One of the many reasons we’ve created an Executive Functioning 101 series is knowing how many families, teachers, and special-education professionals struggle with identifying strategies and supports to help their learners succeed – especially with organization and planning. While organization means different things for different individuals, keeping belongings and tasks neat and tidy is a critical executive-functioning skill.
What is organization?
Organization involves how we gather stimuli in our environment to complete tasks quickly and more effectively. It’s how we arrange our environment and provide order and structure to the items and activities around us.
Organization Skills Across the Lifespan
We begin to develop organization skills early in life and continue to progress toward more complex behaviors as our responsibilities increase over time. Depending on the skills and strengths of your individual learner, teaching organization skills might involve teaching:
- Sorting and categorizing – identifying, describing, and grouping objects by size, shape, pattern, function, and form.
- Putting things in designated places – when finished with materials, placing items back where they belong.
- Gather materials to complete a task – learning where items belong, finding what’s needed for a project, and creating a plan to succeed.
- Use reminders and organization systems – learning to use a planner, visual schedule, digital and paper reminders, checklists, and other tools.
- How to reorganize if needed – recognizing when our environment is disorganized, when we need to pause for a reset, and how to get back on track with better organization.
Now Is the Time to Work on Organization Skills
It’s never too late for you or the learners you support to learn something new. Organization skills have value at any age and in almost all life situations. Spending time working on fundamental executive-functioning skills with your learner can have tremendous benefits for the future, including:
- Higher academic and workplace achievement
- Better health and safety
- Better responses to environmental stressors
- Improvements in social skills like teamwork, emotional control, and communication
What if your learner may need long-term support with organization?
We know that not all teens, young adults, and adults with unique learning needs meet mastery of all of the organization skills above. While it’s important always to continue working toward greater independence, some individuals may need ongoing supports and strategies to succeed. By focusing on the areas where you can make progress toward better organization, your learner can build on successes even when there might be modifications.
Long-Term Strategies and Supports for Staying Organized
Work on communication
When we break apart the behaviors related to organization, we often come back to foundational language skills. Does your learner listen and respond to instructions? Can your learner copy and write down information for the future? Can your learner articulate the difference between organized and messy, of orderly versus overwhelm?
Many of the long-term strategies to get and stay organized suggested by experts involve strong oral, written, and in some cases, non-verbal communication skills. Building these communication skills will only increase the likelihood that your learner’s organization skills will succeed.
Explore motivation
We’ve explored the ways that motivation and executive-functioning behaviors are closely connected here before. If your learner lacks sufficient motivation, it’s not likely that teaching more-challenging organizational skills will succeed. Work with your learner to establish a strong “why” and use preference assessments to evaluate motivators. If you’ve been working on executive-functioning skills for some time, stop to re-evaluate motivators and rewards to ensure that they continue to have substantial value.
Use visuals and reminders
Many successful teens and adults stay organized by using visuals (checklists, schedules, planners, etc.) and reminders (notes, smartphone alerts, alarms, etc.). Explore different systems with your learner until you find the right mix of visual supports and strategies that support their organization skills.
To create your own custom reminders, download our .pdf template to turn standard 3 × 3-inch sticky notes into printable custom notes. Have your learner record weekly tasks, grocery lists, and essential information on notes in an easily accessible area. Or use them for your own home or classroom to stay on track with tasks and deadlines.
Gather your learner’s care coordination team
Your learner will use organization skills in all environments. While it’s okay to start working on these skills at home, it’s also helpful to coordinate with other stakeholders on your learner’s care team. Reach out to family members, therapists, teachers, coaches, bosses, and anyone else involved in your learner’s day-to-day activities. Let them know about the current goals you’re working toward and how they can support them.
Your learner’s care team might already be working on these long-term strategies and supports. They might offer tips on what’s worked well in the past and what the current challenges are. The more informed everyone is in your learner’s environment, the easier it is to be consistent with your approach.
Model the behaviors you want to see
As mentioned on the blog here before, if you expect your teen or young adult to be meeting their organizational goals, it’s pivotal that you also model the behaviors you want to see from them. If your learner sees you scrambling every morning to find your keys or showing up to appointments without the right materials, it’s hardly fair to hold them to a higher standard. Can you really expect them to keep a tidy study space if you or your family members use it as a dumping ground?
If you want to tackle their organization, planning, and time-management skills, make sure that yours are in good order first.
It’s okay to modify your expectations.
One final thing to consider about long-term strategies and supports for teaching organization skills is that sometimes accommodations are okay. Many healthy and thriving adults seek professional support to get and stay organized. That’s okay. Figuring out what supports and strategies might be most useful doesn’t make anyone a failure. It just means you may need to modify your expectations.
Rather than dwell on the idea that your learner might not ever have the same organization skills as their siblings or peers, focus on how they can succeed. Independence can sometimes mean gradual progress. Start slow; it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Get organized in one area, and then build up success. Most importantly, celebrate the wins when they happen.
Further Reading
- Center on the Developing Child (2012). Executive Function (InBrief). Retrieved from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-executive-function/
- Life Skills Advocate – 6 Steps to Help Your Child Develop a Strong “Why” When Goal Setting
- Life Skills Advocate – 7 Organization Skills to Teach Your Teen
- Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning 101 Series
- Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning Skills By Age