I had a professional organizer come to my house the other day to help me organize my children's closets. With the holidays fast approaching, it reminded me of a valuable rule we've been following. At holiday and birthday time, we use the one-in, one-out rule. For every toy that the kids receive, they pick a toy to donate. It helps prevent the clutter from getting any larger.
The organizer, Sara Pederson from Time to Organize, also reminded me of the process of taking all of the items out of the closet and putting them into piles: donate, toss, keep and recycle. Once you've sorted the things in the "keep" pile you can see what kind of containers would be best to store them in. Adhering to a 15-minute clean-up period for the kids each night was also a valuable reminder.
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I'd also love to hear things that you do to keep the kids' clutter from getting out of hand.