Organization - The Color System

When there are 10 people in the house, that means 10 towels, 10 cups, 10 plates, 10 forks, 20 socks and 20 shoes. Sometimes it means 10 different bottles of shampoo, several different sticks of deodorant, 10 toothbrushes and several tubes of toothpaste. How do you keep all that "stuff" organized? This is how we do it...

Back when we had 3 or 4 kids, we started "the color system". It just so happened that each of the kids had their own favorite color. Our oldest daughter's favorite color was purple. Our oldest son's favorite color was blue. Our second son liked green and our second daughter liked pink. As I shopped for items such as towels, plates and cups, I would look for these items in their favorite color. As we added more children, it turned into a "system" and made sense.

If I walked into the bathroom and found a pink towel on the floor instead of that child's hook, I knew exactly which child to call to develop the habit of hanging up her towel. If I found a blue and purple cup on the table after dinner, guess who left them there? The only downside to this system is that it has become increasingly more difficult to find items in a variety of colors and we seem to be running out of readily available colors to assign to new little ones. ;)

What about the rest of the "stuff"?

Since everyone has their own toiletry items, it made sense that we needed a system that allowed us to have "a place for everything and everything in its place". We have a tall cabinet in our bathroom with shelves in it, so I found white plastic baskets that were just the right size that two of them fit on one shelf. I labeled each basket with the owner's name. Inside the basket goes each person's toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush or comb, deodorant, and any other toiletries they need on a daily basis. This makes it easy to grab your basket and sit it on the sink while using it, then put it back on the shelf when finished.

For the wet towels, I purchased removable Command hooks, and placed them on the back of the bathroom door. After showers, towels get hung on your assigned hook to dry. We reuse towels a couple times to avoid the growing mountain of laundry each day. If you come out of the shower clean (as you should!) then this shouldn't be a problem! :)

Laundry is a daunting task as you can imagine, so it is done on a daily basis. By the time the kids are 10 years old, they are taught to do their own laundry. A small round laundry basket is in each person's closet, and dirty laundry is placed in it as it is accumulated. When the basket is full, it is carried to the laundry room. If you are a "self-launderer", you wash it, dry it, fold it and carry your basket back to your room, put clean clothes away, and place the empty basket back into your closet. Otherwise, you leave your dirty laundry by the washer and your clean clothes are given back to be put away when they are clean. There is also a hamper in the bathroom for dirty clothes that come off there. Those are washed by the parents of the house, folded, sorted and each child's stack is placed on a step (oldest to youngest) to be carried upstairs and put away. With each child being responsible for their own laundry, we have eliminated the problem of someone yelling, "I don't have any clean pants!" as they are preparing to go to Awana or a scout meeting. Now, if you want clean clothes - wash them! (This is a case where "tough love" and "consequences" come into play, and it's all a part of growing up and learning responsibility!)