A few of my new tricks

I am in NO WAY any way close to be any sort of domestic wonder woman (less blasphemous than saying domestic goddess I suppose :) - especially in the area of cleaning and keeping the house straight. However, I have been inspired recently to grow in this area - partly by some of my friends who are much more disciplined than I am (you know who you are). I thought I would share a few of my household tricks, and hopefully some of you may share some of your own.

Two things that I will no longer live without -
1.) Laundry baskets. A stack of cheapy white laundry baskets has really transformed the battle of the daily kid clutter that quickly piles up in the living space of my house. I was starting to dread the minutes after naptime started and after bedtime came because of how much I hated picking up all the stuff that had gotten pulled out of place already that day. However, I've found that if I do this cleaning with two or three laundry baskets with me, it goes much faster. If I'm in the living room, then I use one laundry basket for everything that should go in the kids room and one laundry basket for everything that should go in the back family room. As I'm straightening the living room, I don't make extra trips out of the room, I just put things in the baskets. Then I move to the next room, dump out its basket, and put that stuff away, adding to the baskets as necessary. I've found that this goes MUCH faster for me
2.) My swiffer sweeper vac. I seriously love it for "daily" use on the floors and the battle (war) against crumbs, sand, pet hair, dust, yuckiness. It really helps me keep things looking nice, and if I maintain a level of cleanly sanity in the household, it is much easier to keep it from getting out of hand. For me, once one thing goes, everything is quick to follow. (It is easier to keep a clean house clean than to keep a somewhat messy house from becoming a wreck.) Also, swiffer only advertises using the sweeper vac with dry cloths. I have used it with their wet cloths, and I've found it works quite well - as long as you make sure that you are always leading with the vac part, and then retracing your path, and going to a new section leading with the vac part (so that you aren't getting an piece of floor wet before you suck up the crumbs). This maybe doesn't work as well true sweeping and true mopping - but much better than being so overwhelmed by the two steps that you do neither

A couple of small ideas that help me
3.) I've always been frustrated by how wet my dishes are when they come out of the dishwasher, even after the heated dry setting. Marcia gave me this suggestion, and I've found that it really works. (May be old news to you, but it was new to me.) If you open your dishwasher right after the actual washing stops and quickly run a towel over the top of the dishes, sopping up the big puddles of water, and then close the dishwasher and let it go through its drying time - it will get your dishes MUCH dryer than before. When I do this, I rarely have to towel dry anything before putting it away...my least favorite part of the process.
4.) It's all about saving steps for me. My washer/dryer is on the far side of the garage, so a million trips out there a day can be really frustrating. However, I don't really want to put dirty dishtowels in with my regular dirty clothes. I went ahead and hung a reusable shopping bag on the back of my garage door handle and use it for putting kitchen towels in throughout the week. When the bag starts to get too full (or smells to bad), I know it is time to wash it.

These have been good goals/housekeeping principles for me to strive for
5.) If I start the day with no dishes in the dishwasher or in the sink, I have a much higher chance of keeping the kitchen clean throughout the day. This allows me to load dishes into the dishwasher directly after using them. And have an actual sink to use for meal prep. This is extremely important to me in my small kitchen. What this means for me is that I have begun loading the dishwasher throughout the day and then immediately after dinner (before the food gets crusty on the plates). I should say that I have a husband who is often willing to help with this. The new part is this - even if the dishwasher is not completely full after dinner, I go ahead and run it anyway. This allows me to do the drying trick usually and to get the dishes put away before I go to bed that night, so that I can start the day fresh the next day.
6.) I'm trying to work on picking up the toys BEFORE naptime and bedtime WITH my children instead of for my children. This is hard. They are young. However, even if they don't help somedays, they do "get it" and help on otherdays. Also, on the days where they aren't helping, they are at least seeing me setting a good pattern of picking up throughout the day, a habit they will hopefully one day develop. This also gets this chore accomplished before naptime starts, so that I don't have to waste precious naptime minutes picking up their toys!

What are your home management tips?