Game pieces, manipulatives and puzzle pieces live happily 
in large zipper food storage bags.  Heavy freezer bags can 
be hole-punched and inserted into notebooks to hold art 
supplies, cut-outs, and desk materials.

Color-coding simplifies life in multi-child families.  Assign 
each child a color.  Colored organizers, file folders, storage 
cubes and report colors sort Kid A from Kid B in bedroom, 
schoolroom and on the desk.

Color-code subjects and activities.  Use colored pens to 
add entries to a parent's planner or child's study organizer:  
red for math, green for English, blue for science.  Colored 
file folders hold papers and worksheets subject by subject.  
Use assigned colors to highlight daily assignment sheets or 
schedules.

Use lightweight, sturdy records boxes to hold homeschool 
materials.   Hanging file folders fit these boxes nicely.  The 
boxes stack neatly and are easy to handle.  Sort by child, 
curricula, subject or year.  Labeling is easy with permanent 
markers.

Color-code, color-code, color-code.  Use color in hanging 
file folders, file folders, pens and labels.  Whether it's child by 
child, subject by subject or unit by unit, color does the job!

Tab position is another tool to organize homeschool records.   
Bought a box of third-cut file folders?  Don't just use them 
1-2-3, 1-2-3.   Instead, use all "first cut" folders for Child 1, 
"second cut" for Child 2, "third cut" for Child 3.  Tab position 
can help you sort by child, by subject, by topic.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Brush up your planner power with these tips:

Teach time management first.  Nursery schools know that 
small children thrive on a routine. Homeschool runs more 
smoothly when everyone knows what's on the plan for the day.  
From a simple picture-based schedule for little ones, to a 
sophisticated student planner for high schoolers, bring your 
student up in the planner habit.

Learn what you teach!  Parents must set the course where 
time management is concerned.  Do you use a planner 
properly?  Brush up on basic planner skills here:  Tap the 
Power of Planners

Get a realistic grip on time.  The biggest single time 
management mistake most people make is misjudging the time 
necessary to complete a task or finish an activity.  Take a week 
to note the time your children need to complete spelling 
worksheets or finish a Saxon math assignment.  Build success 
into your scheduling by being realistic with time estimates for 
homeschool activities.

Start big--and work backward.  To schedule a homeschool 
student, start with the year. List all courses, coursework, books 
and service activities necessary to complete the year. For each 
task, develop list of monthly goals:   so many Saxon lessons, so 
many books, so many hours of service, so many worksheet 
pages.  Break down each category by week, and review each 
week's goals with your student.  From the weekly goal comes the 
daily school schedule. Working backward prevents both make-
work and overscheduling, because it focuses on the big goals, 
not separate time increments.  

Home Management

Lower your standards.  Two-career families with household help 
may achieve that pristine designer look, but a homeschooling 
home is rumpled and comfortable.   Accept the fact that a 
homeschooler's decorating scheme can be best described as "Early 
Science Experiment." Forget the decorator frills and concentrate on 
the most important home management tasks: meals, clothes, 
keeping the health department at bay.  You've got better things to 
do, like teach your children!

Plan, plan, plan!  "Just in time" management may be great strategy 
for running a Japanese factory, but it's got no place in an 
organized homeschool.   Homeschool families can get by with seat-
of-the-pants home management only so long.   Savvy homeschoolers 
set up home management routines for shopping, cooking, laundry, 
and cleaning.  Write them in your planner, or set up a simple tickler 
file for household tasks.  Get it in writing, and you've taken the first 
step to getting it done.

Bring your children onboard.  Housework is a part of life, and should 
be part of your curriculum.  Integrate math lessons with shopping 
and cooking.   Examine the chemistry of surfactants as you do the 
laundry.  Older children learn about child development as they 
entertain little ones while you school the kids in the middle.  Sending 
teens to do the shopping or setting them to pay the family bills teaches 
consumer education in a real-life setting.  Harness those little hands to 
help out at home, and your future sons-and daughters-in-law will rise up 
and call you blessed.

Schedule the housework first.  Add rock-bottom necessary chores to the 
daily schedule or planner before planning each homeschool day.  Meal 
preparation, child care and essential laundry chores can be delegated to 
children or planned for breaks between scheduled school activities.  
Schedule the chores first, and they'll get done without impeding the 
school day.

All this information and more was found at:

http://organizedhome.com/family/hmsc.html