Stations and Flows: How Large Families Stay Organized, Cut Clutter, and Create Peace at Home

Some of my children were born naturally organized, others, not so much. Whether or not they were naturals, I tried and teach them how to get on top of their clutter by requiring them to take on projects around the house in their teen years.  

This produced interesting, sometimes challenging, outcomes.  

Some would take all of the books in our massive bookshelves and arrange them according to color and size, which meant we had a hard time finding something we wanted to read.  

Others would take out all the canned goods in the cupboards and arrange them according to size, without considering how they would be used. This cost in wasted time looking for ingredients while cooking. 

Then there were the children who just knew how to create stations and flows.  

“Stations and flows—what are those?” I hear you saying. 

A “station” is a designated space where everything is located conveniently for a person to complete a task.  

For instance, I have organized the small hall closet in our current house with numerous small “stations.”  

In one area, I have gathered everything someone might need in the case of an injury, including ace bandages, braces, gauze, tape, disinfectant, ointment, etc.  

In another area of the closet, I have a bin dedicated to shoe shining, complete with bottles of dye, cans of wax, brushes and soft cloths.  

In the large kitchen in our former house, one counter with its lower cupboards was dedicated to baking. The drawer held rolling pin and rolling board, the cupboard underneath held buckets of flour and oats. The cupboards above contained baking powder, measuring cups, etc. We also stored the mixer there, along with spices and baking pans. This made our mega-family baking projects go more smoothly.  

In our current house we have a hot drink bar. On it is an espresso machine with a steamer, a regular drip coffee machine, numerous boxes of tea, sugar, honey, and freshly ground coffee.  

Flows are related to stations, but more on a macro level.  

In order to create a good flow, one has to do some analyzing and some questions must be asked. 

We need to be asking ourselves, “What is the best arrangement of our coffee bar so we can enjoy our hot drinks with the least amount of effort,” or, “How can I organize the items in the garage so the most used are easily accessed.” 

Creating flows is important because it keeps us from wasting time, and it also reduces frustration.  

For instance, in most homes there is a key rack of some kind by the door to the garage. This is because people naturally need a place to hang their keys when they are coming in the door. Then, the next time a person goes out they don’t have to go on a key hunt.   

I think the kitchen is the place where creating flows is most necessary. I try and keep the dishes and glasses directly above the dishwasher and drying rack so the dishes can be put up more easily.  

I store our most-used pantry items close to where we prepare food, and the least-used items in places farther away in remote storage spaces. The huge pan for the turkey at thanksgiving is on the highest or lowest shelf, the pans I use for our daily food are stored close at hand.  

Stations and flows won’t work if there is too much junk in the way.  

When one is rearing an entire village of children, stuff accumulates faster than snowflakes in a blizzard.  

There are half-used coloring pages, used shoes, old jeans with holes in places that are not fashionable, toys and games that are missing pieces, dishes that were chipped by helping hands in the kitchen, and on and on. 

When our home becomes too hard to clean, and when doing simple things becomes complicated and frustrating, I know it’s time to get rid of stuff.  

This is why I try and purge as we go about our business, but sometimes even this is not enough! 

I didn’t realize just how much we were holding onto until we made our multi-state move a few years back. We were down-sizing from 3500 square feet to 2400, and we were paying a moving service to take our goods across many miles, so we had to get rid of more than half of what we owned. 

It took us months to prepare for our house to be ready to sell. In that time I found enough paper trash to fill five huge garbage bags. I literally spent days shredding the items which were too sensitive to throw directly into the trash.  

We filled the back of our van with donations eight times before we were done, and we had to hire a special service to take away the unusable items which had accumulated under our back deck.  

The results were amazing. Our house was roomier, and our entire lives were less complicated.  

Which is a good lesson—perhaps we should all have a time during the year when we clean and purge as if we were trying to sell our homes—what do you think? Maybe just after the holidays?  

Let me know and maybe we can do it together…just a thought. 

My lifestyle of serious organization is based on the Biblical idea expressed in this verse: 

A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. 

Proverbs 16:9 

In case you were wondering, this does not mean that I never make plans or build routines. I could not live without these great helpers. 

There are two distinctives which make these part of my serious organizational lifestyle: 

1. I allow God to help me build these plans and routines so that they flow with His plans. 
2. I allow these plans and routines to be rerouted or forgotten altogether whenever is necessary, and I accept this with grace and expectation that God is going to help me keep on top of the log flow anyways. 

If you just stumbled upon this podcast, and you feel like you are missing out on a lot of information, I hope you will take the time to read the post and/or listen to the foundational recording which explains the scope and purpose of this series linked here.

This is the last in our series on being seriously organized. What do you think? Was this profitable for you?  

Let me know in the comments.  

If you are interested, I have produced a planner which includes places for just about everything a large family mom would need (affiliate). It is undated, which means it won’t be wasted even if you get off track for a while.

Of course, there are lots of other things you can purchase which I have produced on Amazon which are helpful and, hopefully pretty as well.  

You can listen to this post as a podcast by clicking below: