Kathi’s expert advice has been featured in national media outlets including Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living and Better Homes and Gardens, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more. As the author of 2 books, Kathi has also developed several online courses to help clients get better organized and energized in all areas of their home, life, and business.
Check out all of the systems you can use here

Kathi’s expert advice has been featured in national media outlets including Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living and Better Homes and Gardens, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more. 

As the author of 2 books, Kathi has also developed several online courses to help clients get better organized and energized in all areas of their home, life, and business.
Check out more systems you can use here

Kathi’s expert advice has been featured in national media outlets including Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living and Better Homes and Gardens, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more. 

As the author of 2 books, Kathi has also developed several online courses to help clients get better organized and energized in all areas of their home, life, and business.
Check out all of the systems you can use here

One of my readers seems to be at her wits end trying to keep her son from tossing everything on the floor. She was so tired of the constant chaos that she wrote to me for help. This is her situation and my recommendations:

Dear Kathi,

I am a subscriber to Add Space to Your Life and enjoy reading and seeing people’s lives change by simply getting organized.

Well, my question involves my son.  He is 8.5 years old and is the most disorganized child I’ve ever known, he keeps everything and most of it gets left on the floor or stuffed in a drawer.  It drives me crazy and I need some suggestions. 

He has school papers, books, toys, art/craft items, etc.

What we have in place right now is a shelving unit that has 7 drawers, a bookshelf, and two open faced table top bins.

We have other children so we are familiar with changing things up a couple times a year…but we’ve tapped out of our creativeness with him.

Thanks for your time.
Angela Brown


Hi Angela,

As you already know, some people hold onto everything while others toss it all away without a care in the world. Both are extreme examples of people who do not think about what they are doing before acting.

For your son, I would suggest that you and he together create holding zones for everything in his room. It sounds like you have done this, but perhaps you did it on your own without his input or help. A contained, confined amount of space works well to keep a limit on the amount of each item you own. The key to making this work is to get your son to ‘buy into’ this concept.

You need to catch him when he is unable to find something that he really needs and might suffer from not being able to find. This would be the perfect time to sit him down and have a heart to heart about the state of his room. You can offer to help him create holding zones for everything as long as he makes the hard decisions about how much of each item he feels he wants to keep.

Let him know that you will not make him get rid of anything that he does not want to get rid of.  But you will help him get better control of his possessions so he will not be constantly scrambling to find what he needs. As an aside, you should not help him find missing items unless he makes a move to clean up his act. Being his fallback for missing papers  etc only reinforces his choice to let his room fall into disarray.

If he decides to enlist your help, you need to go through his collections of papers, games, clothes etc, category by category. Make him decide how much of each category he feels he needs. Once he decides how much of each item he needs, then you contain and confine.

You cannot choose an organizing product or containerize until you know how much you will store. Always choose containers that provide a small amount of growth. Once the collection exceeds the size limit you both agreed upon, it indicates that it is time to let go until it fits inside again. It sounds like you have implemented some storage solutions but might not have enlisted his help when they were first created so he might not care.

If there are things he can let go of, let him know that his items will be used for other kids not so fortunate. I have found that kids are big givers. Once they realize that their stuff goes to charity to help other kids, they always want to give more away.

If the charity concept seems too far removed, I always suggest that parents take their kids to the local Goodwill or Salvation Army to see where their toys and clothes go when they donate. A tour of the facility so they can see the process of donating, itemizing, selling and how the money is used for the organization is always interesting and gives them more incentive to donate their unused items. Once they ‘get it’ a light bulb goes off and they begin to think about giving their extra stuff more frequently.

After you create order in his room, also create a drop zone for donations and also outbound to others. I typically place two small plastic bins by the door. One is labeled Donations, for things they no longer want or need and the other is labeled ‘Outbound to Others’ for the items that their friends leave behind or that they need to take to somewhere else. If possible, I have the kids make the signs for these bins, so again, they feel ownership and are enlisted in the system.

One of my clients made a rule that seemed to work regarding the floor of her son’s room. He was an extreme example or floor filing! She let him know that absolutely anything that she found on the floor after he left for school would disappear and he would never see it again. This sounds tough and I’m sure she cringed at some of the stuff she made disappear, but now her son’s room is always tidy and the floor clear.

Once you have created order with your son, you need to be specific about where everything now lives. Everything will have a ‘home’. I find the ‘home’ terminology works much better than simply saying put it away. Away can mean anywhere, including under the bed or stuffed in a random drawer. ‘Home’ is where he himself has agreed each will item live and there is only one spot where it can be found!

It takes 4-6 weeks to create any new habit so it is important that these changes are reinforced a few times a week during this time period. For some, this learning process might even take a bit longer. Sometimes kids do not want to listen to their parents and wont go along with any of their suggestions. This is one of the many reasons why professional organizers are called in to assist.

Being organized is a skill and an ongoing process. The time you spend helping your son learn to keep his room clean, clear and organized will be time well spent and a value to him for the rest of his life.

I hope these ideas help you and yours. Let me know what happens and best of luck!

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