1. Check the expiration dates on all the food in your refrigerator and freezer. Is anything past its prime? Has something been lingering for longer than it should? Check out StillTasty.com and/or call the manufacturer’s customer service line if you have any questions about a food stuff’s safety. Toss any food that could potentially poison you and your family.
2. Help your child to gather all the tiny parts of his toys that often get lost or fall to the bottom of their toy chests. Once you have the items collected, use zip-top bags to store these itty bitty pieces. Put doll shoes in one bag and single Lego Blocks in another. Label the bags with a permanent marker and store all the zip-top bags in a basket or bin.
3. Walk through your living or working space and return as many out-of-place objects as you can to their proper storage place. Set a timer and get moving. Any items that don’t belong or lack a permanent home, decide if you can get rid of them (trash, recycle, donate) or if you need to make room in your home and/or office for the object. When the timer sounds at the end of five minutes, return to your regular activities.

Were you surprised by how much you were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time? What uncluttering tasks do you tackle in five minutes? Tell us your ideas in the comments.

A few months back, I was gingerly tip-toeing across the room where my children napped in an effort to get some laundry put away. After taking a few steps into the dark room and reaching the edge of the light cascading in from the hallway, I stepped into the darkness and, instead of finding the soft carpet currently being enjoyed by my other foot, I planted my size 13 squarely onto a plastic ambulance. The ambulance then began loudly announcing that it was on its way to some type of emergency situation and that its ETA was “2 minutes!” And, it wasn’t just dumb luck that brought us to this “look to the heavens and sigh deeply” moment. A quick glance around the now-illuminated room informed me that any next step I took would have caused the same result, but with the help of a different toy. The carpet was barely visible beneath the sea of kid crap.

I wrote the first paragraph in the past tense because things are better now. We managed to institute a few procedures to help ensure we’re slightly less overrun with children’s toys. I honestly couldn’t tell you the origin of these tactics, but somehow they worked their way into our parenting routine and they’ve ended up paying dividends.

Obviously, the sheer number of toys and games in your house will take it’s biannual leap during the holidays and around your child’s birthday. While Junior (age 0-4) is tearing the wrapping off of the newest noise maker, take this opportunity to stealthily pack up what you believe to be the least used toys in the pile of old toys. Put them into a plastic bag and stick them in the garage. Now, wait a couple of months. If by the time the bags have been out of sight for 90 days your child hasn’t asked about the contents, shuffle them over to your local Goodwill or Salvation Army location and get rid of them. Less fortunate kids can benefit from practically new toys that were hardly touched by their original owner and you’ll have some of your precious floor back. With older children (4+), have them participate in the entire process.

Our favorite way to keep the toy supply fresh without having to drop a bunch of money and sanity on more toys is to do a personal “toy swap” with our son’s friends. They come over to play and bring their favorite toy waffle iron or abacus or whatever and they leave with what has historically been a popular toy around our house. The exchange usually lasts a week or two. To turn this tip a little dark (and this requires that you have a pretty close relationship with the other kid’s parents), you can even arrange for a particularly annoying toy that they’ve borrowed to “have an accident” while it’s out of your house. I like to call this maneuver Mafia Toy Management.

It would be quite correct to point out that the best way to handle child clutter is to never let it get out of hand in the first place. Kudos to anybody who has been able to pull this off because we certainly haven’t. It’s especially difficult when generous and caring grandparents, aunts, and uncles are all too happy to help fill out Junior’s apparently dwindling stack of plastic trebuchets. That said, being able to keep your kid’s toy stockade under control without sending anybody into a tantrum is among my most treasured abilities as a parent (besides having them in stitches with my fantastic array of celebrity impressions).

The first part of the gift is a simple acrylic sign holder with magnetic tape on the back. There are many ways that you can decorate this, or if your kids are a little older, have them decorate it themselves. Maybe create a decorative border, or include the child’s name. This gives them their own special place on the fridge, which is especially important if you have more than one child, and also helps you teach PEEP (a Place for Everything, Everything in its Place).

The other part of the gift is an album to be used when artwork comes off of the fridge. The album can include pages that hold the actual artwork, or just photographs of the artwork if your kids are very productive and you need to fit more in the album.

My son isn’t even one year old yet, but I can’t wait to start displaying his artwork on the fridge with this uncluttered and fun system!

