Systems

With school back in session we are moving into our usual routine around here, and I thought I should share a few of my favorites systems that help this family of 5 stay organized!The Family BinderI have a tab for each member of the family and one for the whole family together. EVERYTHING important is in this binder (I have a separate notebook for bills, receipts, and warranties). This binder is a "what's happening in our life RIGHT NOW" binder....my go to place!School schedulesSoccer schedulesMy weekly dinner menuUp coming invitationsYou get the idea.I was so tired of having papers all over my fridge and everywhere else on the kitchen counter that I decided to centralize them. Every day I put all the school papers the girls bring home in there, and I try and file them at night or at least every couple of days to stay on top of them. Martha Stewart has super cute binders and folders at Staples I use.A cleaning scheduleI really don't LIKE cleaning! In fact I HATE it!! But it must be done, and I really LIKE living in a clean and organized house. Creating a cleaning schedule makes it less painful and instead of having the dreaded "cleaning DAY" I broke it up throughout the week. Maybe when my children are older I will go back to THE day, but until then it works better to fit in 20-30 minutes here and there. Really that is all I do a day 20-30 minutes everyday!Memory BooksIf your children are like mine they come home with TONS of cute stuff every week from school that I want to save and cherish forever, but I make myself sort out the super special and we save it in a memory book.It's is just a binder with sheet protectors that I had them decorate. I have a basket in their closet where I toss everything we want to keep and then at the end of the school year we go through it (this is super fun and they love traveling down memory lane) and put it in the book. The books are kept on their book shelf, because they love looking at them. I try and enforce the "keep it in the book" rule, but many times my four year old takes the memories out to play :)Toy LabelsThis system makes clean up for little ones SUPER EASY!!! I used Google to find pictures of the toys and shipping labels to print them on. Everything has a spot and all they have to do is look at the picture to see where the toy goes.I would love to hear about YOUR great systems!!! Leave your best in the comments :)Happy organizing your life!