Raise your hand if your children keep their drawers tidy. (Notice my hand is firmly at my side.)
Recently I set my organizing sites on the boys’ room. I noticed their pajama drawers had gotten out of control. By that, I mean they were wearing mismatched tops and bottoms, winter pieces (in July), and it was general chaos. It made me twitch. And, they were constantly arguing over socks. Their feet are close to the same size, so I had brilliantly thought we could gain efficiency by them sharing socks. Not so much.
I tackled their pajama drawers first. I started by putting all their dirty clothes, which were mostly in the hamper, but some scattered on the floor, in the washing machine. Doing this first helped me ensure I included everything.
I went through Riley‘s drawer first. I took out everything and sorted into piles. Too small, wrong season, no matching half, holy, etc. We keep underwear in these drawers too, so I found a box to separate and contain the underwear. I put furniture stays on the bottom of the box to keep it from shifting around in the drawer. Then I laid each set of pajamas flat with the tops and bottoms together in the main part of the drawer. I knew folding would be a waste of time. I have tried that before with no lasting success, and I have chosen to pick my battles. They put away their own clean clothes which is a win, but the clothes don’t always get folded neatly the way I would like. I’ll take it. I also wanted to keep some plain white undershirts for him in this drawer, so I put the undies box between the undershirts and the pajamas to separate them. I went through the same process with Jackson’s drawer, sans the undershirts. Let’s be honest, they never wear nice clothes anymore.
Once the laundry was done, I sorted it the same and put things where they belong.
I acted as needed, throwing away the ‘holy’, putting the ‘too small’ in the donate box, and placing the ‘out of season’ in their respective size bins.
For the socks, I bought a 5-pack of drawer separators on Amazon. I’ve been wanting to try that sort of organizing product and I knew I had places somewhere for all 5. I used one in their sock drawer. I went through a similar process as the pajama drawers to figure out what needed to stay and what didn’t. I then put one of the new drawer dividers in the middle. I put Jackson’s on one side and Riley’s on the other. I also used my label maker to print out their names. I put the labels on the inside of their sides so there is now NO QUESTION of what should be where.
When they came home, I showed them their drawers. I talked to them about what I had done and how to maintain the order. They seem to be maintaining the new systems fairly well, which is about the most I can expect. Ugh, their closet is a mess too. Shoes all over the floor. Halloween costumes scattered throughout along with a hodge-podge of random stuff. But that, my friends, is a project for another day.
Jackson-Before Jackson-After Riley-Before Riley-After Socks-Before Socks-After
