what goes in it.  It is great for my daughter who is learning to read, because it gives her the opportunity to help me in cleaning up.

The “Organizing My Home – Homeschool Area” post is brought to you by Brother Label Maker. You can find out more about the Brother P-Touch 1290 Model here.

::  Check out Liz’s detailed post for specific tips on how to get started with your own organizing project.

Next week…Part 2 – Creative Storage for Art Supplies and Materials

About Liz Jenkins of A Fresh Space
Liz Jenkins, Certified Professional Organizer and owner of A Fresh Space, specializes in helping people in their homes or small businesses streamline their lives so they can be more effective, productive and not so stressed out and frazzled.  A self-professed life-long organizing geek, Liz wields a label maker with style and can sort & containerize with a wave of her magic want (not really but wouldn’t it be cool?).  De-cluttering, figuring out what to do with all the papers, wrangling the kids toys, managing emails & calendars, creating order out of chaos . . . these are the things that make her day.  Find more organizing tips on her blog, A Fresh Space.