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.

I thought I’d share these tips on managing your email inbox with you;

Tips for managing your inbox

Filter through the clutter: Yahoo! Mail Filters automatically sort your incoming messages according to rules that you set up. For example, you can create a filter so messages from your family members are automatically delivered to a personal folder called ‘Family.’

Or simply direct all those newsletters and email messages that you subscribe to, but are of low importance, to a different folder.
Rather than sort through each email message to decide where it goes, filters are like a built in filing system that save time and help you stay organized!

Read important messages first: Now you can quickly see important messages from the people that matter most to you. Simply click on the ‘connections’ link in your inbox to view the messages from the people that you communicate with most often.

Weed out the junk email; Use the “Spam” button to report it: If you receive unwanted e-mail or e-mail from an address you don’t recognize, report it by clicking on the “Spam” button in the toolbar at the top of your inbox or message.

Start to Declutter and organize your home today with Clutter Diet

This will report the contents of the message to the anti-spam group so Yahoo! Mail (or your service provider) can watch out for similar messages in the future and, if warranted, automatically block them from ever reaching your inbox.

Sweep your inbox: Make it a ritual to block out time each day or each week this season to answer email and purge old, dusty messages. Even a few minutes can go a long way to a more organized inbox

There you go – one more way to stay more ‘Almost Always Organized’.

I am lost in a pool of paper and determined to not be as ‘unorganized’ as I was last year. or to drown under the pile.

So this busy mom has dusted off her mom time management skills and has managed to get through the first week of school with everything under control.

My family time management control center is back up and running… complete with;

1) a LARGE desktop calendar – stuck onto the cork board with double sided tape. The little ‘30 day family calendars have never had enough space to write down all of our schedules.

2) the large envelopes (on the corkboard) are used for teacher notes, school forms ect.

3) my ticket (the small blue paper). Graciously handed to me by a local RCMP officer who felt I did not come to a full and complete stop at the four way  intersection this week. Which by the way will cost you $140 Canadian dollars ! I use the board for items I know I will need during the week and that’s one bill I have to get paid ;)

4) the  wall hangers on the side – there is one for each child and it will hold agendas, homework, and library books.

5) Hooks – each child has one hoody and one rain jacket (we live in the rain forest of BC). Another set of hooks holds each child’s school bag. Lunch boxes are kept in the kitchen.

The back of the door has a white board- which up to this morning held a quote from Obama’s Back to school speech. It now holds the notes of things for my housekeeper to do (yes I gave in and she comes 2-3 times a week for 2 hours because I can not do it ALL) and the following note for my son:

Liam: All video games are gone.

We will talk next Sunday at 7pm about them coming back based on:

1)Being up ready for school by 8:00 am. HAPPY

2)All homework done and agenda being used

3)In bed sleeping by 9 pm

4)How you treat your siblings and your mom

So that gives you a bit of insight to the ‘Almost Always Organized Mom’s’ crazy life. Have a great week and I would love to hear your back to school organization tips.

I am starting a series of mom interviews to feature bloggers and get some of their great tips for organizing and time management for their families this week. All of which will be posted here at Organized Families.

If you are interested in being interviewed please drop me a note through the contact form.

I also have a client blog to complete, an aupair training manual to write for Rod’s new aupair (my boyfriend for those of you who are new to my crazy life blog), another client who needs help getting started on twitter to promote their blog, a fence to finish staining, invoicing, and you know the daily life of being a single mom with three children !

Of course I also have my ongoing To Do list to work through and a library book that I really WANT to read.  Reading is a guilty pleasure for this busy mom. One I rarely dip into, for this very reason.  I of course had to start a trilogy which could result in my nose in a book for a week straight ;)

Speaking of library books my tip for the day: Get a library bag. I keep mine next to the door on a hook and the children are told to KEEP their books in the bag not on their book shelf or under their book shelf, bed, or laundry hamper (all places they tend to disappear to). It keeps them handy to grab when I get time to stop by the library.