How do you do it?

This is sort of the opposite of  Works-For-Me Wednesday.

This does NOT work for me, and I need your help.

Every afternoon, my house looks something like this:

And frankly, some days it’s a whole lot worse than this.  These are just the pictures I’m willing to own up to.  And these are just the 3 rooms the kids spend the most time in after school – the family room is not as publicly visible so I’m not so worried about that.

A few things I’m working on.  The kitchen table, for example, is currently a dumping ground for coats and backpacks.  I’m building a cubby with compartments for each of the girls to store their school shoes, coat, backpack, and lunchbox, so hopefully that mess will be contained in…the garage, I’m thinking?  Wherever the cubby ends up, anyway.  So that will help.

But honestly, my biggest daily challenge is just stuff. Random things that I don’t know what to do with – they don’t have a home, but they aren’t garbage, either.  Missing parts of toys, broken things that need repaired (but I can’t sit down and do it immediately), assorted school papers, newspapers/magazines I’m going to look at later – that kind of thing.  What do you neatnik readers do with all of that stuff?

I also need to get better about having the girls clean up as they go.  Annie does this very well, but her sisters not so much.  Catie whines and complains, and Lilly’s just too young to do it without heavy supervision.  I am definitely guilty of doing it myself after they go to bed, just because it’s easier.  Bad of me, I know.

So tell me, please – what works for you?