How to Teach Organizational Skills for Students At Home

Organizational skills for students are key to their success. When a student is organized, they have the foundation they need to reach their academic and personal goals.

And that’s why it can be so disheartening for parents to fight the same battles again and again.

• How many times each week do you hear from your child, “I forgot”?

• How many times a week have you received a notification about a missing assignment?

• How many times a week have you asked your child where something is, only to have them dig into the black hole of their backpack to pull out a crumpled assignment that’s due tomorrow? 

I’d take a guess that if you’re reading this, it happens fairly often. 

What we hope to share in this blog

What this blog will hopefully help you understand is that these moments, while validly frustrating, aren’t signs of laziness or disinterest; they are signs that your child is struggling with executive functioning. Namely, struggling with organization (which is a key executive functioning skill).

It’s important to remember this as you help your child build their organizational skills: your child isn’t trying to give you a hard time, but instead, they are having a hard time organizing.

What are organization skills?

Organizational skills for students are actually a number of skills. They’re a system of brain-based processes that include task initiation (getting started), planning and prioritizing, working memory, time awareness, and sustained attention. If your child struggles with even one of those specific skills, then it’s likely that organization is something that causes tension at home. 

It is my hope that with this post, you will have both a better understanding of where the struggle comes from, and how to move forward peacefully. 

Why are organization skills for students challenging?

When we first meet with families, we hear things like:

• “planners aren’t working”

• “they can’t keep their room clean”

• “they aren’t trying hard enough”

• “the color coding trick isn’t even helping!”

While color coding and alphabetizing materials might work for some people, most of the tools that we lean into for organizing assume that your child already has an internalized system for organization, when in reality, most humans who struggle with executive functioning don’t. 

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone — these are exactly the kind of organizational skills for students that we work on in our coaching sessions every week.

Why these common organizational strategies often fail for students is because they may be told the what of the strategy, but not the why or how. Additionally, the what may not be scaffolded in a way that is accessible for them where they are right now.

Which, basically stated, means that we’re asking students to use things that we understand because they work for us – without explaining why and how they work for us. 

Teaching students organizational skills

Here’s how we break it down for them: 

Step 1: Externalize Everything

Most students struggle with organizational skills because there is too much information to process or comprehend for any given day. They’re sitting in classes for 8 hours with nothing but input, and that can be a lot to navigate when you also have tasks to complete. 

So, we externalize. We write down checklists of things to complete for the day, we have a visual calendar present in a high-traffic area of the home, or we have a designated space where homework assignments go. 

Step 2: Build Routines Before Introducing Tools 

Before we can start using any of the tools we have access to, we need to know when to use it. Setting up a routine or ritual after school each day creates a predictability that becomes second nature. When the systems are predictable, the distractions become less. Predictability supports task initiation, working memory, and sustained attention. 

Step 3: Plan Out Loud 

After students have a routine in place, and a visual example of a calendar nearby, we can start woprking with them to chunk out assignments into “due dates” and “do dates.” For example, if a project is due Friday, when should we start working on it to make sure that it’s done by the deadline? This is a key organizational skill for students.

Step 4: Limit Options 

Once we have the routine in place, understand planning, and have spoken about our to-do’s, we can start putting things into a planning tool. Some students enjoy physical planners or whiteboards; others enjoy Google Keep or task management apps on their phone. The key is to choose one and try it out.

It is important to note that we should limit how many planning tools we use at once to reduce any decision fatigue that might arise due to having too many choices available at once. 

Step 5: Weekly Reset 

Each week, we can then meet to discuss what went well, what didn’t, and what we want to change. We can also use this time to clean out backpacks, check for missing assignments, and plan for the week ahead. 

Now, did you just read all of that and think, “This won’t work for my child?”

That’s understandable. These are changes that can seem overwhelming especially when a child is already struggling with executive functioning, and even more so if these struggles are causing tension at home. 

The hope is that by repeating these steps each week and by providing accountability measures each week, that your child will use these systems to develop life-long skills. 

If you read those steps and thought, “These aren’t working for my child,” it might be time to consider coaching. 

We’re here to support you. 

What families who work with us are saying

Here’s what some parents have to say about how we’ve supported their child in organizational skills: 

“We like the fact that we aren’t having to push things and it has made for a better home environment. We still check on things and ask her about assignments. But we don’t have to get her to do it or check her work.”

“[Coaching is] a place to reflect on managing school work, time management, confidence building, encouragement, and validation as a learner/achiever.”

“[Our child] has learned self confidence and a sense of accomplishment. She wants to do well and knows someone other than her parents are behind her and wants her to succeed.”

“[He’s learned] self-discipline in planning for the week ahead and managing his time so he can participate in extracurriculars while also finishing his homework.”

“[Our child] learned study and organization skills, ways to manage anxiety, managing homework… so many things!”

“We are proud of seeing [our child] happy, with decreased frustration, increased confidence, seeing her grow and mature, and being a self starter on things.”

How we can help

If this blog felt familiar, that’s not a coincidence.

Many of the families we work with started right where you are: overwhelmed, frustrated, and unsure what would actually help. Then they got to experience the relief of an experienced, knowledgeable, caring coach who could meet their child exactly where they are and help them build toward a more organized future.

Reach out to schedule a conversation and explore how executive functioning coaching can support your child’s growth.