I also have kids. Not 2 or 3 but 5 (and at this moment we are waiting to hear back about a possible 6th). They range in age from 6 down to 10 months. We live in a 3 bedroom, 1-story house where one of those rooms is a home office (read: a place where mu husband has a desk, computer and a file cabinet and where our girls clothes are...along with a bunch of crap that isn't organized in the slightest)
I am lucky enough to have a large garage where I can store the clothes that are in sizes none of my kids are wearing along with snow suits, Christmas and party decorations and summer time toys.
I am also blessed with a laundry room and a pantry.
I have turned to many different websites for help in my quest for organization and have picked up some great tips for getting started and maintaining my home. Of course the advice is only helpful if you follow it which is usually where I fail.
One of my favorite tips was for getting started. You take a laundry basket (or some other large container) and go from room to room collecting things that don't belong. I have done this "clean sweep" several times now and occasionally I will tote along a couple other containers; one for garbage and one for items that I plan on donating. You could also sift through the basket/bin later for garbage and donation items instead of carrying around 3 containers.
Its important to be thorough when doing this. Open every cabinet and drawer in whatever room you are going through-it does no long term good to de-clutter your counter-tops while leaving the drawers and cabinets in complete chaos.
I like how it has an immediately gratifying effect! The downside for me is that I am left with a box (more when I did it the first time) of stuff to go through and put away. It does get tempting to slap a lid on that box and forget about it, but don't because then you will end up with boxes of jumbled up stuff and the inability to find something you need at a later date.
Another tip I found was simple-invest in a label maker. It was one of those *facepalm* moments for me when I realized how helpful a label maker was and how easy it was to get started. I started off with labeling the clothes that I was storing in the garage. I labeled boxes and space bags (quick aside-I have not been terribly impressed as of late with the space bags. They seem to tear very easily which of course renders them completely useless. I recommend buying medium and small bags and placing them in totes and being very careful with them-one small puncture in the bag and they lose their usefulness.)I kept the labeling simple-gender of clothes and size range. Later on I will discuss maintenance in detail but at this point I think its important to say that I go through these boxes every so often to get rid of clothes that my kids never wore or had several of (like corduroy pants. For some reason my sons had a bazillion pairs of black corduroy pants.) This also gets done when I am putting a size away and getting a new size out.
I expanded my labeling to my pantry and spice cabinet, my bathroom cabinets and even my fridge. Now, I am not a fan of labels being everywhere and I did not allow a label to touch my fridge for a long time-but in the end i have found it super helpful for me to keep parts of the fridge organizes as well as keep tabs on the things that we like to have on hand at all times. I ended up labeling only the shelves on the door-bottom shelf for condiments, a shelf for sweet sauces like syrups and jelly, a shelf for stir fry sauce and one split between hot sauce and bbq sauce. I made the labels small so they didn't seem overly tacky.
A great resource for helping me maintain my house I found at justmommies.com. It's a home organization calendar found here: http://www.justmommies.com/articles/home-organization-plan.php
I like it because it is pretty simple. Each day of the work week has simple tasks like laundry, cleaning your bathroom and mopping. Each day of the month has a specific task as well like cleaning out your car, cleaning kitchen appliances, vacumming out your couch cushions etc. There are several catch up days and an occasional free day thrown in as well. Each month has a decluttering challenge-this Month its the living room, family room, den and hallways. You are also cycled through the master bedroom, kids bedrooms and kitchen and bathroom.
My newest purchase and attempt to get serious about this organization thing is a small dry erase board.
My goal here is to have a space near my computer to jot down tasks that I need to do sooner than the JM calendar or bills that need to be paid etc. I like the fact that is labeled for a week so that I don't have to draw squares out myself. I can also use this for when my kids start school up again in the fall.
I think that is enough for today-I have managed to fulfill most of my regular tasks for the day but there is a mountain of laundry that needs to be separated and folded and if I don't do it now...well I won't be sleeping on my bed ;)
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