Organizing the Day to Day

If you read my resolutions or goals for the new year, you'll remember one of them was to keep a cleaner house.  Since I'm pretty sure this is a common resolution, I thought I would share a few of my ideas on how to stay on top of things better this year.  I'm an organized person by nature, but my husband will be the first to let you know that having things organized is different from having them clean.  Take our study for example.  If you were to walk in there any given day, you would come RUNNING back out with your hands covering your eyes.  But, if you asked me to find you something-anything-I could probably walk right to it and hand it to you.  I've finally realized that just because I understand the confusion that is this house, it does not count as having a clean house.  I understand that having all these kids in my house makes it a bit harder, and I don't need it to be spotless.  I would just like things to remain "company ready."  We are at a slight disadvantage because our upstairs in not yet in use.  All our rooms are downstairs which means all the toys are downstairs.

I have also realized a pattern with my cleaning.  Or non-cleaning I suppose.  It starts with the breakfast mess.  It seems so easy to just deal with the few dishes we have from breakfast.  However, you throw in a couple extra kids who are screaming for a nap or need their diapers changed and suddenly I don't have the time to deal with breakfast messes.  So then when lunch comes and the same thing happens again, the mess is doubled.  By dinner it has tripled.  And then comes baths and bedtime and then I. AM. EXHAUSTED. :)  Had enough of my complaining?  Ok, I'll stop.  I came up with a system of how to keep up with things a little easier so that I don't have to devote an entire day to cleaning my destroyed house.  And because I love lists and I need things to be cute, here is what I came up with.

These are the things I MUST accomplish each day.  I posted it on my fridge so I can be reminded constantly.  If I do these things daily, then my house shouldn't get too out of hand.  Each day of the week, I have a different chore to do.  Mondays are bathrooms, Tuesdays is dusting, Wednesday is vacuuming, Thursday is mopping, and Friday is laundry.  Hopefully this will work for me.  I may end up switching things around.  We'll see.  Do you like our nativity scene magnets? Haha

While we're on the topic of organization, this is my household binder where I keep all our papers ad what not.  I have tabs for day to day events, food, budget, projects, Bible study, and others.  I realized one day how many papers I had randomly scattered around the house.  It makes more sense to keep them all in one place so I don't end up spending 15 minutes searching for my grocery list.

This is my beloved life planner from Erin Condren. I use this for everything and I love it.

It is full of bright colorful pages and inspirational quotes.  Just what I need! :)

This is my weekly planner that also came from Erin.  I write my meal plan and other daily events on this.  I love how big it is!

So, how do you stay organized?  What are your favorite products or organizational tips?!