In her article, "A Real Mom's Home School," Maggie Hogan admits that "planning ahead and staying organized are not my strong suits." She shares ten tips that she's learned the hard way for balancing home and homeschooling, along with inspiring tips on juggling meal preparation, babies and toddlers, and more.

The furniture in your room is situated just right, yet it's cluttered with lots of paper, items taken from other parts of the house, too many knick-knacks, and trash particles that didn't quite make it to the trashcan. Shouldn't we be asking ourselves, "What's wrong with this picture?" Maybe you already know the answer. But then, why hasn't anything been done about it yet? Don't try to answer that. There's an art to approaching the task of getting organized.

Clutter can make a person feel less able to put things into proper perspective, or prioritize important tasks. Stacks of paper are usually formed out of a person's indecision on what to do with some piece of information, or out of fear to put something away because they may want to act on it "later." This article lists some simple steps to take to get rid of clutter.

A binder system with logs and forms that can be customized to suit your family's needs. This system can be used for multiple children and offers a simple way to meet any applicable state record keeping requirements.

Record-keeping is an important part of your homeschool. Barbara Edtl Shelton lists the benefits of keeping good records, including the greater ease of evaluating progress, helping to set the direction for your homeschool, helping to preserve memories for the future, and more.

A guide to managing and conquering the clutter in kids' rooms.

More organizing tips from Katherine Von Duyke. How to use Velcro, slip-in report covers, and large plastic containers to tame your homeschool supplies.

As work load continues to increase, our environment can suffer unless we take some time to take care of administrative and organizational tasks. Because our busy lifestyles warrant continuous maintenance to keep an orderly environment, a key to being clutter-free is to put things away when we’re done with them. This new behavior usually has to be developed, like a routine.

Includes tips for organizing in the office, closet, craft room, living room, bathrooms, and bedrooms. Creative ideas for storing kids' toys and other odds and ends.

Homeschool families, like Tolstoy’s happy ones, are all alike: drowning in a sea of clutter. Home schooling a child beats all other organizational challenges hands-down. How do you count the clutter? The books. The papers. The biology experiments on the kitchen window. The six-foot-tall child sprawled on the floor, reading. The record-keeping. College admissions and testing and letters from the correspondence school.

The National Association of Professional Organizers did a study and determined that the average person spends 80 hours per year searching for papers they need but cannot find when they need them. EZ Pocket lets you quickly and easily organize all those household paper items that need action on a certain date. EZ Pocket keeps papers in view, and sorted, while waiting for the "to-do" date to roll around.

Time. It's a homeschool family's most precious resource--and the claims on a homeschooler's time are many and vociferous. Time management is a homeschool parent's most pressing challenge. Includes tips on using a planner and how to get the most out of scheduling.

Each area of your home has a symbolic meaning with which you resonate on a subconscious level. Clutter and untidiness within each of these areas causes constriction and inertia in the corresponding aspects of your life.

Staying organized is much easier if everything is in its proper place. Details the use of plastic bins to aid in organization of your home school.

Homeschool organization is a constant challenge. Like most households, homeschoolers deal with the everyday accumulation of laundry, dishes, toys, trash, and mail. In addition, we manage a multitude of school supplies, books, papers, and ongoing projects. A well-organized homeschool allows us to save time, energy, and money so that more of those resources can be utilized for the important task of educating our children.

A look at an unschooling family's approach to managing chores around the house. Although this approach may not work for everyone, the emphasis on flexibility and respect for each others needs and inclinations is enlightening.

This article offers a smattering of simple ideas to help keep homeschooling materials organized.

One of the basic housekeeping rules is to keep it simple. Roxanna Ward shares some simple tips for getting housework done without the hassle.

Susan Franklin reveals some basic concepts that empowered her to create an organized home and homeschool. She talks about how doing housework first thing in the morning, paying attention to small details, scheduling, and regular habits help create order and cleanliness. Includes her top ten tips for others with messy tendencies.

Whether you are an individual family needing a convenient record keeping solution, an umbrella school, homeschool co-op or support group desiring to reduce administrative overhead, Homeschool Reporting Online offers online software solutions. They offer simple, secure online record keeping and offsite electronic storage and backup of student records.