Each year on the last day of school, I have the kids empty their backpack into a plastic storage container.

I put the storage container in the garage.

I don’t worry about organizing it…

Fast forward a few months…

This morning, I printed off the kids’ school supplies list from the school website.

I pulled the plastic bin out of the garage.

I organized the bin into three piles:

1. Trash (anything broken, folders that were too destroyed to donate, etc.)

2. Donate

3. Use

I threw the trash away (I immediately felt better having one of my piles gone ~ I like immediate satisfaction, it makes me happy)

I put the donate items with the other items for Project Sometimes.

I took each list, one at a time, and started checking off what I had.

I used labels from My Sister and Me to start labeling each thing I was checking off. Why? Because I have mommy vision and I knew the kids would walk in and say something cute, distract me and mix up the piles. It’s true. It happens. I don’t mind, but I head off the frustration by labeling first.

This left me with only nine items to buy tonight!

There was NO ONE at Target on at Saturday night at 7.

That doesn’t mean that I am the only loser overachiever walking around Target on a Saturday night. It just means that I am the only mom in this four mile radius brilliant enough to get this out of the way.

As I was calmly sipping my latte (yes, Iced Venti Seven Pump Chai Tea Latte), I knew I just had to share this with all of you…