I just use a dry-erase marker right on the container.
We got an upright freezer. Chest freezers are easy for me to loose things at the bottom - no matter what organizational system I put in place, over time I take five year old chicken out of the freezer. The upright lets me see a lot better. It isn’t as energy efficient.
I told my wife about this tip last night while I was folding sheets. She thought that it was one of the best ideas ever. So do I.
When you put away towels or dishes, put the clean ones on the bottom of the stack, so your entire collection will wear evenly.
Oh man! That is the best idea ever. I’m passing it along to my SO’s mom.
This is mine:
Keep your grocery list in a text message on your cell phone or record your list using the voice function or use a grocery app if you have an iphone/droid. I add to the saved text message all week (sorted by store - Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, etc) so if I decide to take a shopping detour during the week, I have my whole list right there.
I do this too! Use a gallon or quart sized bag for everything, but also have a small first aid kit of band aids, gauze, tape, triple antibiotic ointment, pain relievers, antacids, lactaid pills, etc. Even if it’s not an emergency, you have what you need right there if you take any impromptu trip!
Also, a damp microfiber cloth will pick up just about any dust and dirt. Way more economical than all of those pledge/swiffer/etc contraptions.
I love buying the travel size from Minimus - fast service and an amazing variety of goodies.
If you take a full selection of the goodies, and zippy them into sandwich bags [1 each shampoo and conditioner, the micro toothpaste dabbed toothbrush, the micro deodorant, the tiny tooth flossies and whatnot with the hand soapflakes and keep them in a shoebox on the bathroom shelf, you just need to grab one per day or per person as needed. If you do it right, 2 baggies is under the TSA flight limit as well. I keep one package tossed into my computer bag, 2 in my normal carryon, and a couple in the car.
I use this same approach for emptying the dishwasher. Empty dishwasher by placing dishes on the countertop closest in proximity to where they go. After the dishwasher is empty, THEN put the dishes away.
I also keep a fully-stocked toiletries bag in my suitcase, but I don’t waste money on travel-size products. They’re too expensive, IMO, because you’re paying for the packaging. Better to use refillable travel bottles or sample-size containers and fill them from your bigger containers at home.
This works on clothes, too. I tend to pick the same dress to wear every time, if it’s clean, so my favorites wear out faster. I try to rotate my clothing so that I won’t get stuck with just my unfavorites to wear because my favorites are threadbare.
I get caught up on the laundry on Saturday or Sunday and dump it all on my bed. I put several baskets at the foot of the bed and holler to the kids that the laundry party is starting. My husband stands on one side of the bed and I stand on the other and we start whipping the laundry at the kids, yelling out whose basket it goes in. Half the time we call out the wrong name on purpose just to keep them on their toes. They laugh and have so much fun that if we do it while they’re asleep, they are sorely disappointed that they missed the “party”. They are 6 & 7; it may not work as well when they’re teenagers.
My brother’s variation on this, back when he was in charge of grocery shopping: he made an Excel table which printed out in a single page; two columns. The top of the left-hand column listed commonly-bought items.
That way if a Frequent Flyer needed to be bought, he just had to mark a cross beside it, which was faster than having to write it down as he could even do it with either hand and the other hand full of Stuff.
My tweak on the shopping list: I made up a chart that fills an entire page landscape mode with four columns across and enough ‘normal’ width lines to fill half the length of a page. Then I copied it a second time to fill the bottom half of the page.
This gave me a page with eight ‘mini listst.’
The sub lists are labeled: Meat, Deli, Produce, Main, Dairy, Frozen, Bread, Misc. These are the areas of the main grocery store I shop in, arranged in the order I walk through the store. (Main = all the free standing shelves where canned/prepared foods live. Misc = the non food areas like florist, pharmacy, toiletries, seasonal goods, etc.)
I print out copies of this chart and keep them magnetted to the side of the refrigerator to jot down needed items.
Not only is my list ready to grab and go, but the items are all sorted out for me! No more suddenly noticing I need carrots when I’ve already gone through the produce department and am way the heck over in the dairy section. 
I fold my laundry as it comes out of the dryer while it is still warm. This seriously cuts down the amount of ironing I need to do. I put the folded stuff in one side of the basket and socks/underwear stuff in the other side. I then match them up as I unload the basket. Usually, there’s not a lot of matching to be done.
Give each kid a small laundry bag to stuff their socks in for weekly washing. Leave it up to the kids to be responsible for their own socks.
The dishwasher is a place to store dirty dishes, not clean ones. Empty it when the dishes are clean.
I store small appliance guides and receipts in one folder and big appliance guides in another. I learned this from the previous homeowner who was able to hand me the folder full of the details for the furnace, water heater, dishwasher, etc. It has been a very handy resource.
I’m big into gardening and have houseplants galore too. Rather than spend money on a fancy potting table, I use an old metal desk that I got for free. Under it, I store a big plastic tub - the type that Target carries in the summer for people to ice down beer and pop. In the tub goes old potting soil mixed with new compost for a constant source of material. Before dumping the old potting soil in there, it goes in a black plastic bag that sits in a sunny spot all winter. The heat kills the organism. In spring, I dump the soil in the tub for reuse.
I’m afraid I won’t be able to contribute as much as this thread has benefited me. There are some seriously awesome ideas here, and I can’t wait to implement some of them.
I have a problem with clutter. For some reason I get very overwhelmed very quickly by cleaning–no way I can sustain those several-hour marathons people apparently engage in. Here are some ways I’ve found to manage.
-Set your oven timer for 15 minutes every day. Have every person in the household start cleaning and don’t stop until the buzzer goes off. You can clean whatever you feel like cleaning – just clean something. Within about a week you can turn a disaster of a household into a squeaky clean home, without that feeling of ‘‘Ugh, I’ll never finish this.’’
-Consider something like ChoreWars to stay on task. A Doper recommended this silly little web-based chore tracker and my husband and I have great fun with it. You can also tell at a glance who has been slacking off. No more arguments about who does the most work. It’s actually become a kind of competition now–we are constantly trying to catch up with each other, with the end result being the house is cleaner than ever.
-Most of my clutter consists of stacks of papers all over the place, that I once sorted into piles and forgot about and now have to sort again. Now, I have placed a recycle bin about ten feet from my front door, where all the mail comes in. The moment I receive mail, I put the junk mail in the recycle bin and immediately address or file whatever lands on my desk. I’ve only been doing this for a week, but man, what a difference!
-Just a general rule of thumb. If you’re overwhelmed by clutter and don’t know where to start, do the thing that mentally taxes you the most. It doesn’t matter if it’s objectively not the best place to start – relieving that psychological burden will make doing the other tasks so much easier.
This is something I’ve needed to do for a while. Ever since my roommate moved out five months ago I’ve wanted to get the place back in order, but the task always looks too big and intimidating. If I’d spent just a little time each day working on it, the place would be spotless by now. I need to get in gear on that.
I do something similar but less formal - I just try to get one or two tasks done every day. I only have marathon cleaning sessions when someone is coming to visit. The house isn’t spotless, but it’s not a mess, either.
TrueCelt – thanks so much for the flylady.net recommendation. I joined up and it looks like a great supportive place to get started. I’m not exactly in danger of becoming a hoarder, but I can strongly relate to the emotional challenges of housework (I realize that probably sounds weird to a lot of people, but trust me–it’s emotional!)
I just scrubbed and shined my kitchen sink, and thus made a new discovery – olive oil makes a great polish for stainless steel!
I used to hate counting out the tablespoons of coffee grounds to put in the coffeepot. Recently, I read the label of the Folger’s container that said to use half-cup for a 12 cup pot of coffee. Now, there is a half-cup measure in the coffee canister and my life is that much simpler.
That’s a lot of coffee.
I have an index card for every immediate family member including prescriptions, surgical history, and diagnoses. I keep them in my wallet with the insurance card, and update whenever something changes. I did it initially because I am forever filling out forms for either myself (I can’t remember when my knee surgery was, or when they removed lymph nodes) or my son (who has a chronic condition and a lot of meds), and it just made that easier.
Then, last October, I was in a car wreck, and my 1 year old son was screaming uncontrollably with blood all over his face, and I was freaking right the hell out, and the EMT said, “Is he on any medications?” I cannot tell you how grateful I was to yank that thing out of my wallet and not have to try and remember everything with all the adrenaline and fear coursing through my veins. It may be the best organizational-type thing I’ve ever decided to do. (Everyone was fine, by the way. It all looked worse than it actually was. Thank God.)
In a less dramatic vein, I bought these http://www.sock-locks.com/buy.htm for socks. We take our socks off, put them in the holders, they go through the washer and dryer that way, and get stored in the dresser that way. The sock drawer looks messier, but I never sort socks anymore, and I think we’ve only lost a couple of socks to the Great Washing Machine in the Sky in a year and a half. I love those things.