Rather than simply building a partition down the middle of the 140-square-foot bedroom, which would have created two constrained rooms, the architects decided to build up and within. “The idea of putting the bed on a higher level came up quite quickly in order to win space,” explains Santiard. “At the same time we decide to incorporate many ways to use the bed/partition (storage, office, climb, hide with interior windows, doors, etc).”

The bed seems to soar above the playing space, held up by bookshelf columns and a carefully angled staircase.

The result is a massive piece of what is essentially furniture, crafted out of several large sections of painted MDF and secured to the ceiling to keep it from toppling. Six-year old Eva plays and sleeps in the upper level, while small cubbies hold her toys, books, and dolls. There’s also a built-in desk for schoolwork and drawing. Jean, now almost two years old, mainly scampers around on the bottom level, where easy access to his bed and toys defines his area.

Building up provides for each child to have a designated area, without having to feel cramped and claustrophobic. The built-in storage and bookshelves also keep the rooms clutter-free and organized. I think it’s a very creative solution for a small space.

(Image from the Dwell article. View the complete slideshow.)

If you’re committed to living an uncluttered life, you probably want to pass those same ideals on to your children as well. Here are five methods we have used (and continue to use) to teach our four children the value of uncluttering and organizing:

1. Model good behavior: It’s no secret that children are greatly influenced by their parents’ actions. “Do as I say and not as I do” just doesn’t work, and it’s not enough to try to teach your kids the value of living an uncluttered life if you’re buried under a pile of stuff yourself.
2. Share your struggles: That said, I firmly believe that kids learn more from watching us struggle and overcome than they do from living with the impression that we’re perfect and have it all figured out. Let your kids know when you realize you’ve bought something that is a waste of time, money, and space. Let them see you wrestle with the decision to give away certain items. And let them watch you walk through the process of deciding what to keep and what to sell or give away.
3. Get them involved: Although it’s easier to unclutter without children underfoot, it’s important to involve children in the process. No one likes to have their stuff thrown or given away without their permission, and if you regularly involve your kids in the process, you may find that it’s not nearly as bad as you expect.
4. Set limits and let them make the choices: Everyone has things they hold onto that don’t make sense to outside observers, and it’s important to give children freedom to choose special toys and knick knacks of their own — within limits. Set concrete limits on toys and doodads and let your children decide what to keep and what to give away within those limits. My girls each have a special container next to their bed with miscellaneous doodads that don’t belong anywhere else. They are allowed to keep whatever they want as long as everything fits in the box. This gives them control of the decisions so that I don’t have to play the bad guy.
5. Don’t wield uncluttering as a threat or punishment: If you want to give your children the tools they need to live an uncluttered life, it’s very important that uncluttering not be used as a threat or punishment. Threatening to throw away or give away their toys if they don’t clean their room doesn’t do anything except make them hold onto their stuff more tightly. In our home, uncluttering is always handled matter-of-factly and never with negative connotations. If I feel the need to take away certain toys to handle behavior issues, they’re packed up and put away for a specific period of time.

What methods do you use to teach your children the value of uncluttering and organizing?

I’m coming to find that creating a Guide for kids is more difficult than expected. The things we want for our son now are very different than the things he’ll want when he can pen his own letter to Santa Claus. My husband and I want practical things for him that will help us cover the expenses of raising a child — diapers, a new crib, and baby gates. By the time he’s in elementary school, however, I’m sure that he’ll want toys, gadgets, and even more toys! I can’t even fathom what will be on his list when he’s in high school.

So, instead of breaking it down by age, I’m just going to give an over-arching theme and one or two examples that might work with the category. Parents with jr. high and high school children should feel more than welcome to add ideas to the comments section as I feel that I’m not doing this age group much justice in my themes.

• Experiences. We’ve written about these types of gifts in the past, but they’re certainly worth mentioning again. Zoo memberships, movie passes, event tickets, etc., are great gifts for the giver and receiver to both enjoy. If Aunt Jane buys a pool pass for little Billy, then the two of them can swim together on summer afternoons — or go to the zoo together or see movies or whatever the experience.
• Gifts with storage solutions. I’ve become a big fan of gifts that come with storage or gifts that are storage. Toy bins with a new toy, video game storage console with a new game, a puzzle rack with a new puzzle, or a block set with a block box, like the one below, are examples that would work for younger kids.
  
