what’s the hardest part about getting your kids out the door for school? for us, it’s a lot of things. i wish i could say our school mornings are calm, organized, and ahead of schedule. they’re not. most days are rushed and the last seconds with my children are spent shouting things 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 a light saber to school.
sound familiar? this year, we’ll have two to get out the door every day, plus a one-year-old running around. that means last year’s crazy will just be multiplied. in anticipation of this, i plan to continue some of the routines that worked best last year.
one way we really saved time in the morning last year is with school clothes. 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 mine, getting some of this precious time back would make a big difference.
while packing for florida last year, i had an idea. when we travel, i use this method of placing each day’s 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.
so i tried it. at target, i spied these closet organizers in the dollar spot. i also saw them at ikea and on amazon.
at the start of school last year, we began organizing our outfits for the week on sundays. that meant shirt, shorts, pants, socks, underwear, hair bow, and anything else we might need. we also included our gymnastics leotards, baseball uniforms, swim team suits, cub scouts uniforms, etc.
i designed cute labels for each slot and made an easy visual checklist for the kids. K loved it! she thought it was the best thing having her outfit so easy for her to get. E had a normal seven-year-old-boy reaction. i can’t expect him to get as excited about clothes and labels as K and me. his only concern was whether i was still going to let him wear athletic shorts three days a week and i feel good knowing he will be wearing matching socks.
the system definitely made a difference in our mornings. i didn’t have to go upstairs to pick things out, or shout from downstairs suggesting places where that one particular shirt might be. i didn’t have to deal with eye rolling when i asked someone to choose a different shirt or wonder if they were wearing clean underwear. and on the days my husband dressed the kids, he loved not worrying whether he was putting them in the right thing.
the kids got dressed more quickly because they didn’t have a chance to get sidetracked while picking out an outfit. we weren’t scrambling for socks or hair bows at the last minute. i was surprised that such a small change could make such a big difference.
i am excited for the time and energy we are going to keep saving this year with this method!
here are the labels i used. if you want to make it super easy on yourself, you can grab your FREE copies here in the LITTLE resource library.
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 printable in the resource library.
most likely, this school year will be BUSY like all the rest. whether it’s august or february, putting efficient systems into place will free up precious time to focus on the LITTLE things, the things that bring you and your family the most joy!
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This is such a GREAT idea!!! We did the ziploc bag outfits when we went to the beach this summer and it worked SO well! I actually have a hanging cubbie that I’m not using right now so I’m going to set it up in my big guy’s room this afternoon. This is such perfect timing too because I have been starting to stress a bit about how we are going to get out the door on time this school year. We were always in afternoon preschool but now we are going to be in morning kindergarten. I think this will help so much for our morning routine. Thanks so much for such an awesome idea! 🙂
kindergarten! what a big step! and so glad to hear you pack in the bags too. it has been a game changer for us! i’d love to see your organizer after you have it all set up. send me a pic!
enjoy these last few days with your little man before school starts. i am sending my second off to kindergarten and trying to squeeze every last ounce out of these final summer days.
:: erin ::
Hi Erin, what a great idea! Looks lovely too ? This vacation was the first that I packed outfits, I want to co tinue this at home too. The checklist, is that so that the kids remember to put everything on?
hi nynke! thank you for your sweet comments! yes, the checklist is just a visual reminder for your kiddos for the times they are putting the clothes in the slots themselves. right now, i am still helping mine with this but eventually i hope they can do it themselves on sundays. our checklist is hanging on the side of their organizers, though my daughter asked if she could have one for everyday that she can check off with a pencil. ha! so i might design one that is smaller and easier to print for her. if i do, i will email it to you. really, you can use it in any way that helps in your family. so glad you like the idea and hope it saves you tons of time!
:: erin ::
Oh my goodness! Monochromatic is my youngest son’s go to when choosing clothes. Unfortunately, he is almost 12! However, I definitely think that this would be a great idea even for older kids. They could pick out their own clothes, but then Mom could give it a quick once over to make sure that there is some variation of color!! 🙂
i was wondering about older kids and how they would feel about being “organized.” for sure it would save time but getting them on board would be different than with littler ones. i like your take on this. oh man on the monochromatic. i have to laugh! and apparently that’s good because it sounds like it’s not going to get any better! thanks for your nice comments friend!
:: erin ::
This is GENIUS!!
ha. as usual i am thinking, “why didn’t i do this BEFORE?” definitely not a totally new idea but totally new for us. sometimes it just takes finding something on a budget in the dollar spot! thanks for your nice words!
:: erin ::
What an awesome idea! My husband is super helpful at home and most of the time he’s the one to change the kids while I’m getting ready. This is a wonderful idea to relieve him from stress and to also make sure each outfit has mommy’s stamp of approval (haha). I also saw these hanging cubbies at Target. I didn’t get them because the boys already have one, which means I can totally implement your strategy without even spending any money or getting anything extra. Thank you so much, Erin, for sharing this with us. This will make my mornings so much easier!!! 🙂
i laughed out loud at “stamp of approval.” we know all about that around here! hope the method works for you guys! and yay for your husband being so helpful!!
:: erin ::