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Do you struggle to get out the door on time in the morning for school? Do you waste precious minutes looking for missing socks or shirts as you plead with your child to just “choose something to wear!” In this post, learn how to save time in the morning and stop arguing about clothes with this easy system to organize kids clothes and outfits for school (and weekends!).

mama friend, as you try to get out the door in the morning for school, do you find yourself wondering, googling, and texting your friends for help asking:

• how do you organize multiple kids clothes?
• what’s the best way to organize my kids clothes for the week?
• how can i easily organize my kids clothes by outfit?
• how can we get out the door faster in the morning?

i get it. we have been there. i wish i could say our school mornings have always been calm, organized, and ahead of schedule. they haven’t, and once in awhile we still struggle with last minute questions like:

• how can you not know where your shoes are?
• you want to bring your lunch? i thought you said buy!
• no, you cannot bring your baby to school.

if this sounds familiar, you are not alone! truthfully, it’s taken us years (6 years to be exact) to figure out a school day morning routine that works for all three kids going off to their three different schools. our mornings used to consist mostly of shouting up the stairs. and reminders. and repeating myself. so much repeating myself.

i’ve spend the last 6 years asking mom friends the same questions you’re asking about school clothes, saving time, and morning routines that work. i’ve also tested numerous solutions with my own kids, who each have a VERY different personality so they are a good testing sample!

now, i can confidently say that we have FINALLY gone from rushed and frantic to organized and under control. i am so excited to share our solutions with you because i’ve learned that a less stressful morning with kids is possible with just 3 simple things:

1. keeping school clothes organized and choosing outfits ahead of time

this will be the main topic of this post and something we actually started 4 years ago. it worked immediately, and i heard the same success stories from countless members of this LITTLE community, so we kept at it. keep reading to see how you can EASILY do this with your family in just 3 steps, plus something that surprised me along the way.

2. a basic morning routine

you can learn more about our sanity-saving morning routines here plus snag morning routine printables for your family in this post here.

3. a morning routine checklist

to go along with our basic morning routine, each of my kids has a checklist. you’d think kids could move through a standard routine each morning without a checklist but no, the checklist is the only solution i’ve found where i can actually stop giving out reminders. it makes sense because teachers us checklists all day long for students at school, right?! learn more about how you can use a checklist to encourage better time management, independence, and cut down on reminders at your house right here (plus you can snag some done-for-you morning routine checklists for your own family!).

alright Mama, ready to tackle #1 and get your kids school clothes organized? this method is so quick and easy with just 3 steps to follow…

whether you have picky kids or not, getting dressed is still something they each have to do. every. day. and if your mornings are anything like ours, getting some of this precious time back would make a big difference for everyone.

more time could mean extra sleep, more meaningful morning conversations (instead of just reminders), time for your kids to play with each other, or getting to the bus stop a bit early to chat or shoot some hoops!

the start of an idea

i actually stumbled upon our idea for organizing school clothes while packing for florida. when we travel, i use this method of placing each outfit in a separate ziplock bag for the kids. this includes socks, underwear, and hair bows in addition to tops and bottoms.

at first, my husband thought i was totally crazy. but it SAVED SO MUCH TIME on the trip! not to mention, it eliminated outfit arguments completely and kept our suitcases from becoming an overflow of disorganized clothes. even my husband agrees it is one of our best traveling-easier-with-kids strategies to date.

so i asked myself, why don’t i do this for school? it would make our weeks so much easier to have our outfits planned out ahead of time, all the way down to the socks. i could save so much time every morning if we didn’t have to make decisions or argue about clothes.

to make this happen, i followed 3 simple steps to get my kids clothes organized for the week:

Step 1: Organize your kids closets by color

this might sound crazy but this idea for organizing your kids clothes in their closet takes less than 5 minutes. organizing kids clothes by color makes it soooooo much easier for them (and you!) to pick out outfits that match. and if nothing else, the finished product is so nice and satisfying to look at!

