Need to Get Organized!! Need Ideas for Daytimers, Kids Charts, Anything to Help!

Need more details, is your daycare outside the home or do you have an in home sitter? Do you have housecleaning help? How much (or little) does your spouse do to contribute?
From the tone of your post you sound like you don"t have ANY help, which of course, would be insane for any working person.
So what's the deal?

Declutter your house. Trash or donate. Make sure everything has a place. I can't function if my house is messy.

Perfect question for me! I am a work-from-home mom too, and have been since my kids were born, so part of your issue is just that you work from home. You are already pulled in way too many directions with work and two little ones. It's tough!

Here are things that help me. Written routines. I have a weekly routine that I put on the calendar. I clean up the yard (we have a dog) on Saturday and Wednesday, clean the fridge and take out the garbage on Monday (Tuesday is trash pickup), Make my grocery menu on Tuesday, grocery shop on Wednesday, vacuum my car on Friday, etc. That helps with the things that need to be done weekly.

I also have a daily routine that has become habit. Make bed right away, clear off dresser and bedside table before heading downstairs, empty dishwasher first thing while coffee is brewing. Head back upstairs while kids are getting dressed and make sure their bathroom is picked up then start a load of laundry. There are many of those little things of course, but they get done each morning. After I get those little things done, then I work.

Work takes up many hours, but I try my best to get up and switch the laundry at least. If the kids are home from school for breaks or summer, of course I have to get them going on some fun things to do, or help them with something or other, or take time out and run around outside with them. I try to put in quality work hours during the day though.

Then I have another routine for the evening. I make a meal plan each week, so that really helps when it comes to dinner. I even break out the crockpot now, which really is fun once a week. Dinner and cleanup are a breeze. One of us does the dishes right after the meal now. That really helps too. Nothing worse than a dirty kitchen late into the night.

The other thing that really has helped me get a grip on things is having a place for everything. I try not to go upstairs for the evening until everything is in it's place and I make the kids put away all of their things before we do the bedtime routine. Of course, I haven't decluttered 100% yet, so not everything has a home, but it's much better now that I have done a bunch of organizing.

For major organizing, I put a block of time on my calendar. Seriously, it works for me. I block out an hour or two if I can and I chip away at whatever project it is. OR I do 15-30 min of the area I want to organize, if I can't find the blocks of time.

Planning ahead helps me tremendously. I unfortunately procrastinate by nature, so I have to look at my calendar for the week and see what is coming up. If one of the kids has a birthday party to go to, I head out with them during the week to get the present. We schedule to have the card made and present wrapped at least 2 days ahead of the party. Seriously, if I don't schedule it, it won't get done. Everything goes more smoothly if I get a little bit ahead of the calendar. Speaking of that, I'm already planning for Christmas. I am trying something new by shopping once a month to keep an eye out for Christmas or family birthday presents on a more regular basis. I really don't have enough time in Nov/Dec for all of the shopping and wrapping, due to my work schedule. So, I'm doing my best to get ahead of that too.

I also try to start the day with a clean work desk. That helps get me motivated to get down to business. For work I also have a written work to-do list in a notebook with a post-it note attached for household to-do's I need to do that day. I update my work to-dos each Monday and my household post-it note each day..it's a little list of the most important household chores for that day, like Pay Water bill, order books for kids, write thank you note, etc. I only put a few on that really need to get done that day and I do my best to finish them or they get carried over to the next day. If I don't keep a little household list, I tend to get too caught up with work and forget about balancing the housework in too.

Sorry this is so long, I could go on and on. I have come a long way, so there is hope for everyone. ;) One of my friends is OCD about keeping things perfect and I watch how she does things to get a few pointers too. For example, she never puts a dirty spoon straight on her counter. It always goes on something else, so she has less cleanup. Often she doesn't put it down at all and it gets rinsed immediately and put in the dishwasher after stirring something. She never gets out of the car without making sure she and her kids take out every single scrap of garbage. It's amazing how she has worked out some habits that normal people would never think of. lol.

For my calendar, I use Outlook. Each family member is their own 'category', which allows labelling by color. I print out the calendars, which are color coded by person, and keep them on the fridge.

What works well for us with this is that my husband also uses Outlook, and we 'invite' each other to everything on the calendar. This means that we can both add to the calendar at any time, and we both know everything on it, both electronically on our computers and phones, and by looking at the fridge.

