Well, the Les Mess Organizing Card Game is just the trick to help accomplish these oftentimes difficult tasks.

According to their website, “LES MESS, a fun interactive card game that teaches children how to clean up after themselves and manage their possessions.”

Les Mess recently sent me a deck of these cards to try out and my kids have had quite a bit of fun with these.

The game is set up so that your child draws a card and then does the task in the allotted time.  There are also “Bonus” cards that allow the child a free day or some other twist.  You can then set up the game to offer a prize or reward when the task is completed.

This game seems like a handy way to get your kids involved in tidying up his or her things as well helping out around the house.   Ideally they will then become a bit more aware of keeping things organized and develop a habit of picking up more often.

Well, if only it were that simple.  I don’t know how many times I’ve bought a bunch of nice storage bins, carefully put a bunch of things in each one and threw them up in the closet or on a storage rack…only to pull them all apart a month later desperately looking for that missing glue gun or electric stapler.  Now I know I put that in one of these boxes!!!

The key to using storage bins and racks to get organized is to have a logical system of classifying like items as well as using the right type of storage item.  You’ll want to take some time before you buy your storage boxes to establish your precise needs.

You don’t want to use a large plastic pin for smaller items because they’ll most likely get lost in the mess.  Likewise, don’t bother putting one large item in one small box since that’s really a waste of resources.

~ Plan your system before you buy by thinking clearly about what you’re out to accomplish.

~ Buy the appropriate type of storage bin or box for your project.

~ Make sure you have enough room to house the box or bin you buy.

~ Use this time to purge some of the unnecessary or unwanted items in your home.  You don’t have to keep everything, and sometimes it feels great to lighten the load a bit.

~ Use colors logically to help you identify the contents of a box, or consider using clear plastic bins so you can see the contents without having to open everything up.

~ Label your boxes well so you know what’s in them.

~ Consider keeping a brief inventory elsewhere, like on your computer or even a printout, with a list of items in each storage box. You don’t have to list everything, but perhaps just the basics or the theme of each storage bin.

~ If you don’t have the shelves for storage boxes, consider stackable storage bins or containers.

· Clear your desktop and drawers of everything except large items like computers or printers. While you have your desk clear, wipe down surfaces and drawers.

· Put desk accessories (pencil cups, calendars, desk pad, rolodex) back on the desk where you are able to easily reach or see what you need. Insert drawer dividers or other desk organizers you need to keep like items together and stay organized.

· Sort the items you cleared from your desk. Set up boxes with categories like: shred, recycle, trash, office supplies, equipment, papers to file, decorations, and elsewhere (items that don’t belong at the desk to be put away later). Place items in these boxes.

· Put items you have sorted away. Place the things you use daily within easy reach, items you use weekly close enough to reach them with little effort, and supplies you use monthly or less often away from your desk. These can even go in a closet or storage area in another room. Keep your workspace clear so that you have a clutter free environment that allows you to focus on your work and put like items together so you can easily find them.

· File papers. If you do not have a good filing system, set up simple system for handling paper where you can find the paper you are looking for in less than a minute. Don’t pile—file!

· Place any decorative items where they can be seen and enjoyed, but not on your workspace. Display items that inspire you most, but minimum the amount of decorations so you are not distracted from your work.

· Maintain the hard work you have done. Take time to put things in their proper place each time you use them. When you are working your desk can become cluttered, which is understandable. Just make sure that at the end of the day everything is put away and the desktop is clear, ready for a new day of work.

Cathy Bates is owner of Practical Solutions Professional Organizing and a Golden Circle Member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). They offer hands on organizing help for homes and offices. To find out more about how they can assist you, contact them at www.psorganizing.com or call (909)810-3719.

First I encourage you to de clutter your email. If you have a hotmail account, aol, or just a local ISP. Merge them all into ONE. My only recommendation is GMAIL. Gmail is one of Googles MANY tools to get you organized. Besides, if you have multiple email accounts you can check them all via Gmail as well as send and receive emails from a POP account.

In addition, it’s easy to organize your family life with the use of different Google applications such as Google Calender, Google Black Berry Sync, Google Contacts, Google Documents, Google Mail, and Google Voice.

