Large Family Organization

I am in the midst of learning how to organize a family of ten.

This is a personal challenge for me as I grew up with a mother who organized me and an immaculate home. Lack of organization? There was no such thing--the house was always PERFECT.

But perfection is not what I am striving for---just organization. Just a simple life where everything has a 'home' and whittled down to make room for people (old and new) in my life. Here are some of my most valuable tools:

1. Black marker
2. Labels
3. Bins
4. Trash can nearby (for castoffs)
5. Book by Don Aslett--'Weekend Makeover'

It is amazing what labeling everything in the house can do to a mom. Here is an example: I started in the boys room--realizing that the big toy bin they had in there wasn't teaching the boys any character. They would just toss everything and anything under the sun in there. So I tossed the bin and pulled out the little bins and marked everything---legos, tinkertoys, dinosaurs, etc. and set them all up in a book case instead. Now there is high accountability for organization---everything has a home!


When you label things you know where everything goes and how much of what you have. The children know where to put things away. If someone new comes into your home they know where things go. If grandma comes to stay she can actually find things.

I think the key to organizing a large family is keeping things simple. In other words, not accumulating a lot of stuff that we do not need. There is so much marketing convincing us that we are missing out if we don't have the latest products--what we really need to do is be smart consumers and ignore the ads and toss our stuff.

Life is so much richer with the simple. Advertisements lead us to believe that we need more of this and more of that. But when you think about it, in the old days, when the pioneers came they had very little and were happy with the simple things. They were grateful and joyful and knew how to keep busy. So unlike us Americans today where shopping and accumulating is a sport--in some families it is somewhat akin to the Olympics!

So persevere I must, to whittle away at all my stuff and make way for a simpler, grander and richer future for my beloved famiy, so that they would learn to be truly grateful and joyful for God's provisions. I would like to share a post I enjoyed on this very topic of gratefulness--you can view it here:

How Can I Complain

(P.S. I will probably do a part 2 later, to share a more detailed look at what it takes to organize a family of ten)