• Vacations. Technically, this is a subset of Experiences, but I thought it warranted its own line item. Growing up, I took a vacation each summer with my grandmother. I’ll never forget riding the train with her across the country or going on road trips to crazy roadside attractions. My cousins also have fond memories of flying to see her and spending two weeks playing on the farm without their parents. Showing children the world can be a rewarding experience for everyone.
• What the child wants. Sneaking a peak at a child’s letter to Santa Claus before it is sent in the mail can be a good way to learn what a child plans to play with in the next few months. It’s not clutter if the object is used and loved.
• Hints from mom and dad. If parents have created wishlists for their children (especially new parents with young children), it’s extremely kind to buy from that list. Great thought and care usually go into creating these lists, and buying from them can help the parents to provide for their child. It’s not very creative, but it is incredibly generous. If mom and dad are running on such little sleep that they can’t find the energy to create a list, pick up the phone and ask.

Please add your ideas to the comments. Also, don’t forget to check out our Unclutterer’s 2009 Holiday Gift Giving Guide Index Page for a listing of all the articles as we publish them.

How do I get a handle on children’s clothing (shorts, school clothes, skirts, pants, capris, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters…etc. etc)? I am awash in laundry with little closet space! And I’ve tried to think of it in terms of how many days of clothing (2 weeks) might be ideal yet am still overwhelmed (I’ve two girls who wear the same size!) … HELP!

I recommend starting this process by sorting your daughters’ clothing into warm and cool weather piles. Put all the summer-appropriate things in one pile, and the winter-appropriate things in another. You may also have a third pile for multiple-weather items, like jeans, socks, and underwear.

Assuming that your daughters are under 14, you can now get rid of all of the summer items and, if they’re in good shape, give them to charity. There is no way that your daughters will be wearing the same size next summer, so clear out these items permanently. If your daughters are high school age and have finished their growth spurt, sort the summer clothes into keep and purge piles. Put the keep items into pest-proof storage for the winter and, if they’re in good shape, pass the purge items onto charity.

Once you have the summer clothes out of the way, you will hopefully begin to feel a sense of relief and won’t be too overwhelmed with the rest of this process.

Next, immediately purge any items that are ill-fitting, damaged, or out-of-style. (Your daughters will be able to tell you what’s “not cool” in their closets, even if they’re as young as kindergarten.)

After this, look at what is left and decide if you need to continue. If you need to keep cutting clutter out of their closets, I recommend sorting by purpose — your kids might have school clothes, dress-up clothes, play in the mud clothes, and uniforms for clubs or teams. Once these purpose piles are created, bring each down to a manageable size. As you suggested in your question, two weeks worth of school clothes sounds like a good idea to me. Each girl probably doesn’t need more than three or four dress-up outfits, one or two play-in-the-mud pieces, and, if applicable, just one or two uniforms per club or team. Look at your family’s schedule, though, to get these numbers right for your needs.

Finally, it may be time to have your daughters start to do their own laundry. By fifth or sixth grade, children can be responsible for taking care of their wardrobe. If you can teach them how to take care of their things, you won’t be swimming in laundry any longer. Good luck!

Thank you, Miriam, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

From the article “Cleaning Children’s Rooms“:

Make a cleaning map for a child’s room, showing where everything is to be stored. Include items such as compact discs, shoes, books, stuffed animals and dirty laundry. Not only is this fun and educational, but the child also has no excuse about not knowing where to put away items.

How do you inspire your children to do chores? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments.

(Thanks to Parenthacks for the link.)

There is also free for download on the site a beautiful After School Routine Poster. Check out more back-to-school printables from Living Locurto.

(Image from Living Locurto. And, a special thanks to LobotoME for the introducing me to these wonderful free prints.)

Pens and pencils, chapstick, scissors, flash drives, cell phone, iPod, granola bars, random electronics cables, pens, calculators, flashcards, earrings, more pens … etc, etc. And not only do I wind up with all this unwanted stuff, when I do want something I can never find it! I most definitely need some help.

I thought about saving this question for Friday’s Ask Unclutterer column, but with school starting for so many students I thought earlier might be better than later.

The first thing you’ll want to do is assess what you need to carry with you each day. The list you gave is a good starting point, but you probably also carry notebooks, textbooks, paper, folders, keys, and a few other odds and ends with you. Whatever these things are, set them out on a table so that you can see them all at once.

Next, evaluate these things. Are you missing anything you regularly need? Do you have duplicate items? Are the items in good condition? Are the objects durable for constant travel? Get rid of anything you don’t need and get your hands on those things you do need for the school year.

