I bought small plastic bins to hold my children’s toys and separated the toys by category. I then went online and found pictures of the toys and copied and pasted the picture onto a label. (For example, I found pictures of toy cars and trucks from online toy retailers. I was able to left click on the picture, select copy and then paste it into a label that I had created in Microsoft Word). I printed the labels off and stuck them on each bin. This has been great because my kids now know which toys go where, and when friends come over, they can help put toys away in the correct place as well.

As for clutter tips… My husband and I are both very anti-clutter but I’m not so sure on how exactly we make that happen. Electronically it seems like e-mail can cause a clutter mess in itself. I had a boss that had a ‘look at an e-mail once’ rule. Either reply, delete or folder it. Right away. Easier said than done, but a great thing to try to remember.

My favorite back to school organizing tip is to create a binder for each of my kids with sheet protectors inside. They have a cubby that they put their papers in when the get home, and the binder stays in that cubby. Each day (or every few days), I go through their papers– tossing the ones we don’t need to keep (old spelling tests), and adding special ones (prized art) to the binder. This way it is already altogether and organized according to date by the end of the year, and I don’t have to hang onto a bunch of papers that we don’t need. My kids LOVE to look through their binders and remember the fun things they did at school!

I also have a folder for each of my kids that I put important school papers in (as soon as they’re brought home) so that I can get to them quickly….things like their teacher’s email addresses, school projects, and important dates.

Another great idea I stumbled upon is rain gutter bookshelves. Sounds odd I know, but Google it….you’ll see some great pics! I plan to put some right above my kids beds where they can get to them easily. This will alleviate my messy bookshelves and get the books off the floor.

Recently I put a rubbermaid 3-drawer organizer on my kitchen counter next to my fridge (it’s well hidden there). I use this to de-clutter my counter and organize my mail. One drawer for bills to pay, one drawer for file away, and one drawer for coupons to use.

I LOVE organizing in the car for a long trip (even though you wouldn’t know by looking at my car now). We of course have the DVD player for the kids and instead of having lots of DVD cases we use one CD case that holds multiple movies. I let each of my girls pick out one coloring book, one box of crayons, and a couple small toys. We then put them in their own tin cake pans with lids. I found cheap ones at Walmart. The lids snap on and off easy enough my girls can do it. They give the girls a hard surface to color on and the crayons aren’t everywhere. And when they aren’t using them they slide under the seat. That leaves the floor of the car mess free and all of their activities are together and accessible.