Life with a big family can be chaotic. I don’t do well with chaos. I love spontaneity but can’t handle random. So the most important organizational tool in our house is color coding. It happens that out of a family of 7, we have only one favorite color overlap between my son and I. Everyone else has a unique favorite color. Everything that belongs to that person but looks like everyone else’s gets to be that color. School supply boxes, chore chart markings, calendar items, even the dishes for the kids are in their color. The dishes are especially helpful because I can tell at a glance who has left their dishes out and only have to call that one child. Their colors also help me mark our progress in our school records and calendars for quick reference.
I know many kids change favorite colors more often than they change their socks, but we went with the color they showed preference for as toddlers. It is like their name now. It doesn’t have to be their very favorite of all times for all time, but it is theirs nonetheless. Even the little siblings knew who it belongs to well before they knew the color names.
Automating as many pieces of our routines as possible frees up space in my brain for more important things and helps me make sure we aren’t missing things we need to do.
At Home, On Purpose 