When evaluating durability, you’ll want to be honest with yourself about how hard you are on things. When I was in school, I found that I couldn’t use paper folders. Three or four weeks into the semester they would be torn and tattered. I had to use three-ring binders for all of my notes and an aluminum portfolio for my artwork (I started college as a painting major). This also meant that I carried a small three-hole punch at the front of each binder so that I could immediately store all of the handouts. (I also loaded 100 or so loose-leaf sheets of notebook paper into each binder for taking class-specific notes.)

Be sure to use sturdy containers for food stuffs, like your granola bars. It’s never fun to find smooshed up food at the bottom of your bag. And, don’t forget to regularly clean this container.

You will also want a backpack organizer of some kind to give all of your tools a proper place to live. I prefer the pocket organizers like the one pictured, but you could easily get a pencil case and put all of your supplies into one zipper pouch.

Finally, set up a routine for when you get home to immediately process all of the contents of your backpack. Much like you would sort mail, you will want to recycle, trash, scan, file, wash, and deal with everything from your bag. Within five minutes of arriving home, your bag should be empty except for your tools stored in your backpack organizer.

Lisa, I hope this advice helps to get your backpack organized. Good luck at school!

To solve this dilemma, Kendra repurposed an antique kitchen cupboard to fit her children’s modern toy storage needs. Using smaller boxes for specific types of toys, now the kids can keep all their doll items in one bin and all the LEGO bricks in another.

Kendra also has turned an antique dining room sideboard into a charging station by her front door. She drilled a hole in the back of one of the drawers using a 1/4″ drill bit, ran all of her charging adapters through the hole to a power strip underneath the sideboard, and now has one central drawer to charge her PDA and cell phone.

Using the same drill bit, she converted another antique sideboard into an entertainment center that hides all of the cables for her television, DVR, cable box, and DVD player.

To be organized in your home, you don’t have to purchase the latest piece of furniture from a current designer. Find the piece that suits your needs and work with it.

Organize your routine with fun daily checklists. Amanda Wiss uses checklists to teach her 3-year-old how to get ready for pre-school. For the morning, she includes: brush teeth, take vitamin, eat breakfast, get dressed, put on shoes. “Charlotte is exceedingly proud of herself for doing all the things on ‘her list,’” she says. Older kids can have more advanced checklists that include completing homework, practicing a musical instrument, setting the table, putting out an outfit for the next day–anything you’d like your child to consistently complete. Update lists to incorporate new activities and goals.

Check out the other eight great tips for even more ideas.

1. Remember where you parked
Whether at the mall, an amusement park, or a concert with your kids, the last thing you want to do is delay getting home because you can’t find your car in the enormous parking garage or lot. When you first park, snap a picture of identifying information near your space and save it to Evernote. If you’re in a rental, also add a picture of the license plate of the car you’re driving. Once you’re back, either delete the pictures or add notes about the quality of the spot if it’s somewhere you might want to park again. “Great place for quickly getting onto the highway ramp after a packed concert at Wolf Trap Amphitheater.”

Feel welcome to check it out and come back here and add to the list. Tell us how you use Evernote and other technologies to organize your busy family life.

Sure, you could easily create a digital list or a list on a sheet of paper, but both run the risk of being lost. This way, you can be sure your child makes it wherever he needs to go with everything on his list.

It’s novel, and I like when organizing can be fun.

A round-up of tips from the video:

• No television an hour before bedtime.
• Prepare for the morning rush in the hour before sleep. Backpacks should be packed, clothes need to be chosen for the next day, etc.
• Wake up your child in the morning with a whisper and a kiss, not screams and demands.
• Give children at least an hour to bathe, get dressed, eat breakfast, and brush their teeth before needing to be out the door.
• Get rid of distractions, like toys.
• Give “warning” messages at 10, 5, and 1 minutes before time to leave.

Do you have additional tips to add to this list? Please share them in the comments.

Recently, I spotted on Apartment Therapy’s Ohdeedoh website a perfect, uncluttered solution: A sandbox on wheels

You can roll the sandbox into your garage when not in use (keeping out unwanted cats and pests), wheel it onto a patio or grassy area when in use, and you can roll it over to a neighbor’s house for their children to use when your kids outgrow it. Just be sure to get locking wheels when you’re buying supplies so your child doesn’t roll on out of your yard while playing.

(Image from Ohdeedoh)

You obviously don’t have kids.

