Today we’re going to focus on cleaning & organizing all those toys scattered about in our child(ren)’s bedroom. I know not all of you have children living at home, so feel free to spend a few extra minutes working on your problem area today.
Those of you who do have children at home, please stick with our daily task. We’ll have to tackle their stuff sometime so it might as well be now, right?!
Step-by-step Guide to Streamline and Organize Toys
The time you need to spend on this task will vary depending on the number of kids you have and the amount of toys that have accumulated in your home. Because of the variables, I’m going to break this task down into two bite sizes pieces. Hopefully they can be completed in the 5 to 15 minutes a day we’ve set as a goal.
1. Sort toys
I don’t know how it happens, but kids can dump bins and baskets all day long until all the toys are jumbled together into one big pile. So, the first thing we want to do is sort the toys. You can sort in piles or baskets…either way works just fine!
Hopefully, your kids haven’t taken over the entire house and their toys are contained to one, maybe two, rooms. If they happen to have toys all over the place, you may have to gather all toys in one location before sorting.
Set your timer and work as quickly as possible to place similar toys together…all legos in one pile, all barbies together, cars and trucks in the same area, electronic devices in one area, etc.
Then…
2. Categorize toys
Working from pile to pile, quickly determine if your kids actually play with each type of toy.
• Have they outgrown it? Take it to the donate/yard sale box.
• Is it broken? Trash it.
• Is it accessible? If not, think about how you can containerize and organize that toy category for easy access.
3. Organize Toys
Place each category of toys into an appropriate location.
Try to keep toys contained in a specific location, in baskets or on shelves. That way your kids will know exactly where to put each toy when they’re finished playing with it.
Why organize toys when they’re just going to get messed up again?
I’m not a kid expert by any means. But what I have noticed with my own kids is that too many choices seem to paralyze their decision-making ability. That’s why they repeatedly play with their favorite toys even when there’s a huge pile of other toys in the middle of the floor. Kind of like adults, I guess!
Anyway, limiting the number of toys allowed out at one time, even putting some of them on a rotation cycle, help my children focus when playing.
Giving them a say in where a toy belongs when it’s not being played with has also taught them to clean up their mess before dumping a new pile of toys in the middle of the floor.
Keeping their toys streamlined and organized has seemed to help my kid learn responsibility. It’s also limited my need to pick up after them 24/7!