There are many external, uncontrollable forces that place stress on the day-to-day routine of the average American family. For example, it is impossible to completely control the pressure exerted by work, homework, and extracurricular activities. The main reason that these activities can be so stressful is that people simply do not have the time to do everything that needs to be done within the average day. There is no way to increase the amount of time in a day, but by incorporating simple organizational techniques into the daily routine, a family can vastly decrease the amount of time it takes to do daily chores and increase the amount of time available for other activities.

             There are three main areas of organization that can assist families with school-age children. The first area of organization is organization within the home. For example, it takes much less time for each family member to get cleaned up and dressed in the morning if personal hygiene items and clothing are always located in their appropriate storage spots. Gathering up keys, wallets, purses, backpacks, lunches and homework becomes far simpler when those items have designated storage spaces. However, organization in the home is only one aspect; children also need to be taught basic organizational skills to help them cope with school work. No matter how adept a child is in a class, homework is made difficult, and sometimes impossible, if the child has not remembered to bring home schoolwork. In addition, parents will find it impossible to send special supplies or clean gym clothes if the teacher's request or dirty gym clothes are still sitting at school. Finally, no matter how organized a household is, emergencies will arise. At those times, it is very important for parents to have the child's records in an organized and easily-accessible location. For example, having files dedicated to a child's medical records, one for the school records, one for social security information, one for financial information, and another for identifying documents makes it easy to access any documents needed in an emergency or non-emergency situation.