Clutter Buster: Donate, take photos, discard

It's the end of summer break again. Soon the kids are busy once more with school works. What that means for moms besides busy early mornings and home works is the need for more space to accommodate new books and school supplies. How to create that space depends on your budget and organizing abilities. My tip is to free the study room of old stuff so you can use the space for the new ones that are coming in. Here's how.

Take photos, then discard. 
I have reviewed the school stuffs that my kids have accumulated through the years and perhaps the bulk of them are books but a large portion is made up of those nice and sentimental preschool artworks. Surely, you want to keep them so your kids can someday go back and tearfully remember those early years. If you cannot find a space to properly store them, why not just take photos of them and store them in the cloud? Capture them before the colors fade, the pages torn. Create a collage out of them and print out, put in frames to hang on your wall. You may keep the best and most precious if you want but the idea is to discard majority of them once they have been photographed.


Donate.
You can donate old textbooks to the less privileged. There are various institutions and outfits that accept donations including old books. Search for the ones nearest you. If you cannot access those, organize a garage sale where you bring out all your old stuffs including books and sell them for very low prices. Or if you want to just throw them away, make sure to secure them in a sturdy box or bag before you bring them in front for collection so those who might want to take them can easily carry them.

Discard.
Don't get too attached with that impressive science project or those test papers with perfect scores in them. Aside from the space they occupy, they also attract dusts. So unless you are saving them for your younger children to learn from, stop clinging on to them. Chances are, you won't go back and use them again.
So get rid of them and be free of clutter.