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Anyone with kids knows that keeping your family organized is an ongoing challenge. While nobody’s perfect, reducing clutter in your home and getting more organized will keep your family life running smoothly. "Being organized is a big stress reducer," says Debbie Williams, author of Organized Kidz (By the Book Media, 2005) in Houston, Texas. "Being a clutterbug causes a time management problem. If you’ve lost your keys again or your daughter has misplaced her backpack and can’t get off to preschool, you’re going to be late. So the clutter problem starts a time management problem, which leads to stress." Whatever area of your home life is in disarray—maybe you’re daunted by stacks of unopened mail, decades of family photos that aren’t in albums or a messy car—read on for tips to help you deal with it.

Conquer the mail mountain. Make a home for your mail—that way you always know where to look for it, says Williams. She recommends opening your mail in the same spot in the house each day—try over the garbage in the kitchen can so you can throw out junk mail immediately. Then start stacking the mail into piles—Williams keeps a manila file folder on hand so she can file mail into separate sections, such as To File, To Call, To Read, right after opening it.

Manage a messy front entrance. How often do you trip over the kids’ knapsacks, sneakers or toys when you’re coming through the front door? Keeping your foyer organized is as easy as assigning a home to your family’s things and then consolidating them a little, says Williams. Here’s how:

• Hook ’em Install hooks or pegs near the front door for the kids knapsacks, suggests Williams. That way once they come home from school, they can hang up the bag and when they leave for school they can quickly grab it and go. No place to hang pegs? Use stacking tubs—colorful or wicker ones—to hold school bags and winter boots or shoes, says Williams.
• Never lose your keys again Use a dish, decorative basket or inexpensive wooden cigar box to house your set of keys. If you’ve got more than one driver in your house, each person should have his or her own box.
• Designate closet space If you have the luxury of both front and back closets, make one the adult closet and one the kid closet, so anything kid-related goes into their closet, says Audrey Thomas of Organized Audrey in Minneapolis. Lower the dowels and use hooks for younger kids; as kids get older you can add in hangers. "If you only have one closet, divide it in half so the kids get the bottom half and mom and dad get the top half."

Streamline the family schedule. If your kids have busy extracurricular schedules, you probably won’t be able to scribble all of the pertinent details into the tiny box on a calendar. "Use an oversize dry erase board that’s about two feet by three feet," says Thomas. "Color-code it so one child’s activities are written in blue and one’s in red under today’s date. Consolidating everyone’s schedule onto a master calendar will make it easier for mom and dad to know when the kids need to be picked up."

Tackle the toys. Has your living room slowly been converted into a playroom with dozens of action figures strewn everywhere? Find a new home for Ken and Barbie and reclaim your adult space with these tips:

• A place for everything Keep a few toys in the common family area, says Williams, but the bulk of toy clutter in a child’s room. "At the end of each day—have a five- or 10-minute tidy. Set the kitchen timer and give each child a laundry basket or wicker tub to gather up the toys and take them to their rooms. If you do this every day, they get into the habit of cleaning up after themselves." They may be even more enthusiastic to help tidy up if you use separate containers—ice cream buckets or shoe boxes—for each different kind of toy, such as action figures, cars or blocks. Bonus! "When they play the next day, they’ll know exactly where their stuff is," says Thomas.

Focus on your photos. Feeling guilty that years of family memories are scattered around the house? Don’t worry—you don’t have to get all of your pictures into albums during these busy years.

• Safeguard memories "Separate the negatives and put them into safety deposit box or home safe," suggests Thomas. "If you use digital, back up your photos onto a CD-ROM and store it in a safe."
• Label, label, label If you use regular photography, get into the habit of labelling the envelope immediately with the date and occasion," says Katherine Tresize, owner of Absolutely Organized in Maryland. "Then put the photos into acid-free storage boxes in chronological order. If you want to make albums in the future, it will be easier to find what you’re looking for." When you save digital photos onto your hard drive, be specific, suggests Thomas. "Put them into sub-files like holidays or under each child’s name within each year."

Clean up the car. Oh, the joy of cookie crumbs in the gearshift! "Your car is your home away from home," says Williams. So taking a few simple steps to make it more organized is worthwhile. "Get a little organizer that hangs over back of seat—with a place for a water bottle, MP3 players or Nintendo games, a spot for snacks and books." If you don’t have space for that, Williams suggests putting a small tub on the seat beside your child with things to occupy them, such as a rattle and board books. "If you keep activities and snacks for the child in the car, it’s great because you can always grab it when you go to the doctor or restaurant and it’s a little busy box for kids."