My kids have only been back in school for a week, and already it’s begun: the school-year paper avalanche. Between field-trip permission slips, club sign-up forms, school picture day envelopes and the dreaded fundraiser packets, the first week or two of school brings with it a regular stream of incoming paper. And the more kids you’ve got in school, the more those papers add up. So how to deal? It took me a few years of trial and error, but I finally figured out some paper-management strategies that work for us:
1. Don’t put it off. Yes, it totally stinks that parents are flooded with this much paperwork at once, especially for those of us with multiple school-goers – don’t the teachers know how many kids we have!? – and it seems unfair that we appear to have more homework than our kids. But the longer I put off the signing, check-writing, and form-filling, the more I start to hate the idea of doing it and the more likely that those papers will get lost somewhere.
2. Search and Destroy. When my kids get home from school I attack their backpacks immediately, standing near the recycle bin in my office. Most of it gets tossed right in after a quick glance and possibly taking a moment to scrawl a date on the calendar. Homework goes on the dining room table to be completed and returned to the child’s backpack. The rare piece of schoolwork or artwork that I intend to save (here you can read more about my criteria for saving schoolwork) goes into a special folder tucked away in a desk drawer, and once a month or so I empty it into a tote that’s stored away in a closet.
3. Have a place for “pending” stuff.
I’ve heard the “touch each piece of paper only once” strategy for clutter management, but some things just don’t work that way – Scholastic catalogues, photo order forms, information on upcoming events, class newsletters…sometimes you need to leave things lying around for a while before you’re done with them. The trick for me is differentiating between the things I need to hold on to and the things I don’t, and having a streamlined, neat “home” for those things I need to keep. I use a simple cardboard inbox from Target. It sits on the corner of my desk in full sight, and I only put things in it that I can’t deal with right away.
4. Keep it simple.
At one point I had a separate inbox for each child in school, but that proved to be overkill. Also, the kids would forget to check their boxes or put stuff in the boxes, so they didn’t get used effectively. Since my inbox is for my use, not the kids’, I didn’t want to encourage them to stack stuff in there without running it by me first.
5. Perform regular maintenance.
I go through my school paper inbox at least once every day, work papers every few days, and personal mail and bills every two weeks or so. I almost always find that some piece of paper I was hanging on to can be tossed, and often find that there are papers in the stack that I somehow missed the first time around. If you work “working the system” into your regular routine it won’t take up much time, but can keep you from missing the RSVP date on that birthday party invitation or the fact that you’ve got snack duty…tomorrow.
What are your favorite tactics for managing kids’ paperwork in a larger family?
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t think I can add anything! These are great tips and I’m using most of them. So short of begging the schools to go paperless or something I think I have to just deal with it.
Nicole, our schools have actually come a long way with that – the calendars are paperless, most of the teachers do an online-only newsletter, etc. But what I find funny is that they still send home lots of paper from OTHER organizations – area classes and clubs, park sports and activities, fundraisers…I’m surprised more of those organizations aren’t reaching out to them via their email delivery system. Ah well…baby steps, baby steps.
The other organizations cannot utilize the email addresses if they don’t have them. Schools are willing to send out paper, but not email or put up on the websites third party information.
Also it is hard for an old dog to learn new tricks. ;o)
I’m curious though why they wouldn’t be willing to forward a message on? It would be less effort than passing out hundreds of fliers. And we do, every now and then, get third-party messages from the schools via email, so it must be that the orgs just aren’t as a whole going that route.
Our school district has stopped passing on the paper from other orgs. The organizations are required to provide an online doc and an update email is sent once a week to all registered recipients by the school district. See http://www.ipsd.org/eFolder.aspx if you’d like an example to talk to your school system about.
I do like to get less paper, but I don’t always make the effort to click through to see what’s been posted, so I’m probably less well informed under this system. Less trees are dying though!
my link didn’t work. Go to IPSD.ORG and click on the eFolder tab on the right.
I”m totally jealous of this. We are so behind the times electronically. The school does everything with paper but on the upside, I’ve never had a teacher actually send home newsletters so I’ll consider that being ‘green” and not a lack of communication!
Lol, I was just juggling all the papers on my desk trying to actually see the wood. I have 4 in school this year but we didn’t have much paperwork and most of it went right back to school the 2nd day.
Although my 6th grader was ranting at me last night that I lost something I was supposed to sign and give back to her. Um, no, Missy, if it’s not on my desk that means I signed it and gave it back to you already.
I don’t have a fancy inbox but all papers seem to accumulate on my desk. They’re in a big, disorganized pile but at least I know where they are, lol. I usually toss stuff right away (we can’t afford the Scholastic orders so they go right in the recycling).
