Organizing & Decluttering School Papers
In my neck of the woods, we’re deep into summer. Others have only just begun. Regardless: school is out. So I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about my low-key system to wrangling not only kid art but school papers.
What do we do with all this stuff, people?!
My daughter brings home a week’s worth of work every Friday. The majority of it, she shows us, we ooo and ahhh over it, then I recycle about 95% of it as soon as I can.
But every once in a while, there’s a page, or even a sentence, that tugs at my heart. And I can’t toss it! On top of that, the end of the year brings the entire art collection home, as well as her journal. And by God, those entries just about killed me this year.
A system for dealing with these pages while also tending to those heartstrings is in order. As with all of my systems, they are simple, providing solutions, not additional stress. Let’s get to it.
Grab a folder, store it nearby
Any folder will do. No need to buy one. I hold on to her folders from yesteryear should she need them, or I. If a folder is torn, I grab some masking tape and repair it.
This folder becomes the collection facility, friends. This is where I store school papers, and any artwork made at home, etc.! - anything that I simply cannot throw out.
I keep all the heart-tugging papers on the RIGHT HAND side of the folder. I keep all the important flyers that I will inevitably need to reference on the LEFT HAND side.
A quarterly declutter
I go through this folder if it ever gets stuffed, probably a few times throughout the school year. I find myself able to declutter a bit then. But still, if those heartstrings tug, that paper remains in the folder.
I don’t schedule this in my calendar or anything. It usually springs up naturally. On occasion, my daughter will want to look through it, and together we’ll declutter. I may receive a flyer for an event, know I’ll need to reference it in a couple of weeks, throw it in the folder, realize I can recycle all the old flyers, and in so doing, I end up sorting through the heart-tugging pages, too.
End-of-the-year decisions
When school is finally out, I do my last sort of the folder. Whatever I (and my daughter) choose to keep, I transfer to her Memory Bin.
(I got my Memory Bin from The Baer Minimalist and I’m so glad I did. You can DIY one or you can find one on Etsy, as it’s not a current offering for TBM.)
(I sometimes file through this Memory Bin and declutter, too! Space and time can really highlight treasures vs. trash. It’s ok to let things go when the heart is no longer tugged.)
Art
We all know I love to turn crumbly kid art into curated albums, and this, of course, was born from my daughter’s creations. I make her an annual Emerging Artist’s Album now, so I photographed and edited her art over a month ago when she wrapped up 2nd grade!
You can DIY an album, or you can hire me to create one. Something about children’s creations bring me so much joy. I never tire of seeing your little ones’ imaginations come to life on the page.
But what about journals?
The journal threw me a curve ball this year. I didn’t expect to be so attached to it!
So I photographed the pages. and I stored them on OneDrive. I talk about sorting out collections of photos in The Annual Heirloom Album. I have a collection folder tree for her school life. It contains pictures her teacher sends out in newsletters, progress reports, etc. I drag them into her 2nd-grade folder and call it a day.
While she wrote a lot, it still only filled one-third of a notebook. So after I photographed her entries, I recycled the actual journal.
The wrap-up
I’m not 100% paper-free, but I do what I can to let go of what isn’t necessary. I sort as the year unfolds, I review what I’ve held onto every few months (and find that I can let go of some of it), then I file away what I hold onto in her Memory Bin and/or turn it into a curated album.
