(Organization) System Saturday-Our Helping Hands

This is my first post for this title. I made up this title to help motivate myself to get organized and stay organized!

It's a constant battle for me to get things in order, especially with a toddler running around our house! (I'm sure so many of you out there can relate!) I also hope to get comments back on how other bloggers stay organized. I know there are tons of great ideas out in blogosphere and I would love to read all the ideas and implement them ALL if it were possible! I hope to post on things I have done to get more organized with chores, homeschooling, lesson planning, etc. each Saturday in hopes to inspire others and encourage myself to stay on top of things! We'll see how my plan unfolds... But, I wanted to share my first (Organization) System Saturday idea that I have used in my kitchen for some time now. It is called:

Our Helping Hands I typed out each kitchen chore and pasted them on yellow envelopes that I made into pockets. The chores that I have on the labels are:

• Set Table-Cups
• Set Table-Silverware/Napkins
• Set Table-Dishes
• Dishwasher Duty (this child takes out the clean silverware and cups from the dishwasher and when they are done they put their hand in the back of the envelope so the next child's name is showing)
• Clean Kitchen Table
• Vacuum Kitchen (we have hardwood floors)
• Clean Small Table (besides our family kitchen table we also have a child-sized wooden picnic table in the kitchen)

So each week one of my 3 cupcakes is assigned to a couple of these duties for a full week then we switch the hands by placing the hand in front of each envelope to the back to show the next child's name. (except the dishwasher duty assignment is rotated as often as I run the dishwasher which is alot during the week). I used die-cut handprints that I got from a local teacher supply store and wrote each cupcake's name on the hands as you can see from the photos. This has been a great way to keep track of who is in charge of what chore in our kitchen. Sometimes little hands (ie: cupcake #4) decides to take the helping hands out of their envelopes, however, and my older cupcakes start arguing trying to remember who had what chore. But, for the most part this system is working for us for now. I hope to find/create other effective organization systems that work for our family for other areas in our life. So stay tuned as I hope to keep you posted! Please share your ideas on some ways you stay organized by posting a comment! I love to meet others and learn from them! Thanks!