Document organization tips for working parents from Adobe Acrobat

Any parent that has been raising kids or working from home for the past two years knows things can get a bit disorganized. Mess causes stress — whether it’s paper clutter, like incomplete forms and unpaid bills, or a jumble of conflicting obligations floating around in your head. With so much chaos, paperwork organization and sorting out your plans can feel overwhelming.

But you can carve out some additional sanity by getting things in order this new year with the help of Adobe Acrobat online services. Tackle one organizational task at a time, and every day will feel a bit easier, even for the busiest working parents. Keep track of personal documents, family activities, work tasks, and more with these document organization ideas.

Digitize important documents

Home filing systems for paper, like filing cabinets, get messy fast as your family grows. Declutter your home office and keep important papers safe by going paperless with Acrobat. Protecting and organizing your documents will bring peace of mind to you and your kids.

It’s easy to upload important documents to Adobe’s cloud storage to access them from anywhere. Then put unneeded papers through the shredder or recycle them along with your junk mail for neat file boxes and a clean desk.

Store all sorts of household files in the cloud without taking up your space:

• Tax returns
• Warranties
• Medical records
• Identification cards
• Insurance cards
• Report cards
• Schoolwork

Even for critical paper documents you need to keep around, like birth certificates and Social Security cards, making digital copies means your information is fireproof and always on hand. Simply snap a picture of any piece of paper with the free Adobe Scan app to create a PDF document. Then upload it to Acrobat online to have easy access to your family’s vital information from anywhere.

You can also try Acrobat tools to reorder pages, rotate them, or delete unwanted ones from your PDFs to help them make sense for your needs. File folders within your Acrobat account can help you organize different types of documents, and search capabilities mean you’re always seconds away from your important paperwork.

Fill out family paperwork with ease

After a long day of working from home, paperwork for your kid’s school can feel like the straw ready to break the camel’s back. But with Acrobat, permission slips, school sign-up forms, waivers, service agreements, and contracts are no problem. Quickly fill out and e-sign forms on any device with Acrobat in your web browser, instead of printing them out, using a pen, and scanning or mailing them in.

You can complete a form online with Acrobat in just a few steps. Open the Fill & Sign tool in Acrobat online and upload a PDF, Microsoft Word doc, or scanned image. Click anywhere in the document to add text, and then select Sign yourself to type, draw, or upload an image of your signature. Save your completed form and create a link to share or send a copy to others via email.

Your forms will be saved in the cloud so you can refer to them later. And you can do all of this with your feet kicked up on the couch as you decompress while binging your favorite show.

Don’t let bank statements surprise you

Acrobat online services can also help you keep tabs on your family’s finances. Use spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel to create a sheet of all your monthly expenses, then convert the Excel sheet to PDF to share with other family members or financial advisors. Now you have a snapshot of all your bills to come.

Tax season can also be a breeze if you plan right. Save all your receipts for potential tax write-offs in their own folder in Acrobat online to make your write-offs a piece of cake. All related receipts can even be compiled into a single document if you try the Merge PDF function.

Get creative with calendars and lists

When multiple kids, multiple jobs, and multiple calendars collide — chaos ensues. Like every modern family, you likely have a work calendar, a school calendar, a family calendar, your partner’s calendar, and more to contend with.

Instead of getting lost in it all, compile the essential (and a few fun) activities into one DIY calendar for your family. That way, everyone can be on the same page. Find a calendar page that works for you and try converting it to PDF if it is not already in the PDF format.

You can then open your PDF calendar page in Acrobat and add text using the Edit PDF tool. Fill in the most crucial upcoming events and color code them by type or by family member. Busy parents will be able to see everyone’s important appointments, meetings, assemblies, sports games, and more, all in one place.

Don’t stop at traditional calendar pages either. Look on Pinterest, Behance, or Etsy for other types of printables, like planner pages and to-do list templates, that you can scan and convert to PDFs. Type out your family’s goals for the upcoming week, month, season, or year to take some stress out of parenting. Share your plans, goals, or calendar pages via Acrobat in seconds by typing in the emails of other family members.

Save meal and activity ideas

Tired of the same meals day-in and day-out and need to spice things up for the family? Find easy, delicious, and kid-friendly recipes, convert them to PDF, and then add your own comments before sharing them with friends and family. Or store them for later use in a meal planning folder in Adobe’s cloud storage.

The same goes for fun games, craft projects, and activity ideas to keep the kids entertained. Start a rainy-day folder — or a sunny-day folder for that matter — and fill them with plenty of indoor and outdoor plans to kill boredom and tire out your tots.

For easy access to Acrobat tools while you browse the web for ideas, install the Acrobat extension to Chrome and set it as your default PDF viewer. You will be able to annotate, fill, sign, and share PDFs without leaving your browser.

Every little bit helps

As a working parent, any small organization system or amount of planning ahead can help keep your head above the water. You will notice a benefit in all areas of your life — work, family, and social — not to mention a neater home workspace. And you will be able to share your organization tips with other parents and activity coordinators in your community.