Step 2: Organize kids drawers by rolling clothes

again, you might doubt how well this works…until you try it. first of all, it makes clothes so much easier for kids to put away! secondly, it makes it super easy to see everything in the drawers. clothes that are folded or even just thrown in there make it really hard to see what’s on the bottom of the pile. thirdly, it makes it much easier for your kids to pull out their clothes without disturbing everything else in the drawer (which means everything stays a lot neater!).

for this step, i recommend using some kind of organizer to help keep the rolled clothes straight. however, when i first did this in my daughters’ drawers (my son doesn’t have a dresser) i did not have an organizer. we just rolled up their pants and put them in rolls. eventually i bought an organizer after i looked around a bit. the ones we have are at target here and there are also ones on amazon.

Step 3: Organize outfits for Monday-Friday

now that your closet and drawers have been quickly organized, all you have to do is spend 20 minutes on sundays choosing an outfit for each day of the week and setting it aside. (pro tip: once in awhile my daughter complains a little bit when i ask her to go organize her outfits for the week. i figure this small amount of complaining and 20 minutes out of one day (sunday) is waaaaaaay better than complaining or taking time to do this every morning!!).

i recommend these inexpensive hanging cubbies. you can get them almost anywhere and i just printed the days of the week labels on my computer. i’ve seen these simple organizers at target in the dollar spot, at ikea, and on amazon.

this picture is from when we first started this. my son was in second grade and my daughter was in kindergarten. as we’ve used this method over the past 4 years, i was surprised to learn these three things:

• this idea for organizing kids clothes also helps avoid last minute laundry. in addition to their school clothes, many times i also have the kids put their sports uniforms in their cubbies on the days they have practice or a game. it’s an easy way to tell if a piece of a uniform is missing or still in the laundry so you’re not scrambling at the last minute to find clean baseball pants!
• not all kids need this. it’s true. my son organized his clothes like this in second grade but we quickly learned that aside from sports uniforms, he really doesn’t need to save time on clothes. he doesn’t care too much about what he wears. he is able to easily get dressed in the morning, without any arguments or reminding, even without this system. i am sure this is true for other kids as well.my girls, on the other hand, really like and rely on this system. it saves us TONS of time with them. my youngest daughter C, who is 4, even sets out her pajamas for the week. she actually just does this on her floor, and doesn’t even use the cubbies. even though it looks kind of messy on her floor, she happily does it and it saves us a ton of time in our bedtime routine as well!
• setting some ground rules helps make this work. we organize all of our outfits on sundays. everything must be tried on and chosen. initially, you had to wear the outfit that you chose for that day, no questions asked. now our rule is that during the week, you have to wear an outfit from the organizer. if it’s monday morning and you want to switch wednesday’s outfit to monday, that’s fine. but you are not allowed to go back in your closet or drawers to try on or add any new clothes. thinking these types of things through before you start will set you and your family up for success too!

organizing our school clothes ahead of time, our morning routine, and our morning routine checklist have been total game changers when it comes to our school morning routine. when it comes to clothes, now i don’t have to go upstairs to pick things out, or shout from downstairs suggesting places where that one particular shirt might be. and i don’t have to deal with eye rolling when i ask someone to choose a different shirt or wonder if they were wearing clean underwear. MOM WIN!!

as a bonus, on the days my husband is in charge, he loves not worrying whether he’s putting them in the right things. all around our mornings run more smoothly, we have time for more meaningful conversations, and even a little extra sleep – and i wish this for you too Mama!

remember, just 3 simple steps to get clothes organized for school:

Step 1: Organize your kids closets by color

Step 2: Organize kids drawers by rolling clothes

Step 3: Organize outfits for Monday-Friday

and since i know you already have a million things to remember, if you want a handy (and cute!) quick reference printable for these 3 Steps to Organize School Clothes for Easier and Faster School Mornings you won’t want to miss the popular School Day Sanity Saver Pack (on sale until midnight tonight!).

the School Day Sanity Saver Pack truly has everything you need for an all around smoother school morning and calmer afternoon! you can learn more right here before the sale ends at midnight.

PLUS…if you’re like me, once you finish one project that makes your life easier, you wonder what you can tackle next! take the overwhelm out of organizing with these 5 easy steps to organize any space. you can get your own copy of this cute cheat sheet for FREE in the Grateful Home Starter Kit right here!

OTHER MUST-READ IDEAS:

2 Game-Changing Tips for an Easier School Morning with Kids
Set Up a Sanity-Saving After School Routine for Kids (Including Printable After School Checklist)
3 Simple Tips for an Easier Afternoon With Kids
How to Organize School Papers & Artwork the Easy Way

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