If you have a lot of boxes, or large furniture, some organizations will pick them up, so take advantage of that. Does your community have a day for putting out large items at the curb for pickup? Make sure you use it!

Instead of piling boxes by the door to take outside, take them all the way out to the car so that next time you pass the thrift store they are ready and waiting to be dropped off.

Size and type depends on your family and lifestyle: it could be anything from a single shelf to a set of cubbies, hooks, bins and shelves for each family member.

Security tip: make sure keys and wallet are not visible or reachable through a window or mail slot.

There’s a great article on this subject in the Jan 2007 issue of Fine Homebuilding magazine, which you can probably find at your local library (unfortunately this particular article is not online). “The Drop-Off Zone” on page 122 covers building several kinds of landing zones, especially oriented to households with lots of electronic devices which need homes and recharging areas.

Reduce the amount of mess and dirt coming into the house

This is your first line of defense. Mats should be placed outside and inside all doors. The kind of mats you want are the ones which really remove dirt from shoes, not the kind which are decorative only. If your family tends to have REALLY muddy shoes and boots, a bootscraper outside the door is an old-fashioned item which still works well.

To cut down on airborne dirt, seal and caulk all gaps round windows and doors and other building penetrations like pipes and wires. This will help with heating and cooling bills too. If you need to in your area, use insect screens on your windows and doors.

Inside, corral the mess and limit its spread

Assuming you do actually want to LIVE in this house, not just exist, it’s impossible not to create any mess at all – but you can take steps to make it easier to clean up.

Do mess-creating activities in one specific area, preferably with a closable door. If you’re doing something that makes dust, shavings, fumes etc, close the door to keep them out of the rest of the house. Make sure to clean your filters frequently if you have a forced-air heating or cooling system, to stop dust and dirt being spread around the house.

Simplify everything:

• create built-in seating and storage (no spaces underneath or behind to clean)
• reduce the number of decorative objects and twiddly bits
• keep window coverings to the fewest, simplest number of layers that will do the job
• limit open display to only those objects you really love, and keep everything else behind closed doors
• reduce the amount of stuff you own (declutter!)

Choose easy-to-maintain finishes:

• brushed plumbing fitting finishes instead of shiny.
• easily-cleaned paint finishes (usually gloss, satin or eggshell rather than flat)
• hard floors with few joints (avoid the hardwood or laminate floors with chamfered groove joints between every plank!)
• wall-to-wall carpets instead of area rugs
• smooth kitchen finishes instead of textured

Resource List

Get Organized and Stay Organized
Garage Storage Systems
Home Organization Tools
Kitchen Organization
Pantry Organizers and Shelving

The LEGO company used to produce an item which is perfect for this situation -a large circular playmat with a drawstring round the edge.

When it’s time to play, the pieces (well, most of them!) stay on the mat, then at the end of the session, it’s easy to scoot any strays back onto the mat, draw up the edge string to turn it into a bag, and hang the bag from a hook.

You could easily make one of these from a bedsheet cut into a circle, with a casing sewn around the edge, and a looooong string run through the casing.

If your kids need to keep some parts separate from the rest of the collection, use clear screw-top plastic jars (like peanut butter jars) or other sturdy containers with lids that won’t come off inside the bag. The kind of plastic boxes with multiple compartments inside are really great for storing lots of tiny detail parts, or LEGO people – look for well-made fishing tackle or tool boxes with positive locking clips instead of just a lip to hold the lid closed.

Resources:

The LEGO Company Shop-at-home service: more LEGO pieces than you could ever need (don’t show your kids this site!)

Lions Gate Models custom LEGO city and town models – free building instructions for LEGO cars and trucks and a huge hospital, and many more instructions to buy.

Maybe you’d benefit by setting up some reference binders. What you need for each one is a 3-ring binder with tabbed and labeled dividers, plus paper (of course) and punched sheets with pockets for storing printed information like leaflets and cards. Ideas for sections include:

Recreation

Education

Food

Info for babysitter

Recommended resources

Printable reference sheets and checklists

“Get Organized Now” series by Maria Gracia

Have a place to record things: planner, index cards, voice recorder, PDA or computer. Have a way to get things you’ve recorded, into your system: use an inbox of some kind. Use routines or checklists for regular or repeated tasks. Have a daily or weekly routine for gathering up stray papers, getting them into the right inbox, and processing them.

Keep lists: “To buy”, “To mend”, “waiting for” (delegated tasks, orders not yet received, stuff you’re waiting for answers on), “someday” (things you’d like to do and don’t want to forget, but not just yet), and “agendas” (things you need to remember to talk about or do with individual people and at meetings).

Recommended resources

Book: David Allen “Getting Things Done”

I’ve read many, many “organizing” books over decades and this is the one which has made the most difference for me. It is eminently practical, detailed and straightforward. It doesn’t require you to buy any specific tools: you can use anything from a paper notebook, planner, or index cards to a PDA or computer.

Main strengths are in processes to capture, record, plan and organize tasks and projects. Not so strong on how to actually get yourself to DO all those tasks!