Google is quick to point out to business; the value of time saved using Google to manage their business. Busy Moms rejoice because these same tools can save you time and sanity for both your busy family and yourself as well!

So how do I manage my family’s schedule with Google ?

The first step is to register for a Gmail account for each of your family members old enough to have an email account (old enough to learn how to use one.

I do not suggest creating a ‘family account’. Each user needs to have their own individual Google Account. Google will allow you to share what you want with each user.

Once you’re signed up with Gmail you can begin to coordinate the different accounts and start organizing you family life from wherever you might be whether it’s at home or on the road.

You can head over to the Google Calendar section and begin filling out your own calendar that you can then share with everyone, other individuals or specific groups of people.  You can limit some events to private settings while sharing other information with a different level of access.  You can even sync your calendar with other popular applications like Outlook or you Iphone or Blackberry.

Although I don’t have a list – I will share with you MY SECRET for using my blackberry to keep organized.

Are you ready ? It’s not about a Blackberry Mom application. It’s about using a service that offers EVERYthing you need on a remote server so you can access it from HOME WORK and your blackberry.

If you are a busy working mom, busy stay at home mom, Busy work from home mom, you need to DUMP and simplify. To do this you head over to: http://www.Gmail.com and created yourself an email (then get RID of all the others – its a time waster.

With your new Google account you can SYNC directly to your blackberry AND to your outlook (where you can also download your GMAIL email), organize your calenders, and have access to everything from your desktop, remotely from work, and on your blackberry.

You can also:
Invite others to share with you – colour label your kids, work, personal appointments, in google calender – share documents you create (google docs) – budget & track payments in google (excel), create a monthly grocery list ect.

If you don’t have the time to ’set it all up yourself. Check out Famundo -it’s $4.95 a month – but you have to sync to outlook then to your blackberry. Whereas Google will Sync Real time with your blackberry.

So my Mom Blackberry keeping it all together trick is GOOGLE.

Another busy mom shares her tips for keeping her family’s schedule and home together . Today’s featured busy mom is Isabel Isidro Mom of three balancing parenting and co running a business.

How do you keep your children’s schedules together ?
My kids are 7, 5 and 2 — and they all go to school. The two youngest are home by lunchtime while the eldest spends the full day in school.

We have a strict schedule in the house, and the kids know it. The younger boys take a nap in the afternoon. They play or relax in the afternoon after school, and one of their favorite activities is playing Wii with their father. The kids then eat dinner, and take a bath. Then from 7:00-8:30 pm, it’s their study and reading time.

I give them the materials they need to work on and practice with, and they choose the books they want to read. By 8:30 pm, they’re on bed and ready to sleep. They’re early risers, and wake up anywhere from 5:30-6:30 am – even on weekends! None in the family are late sleepers.

To the extent possible, we don’t do any extracurricular activities during the weekdays, only weekends. School is tough already for the kids, and we’d like them to have time to rest, have fun, play with each other and just be kids.

Saturdays, though, are when things go crazy with their schedules. They have various lessons, and by lunchtime, I am tired from driving around the area going from one lesson to the next. However, in the afternoon, we always make it a point to go to the library to pick up the books that they’ll read for the week.

Do you use a particular day planner ?
No. I used various dayplanners – from the cheapest to the most expensive leather bound planners. I even attended a daylong seminar by one of the big businesses in dayplanning business on how to organize and plan your day using their dayplanning system.

But none really worked for me. I will be “good” and use the planner judiciously for a few weeks, or even a month. And then nada — blank pages after that.

For one, I need something that I can carry with me all the time, not some bulky planner that sits nicely on a desk but impractical to be carried in my purse around. My purse is heavy enough as it is with all the kids’ stuff, and having a bulky planner does not work.

Do you own a blackberry?
Not a Blackberry, but I use an iPhone with an app for my to-do lists for the day. It’s been very effective for me. I carry my phone all the time, and having my things to do and scheduler on the same small device allowed me to keep track of what I need to do for the day. I just love it!

What is you most used ‘time saving tip’ when it comes to running your house?
You need to be a goddess of multi tasking and organization. Find the best strategy that works for you and your family.

For me, I need to spend a little time the night before thinking what the family needs to do for the day – e.g. making sure the kids have put their assignments in their bags. Otherwise, I’d forget it! I spend a little time putting my list in my iPhone’s to-do app.