Important things, homework packets and lunch menus get hung on the bulletin board in the kitchen. Homework is worked on each night then tacked back up until it needs to be returned so nothing gets lost.
Stuff that I don’t need that have blank backs go in a pile of scratch paper for the kids to doodle on. When that gets to overflowing it goes to the recycling (that includes graded papers that come home, we don’t save them unless there is artwork of supreme quality on the back). The kids’ papers are pretty organized, it’s getting my husband to keep the bills together that is the real challenge. He takes care of that and stuff is everywhere. Drives me nuts but I gave up control of the bills because of health reasons.
Pretty good tips! My challenge this year (so far) was the teacher sending home a reminder note that if you haven’t already filled out the contact form, to send her an email….well, I have filled out my contact into so many times to so many different teachers already, I don’t remember if I did hers specifically! So, I sent her and email with that exact explanation…LOL!
Hi Meagan,
I love this new site that you have joined! I have liked it on FB.
All your tips on dealing with paperwork are great. I have an in-box with stacked colored folders: one for pending, and one for each child where I keep info on activities, health forms, homeroom, etc.
Amy
I love those ideas….I also just hung a bulletin board and made it into 4 sections (for each kid) and use a different color tack for each one. I use that to put all the papers that simply contain info for a single event..a picnic, field trip, birthday party invites…and once a week throw things out. For things that are appropriate for the school year I put them into a binder for easy reference throughout the year, separated by school, church, work. These papers are usually band schedules, Girl Scout calendars, telephone and class lists, school lunch info….I also use the binder to put take out menus, cable and phone info and any town info that I need to access, the recycling schedule, the town services phamplet…..I also use it to put in any perscription information that the kids are on for long term. It’s just easier to have it all in one place, it gives me time to run the 4 kids to all their activities!!!!
Hi there, I have triplet boys and one older girl.. our school is supposed to send only certain paperwork with the youngest child I think. But as they can’t figure out which boy is youngest, they send it all.. four Entertainment books, four wrapping paper catalogs, four music booster forms, four bus stop notices, etc. etc. etc. Thank goodness for our three recyling bins! After the first child shows me whatever they brought home, I just keep pointing the bins for all the rest.
I can’t believe how much your organization is like mine. I am sort of an OCD person with four kids ages 8, 6, 4, and 21 months. I am pretty good at keeping up with scrapbooks for each child and all the stuff they have for school, but it does take a lot of work. I always love new ideas that other moms have for doing it better and making it easier!
I try to recycle most of it, but for the stuff I have to save, notes about projects that aren’t due till the end of the month, etc., we have clipboards hanging on the wall – one for each kid. Gets the clutter off the counter.
Love this post! I have 4 in 4 different schools (kill me now), and our mantra is Get It On The Calendar! Then we try to get as much into recycling as possible; even so, the paper threatens to take over.
I just stumbled over here via Mommycoddle. My four are all grown and out in the world (well, the youngest is still in college).
This post cracks me up, because when my kids were little, email was in its infancy! There was very little technology…was that a help or a hinderance? Sometimes I wonder!
I used looseleaf binders to corral school directories, calendars, etc. At one point I had three different schools I was keeping track of…elementary, middle and high school. Not to mention four different sets of activities…but you all know how that is!
Our four have grown into remarkable young people, and despite the fact that we all live in far flung places, we are still close in spirit. Cherish these busy, full days, girls…’cause they are truly fleeting!
I only have two kids (but 2 others I have to cook/clean for
… I do pretty well (if I do say so myself 
on the whole cooking/shopping end of things, but even then this is one of those areas I just fail at miserably even when it was just our older daughter in school.. now there are two. I better get a handle on it today! Thanks for the tips!!!
I’m going to sit down with all the paper work tonight, with this in front of me, and we are going to set a system up.
We have a similar system. Backpacks are gone through daily so we can ‘admire’ their work. Papers that are really great are either filled in a box that is ‘to keep’ (ie art work that was clearly worked hard on or great creative writing piece) or hung on the refridge (usually a perfect spelling test). The notices or forms are tossed in our box and everything else is thrown away. EXCEPT this year my second graders spelling homework includes letters that have to be cut out and used each night…so thank you to that teacher for giving us another issue to figure out how to handle.
I do the same thing (one inbox after trying MANY other systems) – except I put the papers in the inbox in Date Due order and each night I shuffle through the top few.
I only have 2 kids and I feel buried by avalanche of paperwork. These are great tips. THANKS.