I know that these are lighthearted statements meant to let off a little steam about one’s personal experience, but they always rub me the wrong way.

Simply stated: Having children and being uncluttered are not mutually exclusive endeavors. You can have both. Problems occur when people (of any age) have more stuff than they can store and routines do not exist to take care of the things they own.

If a child has so many toys that they are strewn in every room of the house, it’s time to get rid of a large selection of the toys. If the child doesn’t have a toy chest, cabinet, or closet to properly store his toys, then he needs one. Lay out all of your child’s toys on the living room floor for him to review. Next, have him pick which toys will be kept and which ones will be donated to charity (or recycled or thrown away, if necessary). Have your child go with you to make the charitable donation so that he can see the children who are benefitting from his generosity. Then, after returning home, organize the remaining toys in a designated storage area.

A reader on the site recently left a comment that I agree with wholeheartedly:

If a child is old enough to get out a toy to play, she is old enough to put it away.

Yes, it takes diligence to monitor a child’s behavior to know when to encourage her to put away her things after play time, but it’s not impossible. If you’re unable to keep on top of toys being put away at the end of every play time, then have a routine in place where the child walks through the entire house and puts away all errant toys 15 minutes before starting her bedtime routine. Teaching children these life skills at an early age will help them to always live an uncluttered life. Yes, there will be times when your encouragement will be met with resistance, but such are the ways of parenthood.

Be sure to check out our previous posts in the Baby and Children categories to get even more ideas and suggestions about keeping toy clutter under control.

The INCHworm shoe is a decent solution to the ever-growing child’s foot. The shoe is adjustable and extends itself by one whole size, in half-size increments. So a size six can become a six and a half and then eventually a seven. This would surely extend the life of the shoe by several months. From the product description:

Inchworm shoes are design specially for kids, both boys and girls. These shoes grow with your kids as your kids feet grow, one full size in two half size increments. With the 1 fit System you have the possibility to adapt the shoes to your children feet. Inchworm shoes are made in two parts with rubber outsole & PU midsole for the best comfort and support with anatomic insole and latex heel pad. The uppers are made from quality leathers and synthetic mesh. Inchworm shoes will last approximately 3-6 months longer than an ordinary pair of shoes. Simply push the button on the side of the heel and watch in amazement as the shoe grows.

This is a pretty cool idea. What do you guys think? Let your opinions fly in the comments section.

(via CNet’s Crave)

My wife and I recently discovered the website One More Story. It is a great way to supplement your child’s book collection while increasing her reading comprehension and basic computing skills. The site has the equivalent of books on tape with highlighted words. The site also includes illustrations, sound effects, and music with certain stories. A demonstration is available for preview. 

One More Story currently has over 50 children’s books available. A year-long subscription costs $44, which is less than $4 per month. My wife and I didn’t hesitate to subscribe and we have enjoyed using this site with our daughter. Instead of packing up a handful of books when we travel, we simply log on to One More Story and have access to their library from any computer with internet access.

If board game and puzzle organization has you stumped, here are some suggestions for getting your games in order:

• When acquiring new board games, consider purchasing games in “library” or “book” style boxes. They easily fit on a bookshelf and their standardized sizes make cupboard storage convenient, too. Hasbro has numerous classic games in its library series (Risk, Monopoly, Scrabble, Sorry, Yahtzee, Clue, Stratego, Life, Jenga, Memory, Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, and Hi, Ho! Cherry-O). And, many of the Rio Grande games also come in bookshelf-friendly boxes, like Carcassonne and Puerto Rico.
• To avoid losing pieces, bundle everything but the game board and box into zip-top bags when the game is not in use. It’s a lot easier to find a bag of men, dice, and cards than it is to find a single piece.
• Use gallon size zip-top bags for puzzle pieces if the puzzle box is damaged. Take a picture of the puzzle box top and put it in with the pieces in the bag. Or, if you’re up for a challenge, just write the name of the puzzle on the bag with a permanent marker and don’t have a picture to follow.
• If your child is a fan of wood puzzles, the Wire Puzzle Rack can hold more than 10 wooden puzzles of varying sizes.
• A puzzle mat is good for storing puzzles when you need to put it away but aren’t yet finished working on it.
• If the box for a game becomes so damaged that it is no longer containing a game, there are plastic board game boxes to hold the pieces and most boards.

How do you store board games and puzzles in your home? Let us know your suggestions in the comments!