My husband has also been extremely helpful in running the house, and I don’t think I can run the house without his help in everything.

Because we run a web business, I also rely on a lot of technology to run a home-based business alongside running a household with three kids. When the kids play Wii for example, I sit and watch them play, but I have my laptop with me to enable me to respond quickly to emails or do some web site maintenance tasks. We also have laptops in almost every room in the house, because you’ll never know when you can sneak in 5 minutes of work. My husband tells me that I am “surgically attached” to my computer. I know I need to unplug sometime, but it’s just so hard!

Do you have a favorite quick meal for your family?
Ramen. We’re Asian, and the kids love noodles. My 4 year old can eat 2 packs of Ramen in one sitting. They also love fried spring rolls, which they eat with rice.

Tell us the truth ? What would we find in your car right now ?
I’m pretty good in terms of managing the clutter in my car. I don’t leave anything in the car, except for the ice skating bag with the kids’ equipment and gloves. Plus a pack of biscuits and crackers that the kids like. There’s no clutter in my car because I carry everything in my big bag!

Even my husband is amazed at how heavy my bag is and what I bring in it. Plus, my husband vacuums and cleans the car weekly so I have no complaints :o)

What advice would you give to other moms who feel the pressure of trying to be ‘super mom’?
Don’t even feel pressured to be a “super mom.” I’d go crazy if I even aim to become one. I just live one day at a time, trying to enjoy life with my family. Let the kids have fun, teach them responsibility, appreciate the value of work, and be grounded with family relationships and religion.

I just want them to experience as much as they can. Don’t feel you have to do what others are doing – just do the best you can do for your family.

What is your number one goal for the year ? How do you plan to reach it ?
To finish my book. I’ve been working on a book about starting a home business for years, and this time I am about ready to have it published. How do I plan to reach the goal? By not sleeping! The only time I can write is at night when everybody else is sleeping. Daytime is pure chaos, and I just can’t write anything during the day.

Isabel Isidro is a mother of three boys, ages 7, 4 and 2. She is also the co-founder of PowerHomeBiz.com, a 10-year old site for home business owners and solo entrepreneurs, and runs WomenHomeBusiness.com and LearningfromBigBoys.com. She just tries to live and learn each day – not always succeeding, but always trying.

Then Darryl’s teacher says ‘Darryl doesn’t seem to be interested in doing his school work’. Sigh, I have to admit I have NOT been keeping the kids school events and homework organized. I have no homework system or home work routine. So in a hope in becoming the organized mom again I took my daughter to the dollar store to get a system in place for her.

The boys each have a school agenda, that I NEED to be using. Abbies is primary and the school doens’t order school agendas for the primary grades. So I needed to create one for her (actually it’s more for mom).

So here is our solution for organzing Abbie’s school homework.

Total cost: less then $7.00

Large zip locking bag (with a slider because the other ones are frustrating for little fingers and won’t get closed = lost homework organizers). ( I usually have these in my box but I bought 8 for $1.00)

One pencil (we had this at home)

One pencil sharpener

One fun homework bag sign

One hard covered blank journal (letter size)

The plastic bag keeps it all organized AND helps with rain (this busy mom lives in the North West).  Of course now I have to establish a homework routine. Establishing any family routine usually takes some patience and incentive always helps.

So I made a Mom’s homework organization bag to help me with my attempt to get the children’s homework and school events organized.  A bag to organize the homework items (which belongs to mom to ensure it dosen’t migrate into someones bedroom). It includes a new box of crayons, pencil crayons, three pencils, my highlighter & pen (for writing notes for the teacher), and $6.00 worth stickers (homework incentive). I think I might make a fancy sign for my bag as well.

Abbie’s homework agenda or organizer will be used to practise her spelling, write her reading times, send notes back and forth to the teacher, and write about her day to help improve her writing skills.

My homework routine means I can expect to site at the table with Abbie and Darryl for at least 30 minutes each night. No one said parenting wouldn’t be time consuming !

Now if you need an organizer for mom -> go check out the MOM AGENDA and get up to 40% off.

