Organization,  Productivity

How To Organize School Papers

School papers – those treasured examples and markers of a child’s passage through school – are wonderful reminders of a child’s growth. But if you are drowning in school papers, you are risking losing other things in the slew of pulp. Today we will look at how to organize school papers and minimize the chance of lost items in the mess.

I only have one child. But her school papers started at age 2, when she first went to day care. They are charming – simple art projects that trace her growing dexterity and coordination. As she got older, they became more complex, and started mixing with her report cards and class projects. It’s been hard to corral those papers, and I found that if I didn’t deal with them every day, they took on a life of their own and buried things like bills, checks and license renewals.

3 Ways To Organize School Papers

Organizing school papers doesn’t have to be difficult. Sure, we’ve all seen those beautiful scrapbooks that documents a child’s life out on Pinterest and Facebook. But if you’re not there, not all hope is lost.

The Box

This is an offshoot of my one-box filing method. (See Filing Heresy) I have a large-ish box where I toss everything. The stuff on the bottom is the oldest. It isn’t particularly accessible, but it is all in one place.

The Binder

If you are willing to invest a little time, and want the ability to peruse the papers, a binder is your answer. Buy a large three ring binder and a good supply of page protectors (non-acidic to preserve the paper).

As paper comes in, determine if you will want to look back on this later, and then put it in a sheet protector.

Paperless

I love the idea of paperless. Not only does it get rid of all the clutter, but you have a permanent copy of the item.

This requires the time to scan the item into your computer, and a way to file and retrieve the item later. If you start the system with the beginning of the papers, you can figure out when they were by the file date. However, if you want to do this after amassing paper, you will need to do a bit of forensics to figure out what year the papers were from. Then scan the papers into folders with the year, in the order you have them.

Summary

Whether you put it all into a box, a binder or the hard drive, organizing children’s papers doesn’t have to be difficult.

Do you have another method? Share below.

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Image by See-ming Lee (SML). Licensed under Creative Commons. Text added.