Homeschooling paraphernalia is taking over my house! There’s papers, and markers, and paint, and workbooks cluttering nearly every corner and surface.
After talking with some other homeschooling parents, I’ve learned that I’m not alone. It seems to be a potential epidemic! So, I’ve teamed up with Professional Organizer Margarita from DownshiftingPro.com to put together a challenge for anyone in the homeschool community who is having the same struggles I am.
It’s time to get our homeschool stuff organized. Here’s a step-by-step plan of how to do it in 20ish days.
Trying to tackle the stuff in our homes can be completely overwhelming. Often, the struggle is even just wondering where to start. The project seems huge and it’s hard to narrow in and do even one thing.
That’s why I made this challenge.
Each week, there’s a specific area that we are going to target. Here’s the basic outline:
Week 1: Supplies
Week 2: Spaces
Week 3: Books
Week 4: Other stuff
The days of the week are divided up to help focus one thing at a time. Knowing that I was likely to give up and fail if I wasn’t given explicit, simple, step-by-step instructions, I tried to do exactly that for the daily tasks.
Weekends are off – unless you want to finish up a task from the week or are so inspired that you just can’t stop!
In this e-book edition, each day is on a single page – with the tasks for the day broken down for you, along with inspiring photos of other participants’ results, words of wisdom from Professional Organizer, Margarita, and great tips from other homeschoolers that shared their ideas during the challenge.
In January 2016, over 150 people joined me to give that challenge a go – to clean up our homeschool stuff. After 20 days, our supplies, books, and other things were all sorted, purged, tidied, and inviting to use.
Some of the feedback:
I loved the daily bite-size challenges and that we covered everything without feeling completely overwhelmed. … Do follow the challenge instructions. It was awesome! I got so much done. … This challenge should be done at least once a year! Preferably twice every year to keep it all organized year around and retrain our brains to be organized!- Ana W.
I am systematically cleaning and purging and organizing throughout my home, one Saturday at a time. I’m just over half done my house and I’m using some of the tips and advice (and definitely the motivation) found here. Thanks! – Marcie T.
I loved the challenge!I know it seemed like I dropped out here, but really i was too busy organizing! lol, You guys seriously woke up the dissatisfied monster inside of me. My house looks sooooo different! Lots of work to be done around here, and this challenge was totally the kick in the pants that I needed. Thanks! – Joan G.
I loved that I was finally able to go through things that have been bugging me so much!!! – Suzanne L.
A lot of great, tidy spaces exist in our home now. There are many things left to tackle, but I am inspired to keep going, because the biggest take-away I got from this is that it is true – A Little Bit at a time, DOES really go a long way toward getting the job done! Thanks so much – this has been so fun and productive!! – Di B
Thank You so much for setting up this challenge. It is making it fun to see where we need improvement and to make note of where we need to do a few extra things to help organize ourselves. – Lisa B.
Thank you for that organizational challenge …. I culled a ton of stuff and have been selling it off and it’s been helping me pay [for expenses we have]. I never would’ve thought to do that without that challenge… – Tammy B.
Get your copy of this challenge now in my shop and help make your home more organized, clutter-free, and enjoyable.
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week #1: biggest challenge for me was day 4, craft supplies. it tied in nicely with. my desire to make a more efficient craft space for this family, but I had so much to sort through! was really happy when it was done though!
Week number 1 : biggest challenge was finding all the pencils and crayons scattered all over the house in couches etc… It led to me having to clean out under the furniture, drawers etc. Led to a lot of follow up cleaning LOL. But I’m also proud of having done it and having a system set up so things can be put away where they belong now
Week #1: biggest challenge- craft supplies. We have a ton of junk. This is going to be an ongoing project. I’m most proud of getting my paints organized. It was a cupboard that was hazardous to open. Now it’s easy to find what you’re looking for.
This challenge has been a HUGE blessing!! It helps our school time much more productive because we know where our supplies are and they are all handy. Thank you!!!
OMGG!! Yes that means oh my good God! LOL What an answer to prayer to have everything organized and in proper place! Thank you for this week’s challenges!
Week #2 – HUGE undertaking, but fantastic results! Books are easy to get disorganized – taken from their shelves, used somewhere, then left somewhere else. And, it always seems to easy to take curriculum books and in the midst of using them, leave them lying around, and procrastinate about putting them back. Worse yet, when there’s TOO MIUCH, there is never a proper spot. So this week was full of culling alongside the sorting, and now, everything has a place. And, there is some breathing room to boot! I love books – the fact that they’re now all organized is super exciting – now, back to reading!! 🙂
I didn’t have such a difficult time with this week’s challenge, but it still felt great to get rid of the small amount of book-clutter that I had. I was surprised to see just how much i had!
This challenge should be done at least once a year! Preferably twice every year to keep it all organized year around and retrain our brains to be organized!
Thank you so much for holding me accountable! My space already looks amazing! Can’t wait to see what next week brings! I was so so grateful that one of the challenges this week was sorting old schoolwork! I needed that one.
Thank You so much for setting up this challenge. It is making it fun to see where we need improvement and to make note of where we need to do a few extra things to help organize ourselves. We haven’t been able to do each task to completion because we need to do a few things, but it is now in our heads of what we need to so!
Thank You SO much!
We just completed week 3, I think the hardest part of this week was just to try and find the space for my items and figuring out how to keep myself organized. I’m most proud of setting up my solution and making it work!
Thanks Again.
Week #3 – wow, thank you for the great tips and suggestions to keep us motivated and full of hope that there are indeed great ways for our everyday, very busy spaces to be organized and SANE !!
completed week three, hardest thing…. nothing this week was terribly hard even though you DID challenge me to double check what i’ve kept from the lad’s kindergarten years….. 🙂 I continue to be proud that I have ALL of this years stuff on two little shelves. 🙂
We did it!! Yay!! I feel like doing the Dora dance now! Well done ladies!!
Dora Dance. lol.
“We did it! We did it! We did it – hooray!”
Great work!
Week #4 – done, whew! And, a lot of great, tidy spaces exist in our home now. There are many things left to tackle, but I am inspired to keep going, because the biggest take-away I got from this is that it is true – A Little Bit at a time, DOES really go a long way toward getting the job done! Thanks so much – this has been so fun and productive – and all the homeschool moms who posted their ideas and tips have also been very helpful – I’ve definitely adopted several of them!!
hardest thing week four? Coming up with a doable sustainable plan.