Folder Method - Day 7 of 30 - Things That Make My Life Easier: School Edition

I'm Jaren, a neurodivergent Mom of neurodivergent kids going back to school in my 40's. In this series, I'll be posting about things that make my life easier.

Now that I'm in school full-time, I appreciate just how exhausting it is for our kids. Expanding our brains constantly is hard work!

To make organization easier, my son and I came up with a two-pocket system for filing classwork because expecting him at (then) 10 years old to be a master at filing and organizing sheets into a binder with tabs was causing all kinds of headaches. So I asked his teachers if we could simplify, and they agreed.

Here's how the Folder Method works:

Step One:

All paperwork for the week, including printouts, notes, you name it, go into the left pocket of the folder, labeled "THIS WEEK".

Step Two:

On the weekend, after we do a full review, we then stack everything together neatly and staple it (or secure it with a paperclip), write down the week number or the date at the top, then move it over to the right side, labeled "ARCHIVE".

Complete!

Once the right side gets too full, we remove older weeks of archived work to a folder or notebook at home.

I couldn't find an empty folder (kids are at their father's) so I made a mini one out of paper scraps to show you.

I hope this helps.

Since we started using this method two years ago, my son has graduated to more involved methods of organizing and now confidently files things away the same as his peers. Sometimes we just need to stop and simplify things before we can move forward. :)

-Jaren