For lists, we both have iPhones and use the "Our Groceries" free app. It lets us share lists - we can both add to the lists, and we both have the complete lists instantly. So if he can stop on the way home from work, he can see everything we need at that store. And you can have multiple lists and they are titled. For us, we keep a grocery list, but also a Home Depot list, a Target List, a Sam's Club list, and a Home Projects To-Do list. Again, what makes this so good is that any time one of us has a "hey, we need to get xxx" thought, that person can immediately put it on the list and we both have it. We no longer have conversations that sound like "oh, I didn't know you were stopping at Target on the way home, I needed xxx" "Sorry, it was just a quick stop and I didn't know you needed anything there"

What kind of work do you do? Do you make a good living from working at home? Is there a father in the picture? Need more info.

I have been having so much fun this past year looking at organizing websites. I am slowly getting more organized by watching videos, reading blogs and looking at photos of great ideas. Here are the websites I frequent the most:
www.clutterdiet.com (when you click on any of her videos on YouTube, you will see a lot more to view), www.mysimplerlife.com (there is a fantastic free calendar that gives you small tasks to do each day), and www.home-storage-solutions-101.com (another cool declutter calendar). I also go on Pinterest and search "organizing ideas" or "organizing office."

What I love most about these websites, videos, calendars, etc. is that they give you ideas in small chunks which sounds like what you need. I'm sure if you Google "kids charts" you will get some ideas of what would work for you.

I sell some organizing stuff that might help, especially wall hanging things. Private message me if you are interested.

I love two Apps: Menu Planner and Cozi. In Cozi, I have lots of lists to keep me organized: household repairs, general "to do" (Dr appt), prepared foods (frozen meals --so I know what's in the freezer!)....and then I have my Fly Lady stuff. I have a list of tasks I do daily, for each day of the week, and then for each particular week (for instance, the first week of the month I wash all bed linings including mattress cover, while the third week I walk around and try to get dirt all of walls with a magic eraser). I then have other lists. Since I'm due with a baby in 6 weeks, I have a "baby" list. I also just started a Christmas list yesterday, so I can keep track of gifts I've bought, what I want to buy, etc.

Visit Fly Lady, pick a room, get three box (one for donations, one for garbage and one to keep) and start organizing. In the past 6 months, I've thrown out roughly 30% of what we own, including furniture! I;ve also splurged and bought lots of organizers. It's so worth it. No clutter, everything has a place, and I don't even have to think about running the house. I look at my list, and just do.

For the house, I use Flylady and Cozi (as Julie G mentioned). Both are great with managing daily and weekly routines so that you can then just live your life. Cozi is great for having appointment reminders sent to my phone and my husband's, and it synchs with my Outlook calendar for work. I also use Cozi to plan meals.

For my kids, I have a chore chart (a dry erase one from The Board Dudes that I bought at target). This is for things like vacuuming, deep cleaning the playroom, mowing the lawn, KP duty etc. that your kids are probably too young for, but it can be good for you and your husband if you need him to help out more.

I also have laminated sheets with morning, afternoon and evening routines. I made these for my younger kids when they were in pre-school and they have clip art pictures on them. These include things like, for the morning, make bed, get dressed, put PJs away, eat breakfast, brush teeth, put on socks and shoes, put on jacket/hat/gloves, get lunch and backpack. The afternoon routine is about putting their bags and lunch boxes away, hanging things up, picking up toys. Evening is the before bed routine. They can use a dry-erase marker to check off what they've done. After a week or two , this should be their routine then you only have to go back to the check lists when you get off track,

For work, I use the "Getting Things Done" method. You can google it for basic info. I have a paper day planner where I have monthly calendars and then tabbed sections.labelled Notes/In, Action Lists, Agendas, Projects/Goals, Plans & Notes, Reference/Misc, and Kids. This is a new approach for me this year and I really, really like it. Before I used to organize my planner by project but it was hard to search through notes to find what I needed. The Action Lists are things like Computer, Phone, E-mail, Errands, and Waiting For. When I'm in the midst of my day, if I realize I have to call someone, it goes on the Phone list. If that person has to get back to me, it goes on the Waiting For list, etc. That way when I'm at the computer, I quickly see all of the e-mails I need to send and just get them out. Then make my phone calls, then move on to my other computer tasks. I manage a lot of projects at work with many moving parts as well as a house of 4 kids and a tutoring business and I really like this system. So far I have a lot less spinning in my head and am taking care of big tasks and small details.

The first step is to declutter - spend 15 minutes a day getting rid of things you don't want, need or love. Either find a place locally where you can donate items that are still good or join freecycle and purge, purge, purge.