Don’t forget to enter the Chunky Bling necklace giveaway. It ends tonight and only has 5 entries so far.

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We all dread it but, the boy’s bedroom must be gutted, we do this 2-3 times a year. I have 2 teenage boys that share a 10’x10′ room with a standard closet. You may remember the post I wrote last year when we were entering the Walmart Your Zone room makeover contests..which we didn’t win. If you want to see the room here is the link to that post. We have tried many times over the years to put systems in place to declutter their room and keep it that way but…they don’t seem to work for long. We will move forward and try again!

I am a very organized person…everywhere but in my home. I am always looking for tips, tricks and systems to keep our tiny house neat and organized. I have learned a lot over the years from watching Peter Walsh on television. His tips are usually common sense things and they don’t cost a lot of money. I just watched Peter’s DVD “It’s All Too Much” and again he has given me more to work on.

In this DVD, Peter focuses on how to tackle the two major types of clutter in our homes-memory clutter and “I might need that one day clutter”.  After watching the DVD I want to re-visit what I have already done in my kitchen and use some of the tips I’ve learned to reorganize my little galley kitchen even more.

To start with we need to have a vision for our home-what we want it to be like. Next we must define the function of each room-what will we do in that room. Then we organize the room into activity zones and finally we limit how much stuff is in each zone. Before we begin fine tuning each room we need to do some general decluttering. Peter calls this the Trashbag Tango. If we did the Trashbag Tango daily for 1 week our family should generate 28 bags of trash and 28 bags of yard sale or charitable donations. I think that in itself would make a huge improvement!

Peter goes through your home room by room with simple, effective tips on how to organize what we have. If you watch the video be careful not to be too jealous of the closet he is standing in when he talks about closet organization…I think the closet is bigger than my boy’s bedroom.  The video is very interesting and I feel would be helpful for anyone who wants to do a better job at organizing their home. I do wish it was recorded using a home with more average sized rooms though. It seems like it would be a lot easier to find storage spaces in a home with large closets, lots of kitchen cabinets and bedrooms large enough to hold dressers, though I could be wrong and maybe more available space means more places to be cluttered…hmmmm.

You can purchase the DVD at PeterWalshDesign.com where it is currently on sale, $10 off the retail price! You can also enter to win it from The Mom Maven!

Mandatory 1st Entry Tell me what room in your house needs to be decluttered the most AND what most of the clutter in that room is.

Bonus Entries please leave a separate comment for each entry

• Follow Peter Walsh on Twitter
• Become a Facebook Fan of Peter Walsh
• Become a Facebook Fan of The Mom Maven
• Subscribers get 1 entry
• Followers get 1 entry
• Tweet this 1x a day “@MomMaven I want to get organized with the “It’s All Too Much” DVD by @Peter_Walsh. http://bit.ly/cvvmaZ” You may do this 1x a day.

The giveaway is for US entries only. The winner will be chosen on Wednesday April 7th at 10:00pm EDT and will be chosen by Random.org

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Organizing at home for school success: Clutter makes it difficult to study.

• Whether your child’s homework area is a desk or a study table like the Malaysia’s best ergonomic tables, it needs to be cleaned off regularly and have the supplies organized and accessible.
• Keep pencils in a pencil cup for easy access.
• Use an expanding file for organizing projects.
• Use the tools you have to their full potential. If your desk has a file drawer organize color coded files by subject to keep papers organized etc.
• Teach middle and high school students how to use a planner to organize their time and activities.

Organizing your child:Organization relieves stress and increases confidence.

• Teach your child HOW to organize and pack their backpack. The big section for books and binder, middle section for lunch and smaller section for accessories.
• Teach your child HOW to organize their binder. Shoving papers into a binder does not equal being organized
• Have a place for the child to empty their backpack daily
• Purge the binder at least once a week
• Set out their clothes the night before
• Elementary and middle school students need their parents to oversee and guide their organizational habits. Parents must take an active role in making sure papers and books are traveling to and from school as needed.

Establishing clear organizational routines and following through the routine will help your child feel more confident about school. Also, get your child involved from the beginning-make a list and go shopping together, work out the routines together to help him take ownership of the tools and the process.

Organizing your homeschool: This will vary by family and homeschooling style.

The teacher on the panel said to clearly differentiate between living space and school space in your home. We tried that…we have a small house, it didn’t work for us-it may work for you. Here are some of my homeschool organizational tips.

• Color code by child-Each child gets their color for the year. This helps them know what is theirs as well as helping mom know who left their supplies laying around.
• If the child works in multiple places around the house use a plastic bin to store all of their school supplies. They can take their bin to wherever they are working today be it the kitchen table, living room couch, back porch or grandma’s house.
• Daily file papers into the proper binders. Paperwork can easily overtake the homeschooling household, file daily to avoid the clutter.
• Before buying everything new for the new year, see what you can re-use or re-purpose from the previous year.

While you are doing your back-to-school shopping, make sure you check out OfficeMax’s kid-centric school supplies line, Schoolio-Von-Hoolio.

I don’t know about you but I dream of owning Peter Walsh’s In Place System for organizing all of my homeschool and home office filing.

Disclosure-Office Max sent me a sampler of their Schoolio-von-Hoolio products as a thank-you for being part of this webcast.

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