5 Steps to Sustain an Organized Homeschool

You’ve decluttered, organized your homeschool paperwork, books and supplies and now it’s time to sustain your progress. Even if you aren’t to the point of perfect organization, that’s ok. You need a system for sustaining right from the start!

This is where a lot of us go wrong. We figure that we’ll put a system in place for sustaining once we get to the point of having everything totally organized. But this is the wrong approach because if we don’t sustain, even the smallest improvements, we are going to go right back to where we were before. So, any small improvement you have made, or any type of organization that you have put into place needs to be sustained.

If you missed the other posts in the series, you can start here.

Begin sustaining, even if you are still working on organizing other areas. You don’t need to have everything perfect before you do this! If you just got done organizing one small area of your homeschool space, a small shelf where you keep manipulatives, for example, then you’ll want to sustain that. Decide on a time every day to do a quick clean-up and a time every week for a more thorough clean-up. Then decide if one person or everyone will help keep that area organized.

You can assign different children to different areas or just have everyone work together. A friend of mine uses Friday afternoons to clean the house, including the school area. Since they do it every week, her children know that’s what they will be doing on Friday afternoon. Plus, it gets them all ready for the weekend. How perfect!

And on a day-to-day basis, try and make sure everyone is putting things back in their designated homes. This, of course, can feel nearly impossible with an active toddler (or two) around but do what you can in your current situation.

I used a clean-up song strategy when my twin girls were younger and that helped.

Rummage sales and thrift store shopping can be oh so fun until I realize I’m overloaded with stuff in my home. I think homeschoolers are especially prone to this as we are always on the lookout for good learning materials at a good price. However, when it really comes down to it, there are things which are truly helpful and used on a regular basis and many things that aren’t. Try and stick with the things you need and love the most. Pass along items that are barely or never used.

Re-organize when you need to and then declutter often! Even when we are intentional about what we bring into our home and homeschool, stuff will start to accumulate again. So be sure to set aside time to declutter and re-organize.

So, here is a quick review of the 5 steps you can follow to sustain an organized homeschool:

1. Sustain your organized homeschool areas right from the start.
2. Make sure to put things back in their home after you are done using them and teach your children to do the same.
3. Have everyone do a quick 10-15 minute clean up every day. Pick a daily clean-up time right now. Do a more thorough clean up once a week. Now pick a weekly clean-up day and time right now.
4. Only buy the things you need and declutter often.
5. Re-organize when you need to.

Awesome job, friend! Keep up the good work and happy organizing!