Need Suggestions to Help My 7 Year Old Be More Organized.

www.flylady.net has some very helpful suggestion for just your situation. It sounds like you are Born Organized, but he must be taught. Trust me, as one who has had to teach myself (with FlyLady's help, of course) how to be organized, this situation must be just as frustrating for him as it is for you, but he's overwhelmed with the decision making/sorting out, and THEN there's still the actual work to do!
Here's my .02 worth of my experience as a homeschooling mom to a 4th grade girl, and a 1 grade boy, and I take care of an ADD 2nd grade boy several days a week, and help him with his homework: At this point, you probably need to guide him, every day, through organizing his homework order. If he is behind in his homework because of the disorganization, you can ask his teacher if he can still turn it in. This weekend, you can try telling him he needs to work WITH YOU on organizing his desk/papers/whatever for 15 minutes. Set a timer (this is really key). Instead of you doing it for him, you can ask him when this paper is due, and put them in order. Maybe it's possible to get a list of homework, and when it's due, or what he's missing, from his teacher, and walk him through the process with that list in hand. If one 15 minute session isn't enough to tackle this project, give him a break (my 6yo DS needs about 45 minutes to an hour between 15 minute session of a new skill, and my 9yo DD needs about 15 minutes), and tackle it again for 15 minutes at a time 'til it's done. I think the most important thing is to remember that his brain is wired differently than yours, and this may just be a difficult skill for him to learn, and maybe one that came naturally to you. Be patient with him, and break down your own organizational thought process into single-question segments, and let him answer each question aloud to figure out which pile/folder/whatever to put things in.
Also, to minimize school paper clutter, if it's something that he doesn't need for school anymore, use a box/big binder/whatever to keep the stuff HE wants to keep. If you help him go through his graded/returned papers once a week, and he gets to choose 1 to keep each week, then he'll feel some control over the process, and that will help him "own" his work! :)

You are making this way too complicated. Any paper other than homework or the gazillion notes the school sends home has been graded, there is no practical reason to keep them. You need to decide what you want to save for sentimental reasons and toss the rest weekly. Keep a folder for his papers and just stick them there every day, go through it once a week or a couple of times a month, or have him go through it if you like and he can keep what stays and goes, and then put the former in a more permanent location.

Unless you are dealing with a project that is too long to put in with the daily work, encourage him to finish everything nightly. A friend of mine years ago when her son was about this age would actually encourage him to NOT do his vocabulary on Monday, actually teaching him to procrastinate and most weeks he wound up doing all of it Thursday night instead of a few words each day. Better to teach him to get it over with early and then he has free time the rest of the week.

You can teach him the organizational tools but at 7, and this is my little quirky humor, he isn't going to pay any attention to it and won't adopt the behavior until he is older so you are creating needless frustration because you are expecting him to care about this aspect of study when the poor kid would rather be running around playing to begin with. Keep showing him by example and he will adopt some of these behaviors eventually but at 7, it is too great an expectation that he internalize organizational skills.

As for the desk, he won't need something in his room until he reaches middle or high school and studies require greater concentration and few distractions. They way you have it set up now, it is easy for you to monitor what he is doing without having to continue goin to his room to make sure he remains on-task.

Remember, school is easier and more productive for kids if they enjoy it. Homework is a downside for them so creating a situation that is totally rigid defeats your purpose of positively encouraging him to take responsibility for himself and his work. If he manages to get things done and on time, is the order of the work that important? Sometimes our children do things differently than we do and while we teach them what works for us, we also have to seek what works for them. Give him some room to screw up (yup, hard to do) and he may find your methods more logical and his choice rather than you forcing the behavior on him.

Just my opinion, but maybe you are expecting too much from a 7 year old. If his papers do not need to be handed in anymore, toss them, unless it is a special one he is extra proud of and wants to keep. We all need to be organized, but keep in mind it comes natural for some people , as it seems to be for you, and not others, so don't get upset with him if he is made out of different stuff. At this age a parent needs to help get them togethr if you think they all need clipped, and in a cheerful manner, so he won't dread the whole ordeal.

Wow! Most 7 year olds are not very organized. Please do not have the kid filing things away... I know what you mean about getting tons of papers home each week; I have a 1st and a 3rd grader. I used to keep everything. I have a plastic tub for each of them (1 per kid per grade); I now keep only what I consider a "keepsake" or the special papers (maybe they got a 105% on a spelling test, etc.), and the rest goes to recycling.

As far as homework, why is he even bringing home papers due at a later time? My 3rd grader has always had teachers that sent home the night's homework-- and that is it. At homework time, she takes it out of her folder, completes it, and sticks it back in. She's always had a seperate folder come home with the graded work, once a week. That is what goes in the plastic bin. My 1st grader's teacher sends home the weekly homework on Monday in a plastic bag; I keep it in the bag (complete something, it goes back in the bag) and then return it on Friday.

They are bombarded with so much information at school. We find it impossible to study all of the subjects every night. They are expected to read at least 20-30 minutes a night, on top of the homework, which is hard for a kid that age. When you figure in after school activities, supper, bathtime, and homework... no time is left for playing and imagining-- and that doesn't even take into consideration if the parents work and don't get off until after 5pm! 3rd grade is very tough; so much is expected of them (we even switch classes here), and the curriculum is very difficult.

Make sure he brings home his work-- your desk idea sounds cute-- but other than that, don't expect much more. We are asking our kids to grow up way too fast.

I don't know if this will work in your son's case, but here's the organization method I started using in elementary school and continued using all through college and grad school:

Get a pocket folder with brads for each class that has papers/homework. Get a different colored folder for each class and label them with the class names. (Let him determine which class gets what color. My favorite class always got my favorite color and so on). As he gets older and has more notebook paper for notes, you can add that too. When he's older, he can keep handouts and notes in chronological order in the brads. If his folders get too full, you can either clean out the unnecessary papers or get a second folder for "archives".

I also keep just the special papers. I explained to my daughter that we cant keep every paper that she brings home. So each day she gets everything out of her folder and we look at it together. I pick anything that I may want to keep and the rest goes to recycling- she is ok with that. We may hang a good spelling test on the fridge for a week but then it also goes. We have many years ahead and their is no way to keep all that paper! As far as her being organized- she is in her own way. She can always find what she wants- but it always looks like a mess to me! Dont expect too much in that area right now. Good luck!