School memorabilia and art are common clutter culprits across many of my client’s homes. If you are a parent, you know how easy it is to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of keepsake papers, awards, drawings and progress reports that enter our homes each week. As the new school year begins, I highly recommend setting up a system to process and manage these papers NOW before the deluge reaches full force!

Don’t have a system? Here’s the one I recommend…

First, head down to your local office supply store and purchase a portable file box for each child (the 12-gallon Flip Top File Box from Staples is the perfect size), a box of hanging files/tabs, and some shipping labels (I recommend Avery 3 1/3×4″ labels).  You’ll need 14 folders/tabs/labels per child.

Designate a file folder for each school year (including preschool and kindergarten) using the clear file folder tabs to label each folder (this is where a label maker comes in handy!). In addition, affix a label to the front of each folder that provides a bit more detail regarding each school year. For example, I chose to include the year(s), school, and teacher(s) for that particular grade. I also like to affix a school picture to the front of each folder…cute, eh?

If you use Avery shipping labels, there’s a handy dandy online tool for creating custom labels. I recommend creating and printing all 14 labels at one time, even if your little cutie is only a preschooler this year. That way, you’ll have consistent labels across the folders and won’t have to worry about trying to recreate the labels if your digital file somehow gets misplaced in future years. As you can see below, my label sheets for future grades are all ready to go for my 3rd grader.

Below, I’ve shared some examples of the types of things that can live in the memorabilia folders.  For example, my daughter’s 4th grade folder contains key projects for that grade, papers that represent proud accomplishments (e.g., passing the timed test for division!), programs for school-related events, and assignments that reflect her current thinking and interests.

You can choose to include other non-school memorabilia items accumulated during the year as well, which is what I’ve chosen to do. For example, my daughter’s swim team ribbons and Girl Scout memorabilia are contained in these folders as well. Depending on how selective you are when it comes to retaining your child’s art work, you can choose to include a few key pieces of art in the folders as well. I generally recommend a separate method for organizing and storing art, which I will outline in a forthcoming blog post.

The beauty of this system is that it puts a limit on what you can keep.

This process serves as a great example of using what we call in the organizing biz a “limiting container”. By choosing this container, I’ve set a limit on what is an acceptable amount of “real estate” for school memorabilia to occupy in my home. This volume is what feels comfortable for me; of course, you may be willing to accept a much larger real estate footprint in your home if you have great difficulty parting with sentimental items OR you have a significantly larger home.

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