Christmas is coming. Many are planning some days off and getting into full holiday mode. This typically includes a lot of outings and busy-ness. However, I find this to be a perfect time of year to pick a re-organization project to accomplish. First, I am in the mood to deck the halls. Secondly, this is a time of renewal for me. Placing my focus on the birth of Christ and the magnitude of what that means for my life inspires me to refresh and renew His purpose for me.

This year I picked our school. I have a larger home and you would think I would be able to keep it all together. You would think. The fact is, the larger the space you live in the more upkeep you have. In addition, you have areas that become clutter collectors all too easily. This can be ever so true in my home, depending on our schedules. To keep my life simple when the schedule becomes chaotic, I often start “storing” items that need put away or given away. I think I am such a smarty by cutting the time to take care of the items immediately, but in the end I am left with nothing more than Extra work and more time needed to dig myself out. Ever have this occur in your life? So, all this said what I have is a school area in the playroom that was originally an art studio, our dining room, and our living room all being used for school. Then I have a bedroom and an office that are unused. Well, they are being used, but to house everything I thought I was so smart to store in those rooms until a later date. In an effort to restructure and simplify our ever changing life, yet again I decided we needed to consolidate our school.

After much thought and prayer, God lead me to the office. Although both my hubby and I used the office for business previously, we haven’t used it at all in the past year or so. (Don’t say the word pathetic…take it right out of your head!) I chose the office over the other room, because I actually have my sewing center in that room. The office already had unused shelves (don’t hate) and it has a full closet. It is also centrally located within our home and can be closed off if needed. The downside…the room is 10×10, if memory serves, and there is a large built-in computer desk. I accomplished the room transformation in one day; with a goal in mind that we would be incorporating a new school system with the children after New Years. The system will be akin to Sue Patrick’s Workbox System. I say akin, because I have yet to get her book so I can figure out how it all works. However, I can’t wait to review her book for all of you. This means that I needed space for 24 shoeboxes. We are only using this system with the littletons; eldertons will be done out of file boxes. All this said I will post pictures of the new room. So far it is working quite well, but the test of time will tell the real success story.

In addition I made 28 pages of workbox tags. At first I started just with our littletons in mind and then I thought of all of you; large families with a wide range of tasks, chores, and fun in each and every one of your days! I got some feedback from a few friends and voila, 28 pages of tags! I am including a link here for all of you to download the pages for your own personal use. Please stop by Sue Patrick’s site and get more info on the workbox system. I can honestly say in all of the things I have tried over the years, this is going to be the best system simply from the fact that I was able to incorporate it immediately without struggle for me and the children. The kids have been working their way through their boxes, getting their morning hygiene done, all without me needing to be on top of them. I can only imagine how much better it is going to get once I read Sue Patrick’s book, Workbox System User’s Guide and have all of the information about the system.

Enjoy my little Christmas organizational gift to you!

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