Back-to-School: Taking time for time management means less back-to-school stress

Released on 07/24/2009, at 2:50 PM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Lincoln, Neb., July 24th, 2009 —

(This is the third of nine stories in UNL's 2009 "Back-to-School" package.) It's bound to happen: Children returning to school, along with their parents, rummage through cluttered, overfilled closets the morning of classes to pick something to wear and search the house for missing backpacks.

Because it takes so long to pick out clothes and find the backpack, children don't have time to eat breakfast and arrive at school with an empty stomach. Halfway through the morning they are hungry and unfocused.

These are the results of one underlying problem: Disorganization, says Janet Hanna, University of Nebraska-Lincoln extension educator in Garfield, Loup and Wheeler counties.

"People don't take the time to get organized," she said. "They don't realize it will save them so much time in the long run."

Back-to-school time affords the perfect opportunity for families to get organized, Hanna said. The biggest part of getting organized is time management, she said. Time management is preparing everything that is needed beforehand so time is not wasted looking for those items.

For example, the night before school, children or parents should choose and lay out clothes that are going to be worn the next day. Necessary items for school such as backpacks should be in a specific place so they can be retrieved easily.

"When kids have backpacks they go in one place so they're not looking for them," Hanna said. "Then there's not the everyday hassle of 'where is it?'"

Keeping the backpack and other possessions needed for school in their own room in a place where they can find them is the best solution.

Picking out clothes and having a specific place for necessities will be easier if the closet and room are uncluttered, she said. Clutter makes things more difficult to find.

Time management also means that parents need to make sure their children have time to eat breakfast before they go to school or take part in a breakfast program at the school, she said.

"Otherwise, they don't have stamina and they feel tired," she said. "They're pretty listless by mid-morning."

Kayla Hinrichs, extension educator in Greeley, Howard, Sherman and Valley counties, said she is a big believer in breakfast before school. As the parent of a 7-year-old son and 3-year-old twins, Hinrichs said having family meals prepared ahead is one way to keep the family organized and have more time for each other.

Hinrichs prepares ahead 30 days' evening meals then freezes them so she can pop one into the oven every night. That, she says, means she doesn't have to spend time after work cooking and gives her more family time. One thing she uses that extra time doing is spending time with son Brett talking about school and looking through school papers he brings home.

When he finishes homework, it is put in his backpack on a bench by the door so it is easy to grab on the way to school.

Hinrichs relies on her electronic calendar to keep track of all family activities, including Brett's 4-H activities, weekly Boy Scout meetings and piano lessons.

"I live by that," she said. "I have the whole family's schedule on it."

When Hanna's now-adult children were in school, she had a master calendar on the refrigerator that contained the entire family's activities.

"Everybody knew what everybody else was doing," she said.

Extension offices throughout the state do their best to educate people on how to stay organized, Hanna said. One new initiative is a 4-H curriculum to be introduced next year called "A Space for Me." Aimed at 4-H members from 6 to 8 years old, it aims to help children learn to be better organized, to clean up after themselves and to reduce, reuse and recycle materials they use in daily life.

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