Good morning C.!
first off...I'm not a wonderfully organized mom with a beautiful clean house, lol. I have four children and my house is always a mess but....
I'll tell you the best thing I ever did. Sit down with a tablet and decide everything that needs to be done in the house during the course of a week for maintenance. Typically how many loads of laundry do you do a week, how many times a day does the dishwasher need to be run, how many times do you need to wipe down or deep clean a bathroom, etc. This is not the EXTRA stuff...nothing about organizing or hitting new projects. The nitty gritty of "this is what needs to be done" just to function.
Then break that down into 7 days. For instance, I know that I need to do two loads of laundry and run the dishwasher two times a day to stay on top of things. I *could* do all of the laundry on one day but then I'd have no time for something else on that day. So you can work it out however you prefer it but if you have 14 loads of laundry, schedule them in somewhere.
Then tweak the list so that every day is doable. I made a spreadsheet on Excel but you could always just use a white lined piece of paper and make your list. It helps to keep things on track for getting done. and if you miss something, it isn't as big a deal because everything else is getting tended to.
Another thing I did that has been so helpful is that I created a list (again, on Excel) of the groceries we normally buy. I broke it down by category. Fruits/veggies, meat, condiments/sauces/dressiings. And I made an underscore next to each item so I could check it when we needed something, or even write in quantity needed. So it would be like
_____ milk
_____ shredded cheese
etc. and I printed up several, put one on the fridge and just remove it when I go shopping.
another thing you can do, along with your daily list of chores, is to literally make a certain day of the week a certain meal or a certain TYPE of meal. I know that MOndays are insanely busy so I make Monday our crockpot day. And I asked my husband IF he had to have one meal that I make scheduled in once a week, which would it be. And I put that meal on for Thursdays.
When our parents were kids they did that often. Moms would do meatloaf every Friday (or whatever!). I know my mom said she loved that. The predictability of it was comforting. and I could see how that would be true. Kids thrive on routine. Something that predictable (as long as they like the meal!) would be nice! So that's an option.
If you don't like that idea,then schedule one night of ground beef, one chicken, etc.
As for junk mail, this has been a great one for us! Go to an office supply store. Get four or five accordion pleated folders. (the folders that expand). Don't get the kind with lids and a latch. Just plain open accordion file folders. With a sharpee, label one "catalogs, magazines". One "sales sheets" (for your grocery and store ads from the week). One for bills, one for school papers. and so on. When the mail comes in, put it in the right folder. When you put new sales sheets in, it's super easy to grab the old ones and pitch them.
as far as the toys, boy, I'm being eaten alive with toys. I've considered buying big plastic tubs and rotating them. I actually already HAVE the bins, sorted them by the type of toy but that didn't last when my husband let them just break into all of them at will without cleaning up first. So now I figure I may just literally bring out one bin a day and that's what they get to play with. Even if the toys are mixed, they'll find something they want.
Lastly, I bought a book called "It's all too much" by Peter somebody or other from the TLC show "Clean Sweep". It's actually got some great tips in it and has been inspiring for me to keep organizing in baby steps. He recommends taking one grocery sized bag a week (or two) and filling it with the things you aren't using. The rate of what comes in is so high, that you need to be constantly removing too, and then it never gets overwhelming. I think that's a great idea!
ok, you didn't ask for this much! lol!
Have a great day. I hope some of what I rambled is helpful!