Another option for a school organizer if you want something a bit cuter … Freckle Box has personalized notebooks.  They cost 9.95 personalized clipboards are just $19.95  the coupon code FBFRIEND may give you 15% off if it hasn’t expired :)

How do you keep your children’s schedules together?
My husband and I use Outlook quite a bit between the two of us to maintain everyone’s schedules. Our daughter’s elementary school web site also has a great Outlook calendar download feature that tells us everything for the year such as parent-teacher conferences, field trips, early-release days, etc. It works pretty slick!

Do you use a particular day planner ?
No, I don’t. However, I do use some of the Steven Covey principles of prioritizing tasks and not over-scheduling my day. I used to feel so defeated at the end of the day when only five of the 10 things on my list were crossed off. Now, I’m happy crossing-off the five I scheduled for myself. (Well, most of the time!)

Do you own a blackberry?
Yes, I just purchased one a few weeks ago. I set it so it only rings for phone calls. Email notifications can usually wait until I have a block of time to read them.

What is your most used ‘time saving tip’ when it comes to running your house?
I enjoy cooking, therefore I like to prepare large meals on the weekends to either freeze or reheat later in the week. I also discovered how to cut my grocery shopping time in half. I organize my grocery list in the order of the store layout, tear it in half and pass it to my husband. We each take a cart and then meet in the middle of the store to checkout. I realize this sounds a bit silly, but if your husband offers to help and you’re willing to accept selections that aren’t exactly what you would have picked out yourself then try it! It also helps keep your spouse and/or kids involved in your grocery budget and realize how much food really costs.

Do you have a favourite quick meal for your family?
Breakfast for dinner. We raise a dozen laying hens here on our property and it’s pretty easy to walk out to the coop, grab a few eggs and pull together a quick meal.

Tell us the truth ? What would we find in your car right now ?
A pair of snow shoes, a container of trail mix, partially nude Barbies, assorted Crayola markers and a couple of empty coffee cups.

What advice would you give to other moms who feel the pressure of trying to be ’super mom’?
Expand your definition of what is acceptable and cut yourself some slack.

What is your number one goal for the year ? How do you plan to reach it ?
My goal is to expand TicklerTags into the school fund raising market this year. I will be launching a marketing campaign in a few short weeks to elementary schools and parent-teacher organizations.

Nicole Budleski is a 35-year-old, married mother of two girls, ages 7 and 2. Nicole’s marketing background and knack for organizing lead to the development of TicklerTags for her daughter’s after school activities and transportation arrangements. You can visit her site, www.TicklerTags.com to see her full line of backpack reminder tags.

So here are my tips for looking after your family computers and keeping their maintenance up to date.

1) Check your antivirus programs and make sure they are downloading their updates. If you don’t have one, get AVG free. Make sure you only have one anti virus program or you will find your computer will stop liking you.

2) Protect your kids ? Hey PROTECT YOUR COMPUTERS. Kids will visit any and every website on the internet and downlaod all kinds of nice and not so nice things to your computer. So stop right now and get cyber patrol. Know what your kids are doing and keep them from doing things to your computer that they shouldn’t.

2)  Run a disk Defrag. Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories ->  System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter *do this every week. Need more ?  You need to do this each week

3) Clear your internet cache. You need to do this each week. Videos:  Fire Fox Internet Explorer

4) Take your videos, photos, and music off your computer. Most of us don’t have enough memory to store all of these on our computer without slowing down your computer.

5) Remove unused programs using the Control panel  add/remove programs.

6) Go to windows update and make sure you have all the latest updates for your computer.

7) Run a registry cleaner. I use Registry Mechanic. Be sure you have all of your driver disks in case you need to reinstall something.

Set a day each week to run a defrag  and cache clear on your computer.

So for this almost always organized mom (or never organized at the moment), it’s time to go back to the beginning and set some goals for 2010 and the next three years. I wanted to share some free and affordable tools I located online to help you set goals for yourself and as a family.

Free setting goals workbook

Mom Goals offers tips and steps for setting goals for moms.

101 goals in 1001 days. Offers a list of goal setting and goal tracking worksheets and printables.

Tony Robbins has a great article explaining how to set your Personal mission statement. A first step in goal setting. Click here

Of course there are a lot of great goal setting resources for moms over at ListPlanIt.com as well.