I have three little boys, ages 6, 3, and 7 months.  The moment our first boy was old enough to start moving toys around from one place to another we instituted the "Only one group of toys at a time" rule.  He could take out everything trains or everything food or everything balls, but only one group.  That group had to be put away as soon as he was ready to move on to something else.  We got him one of those silly alligator grabber things (with the lever at one end and alligator/dinosaur/whatever head at the other) and that really got him interested in clean up time. 

Once our second child was born, we got a little lax in the clean up department for a while, but as soon as the baby started being a mobile floor baby, we caught right back up on cleaning. 

Now we also have a once-a-day clean up time: right before Daddy gets home.  It's a race!  Let's see who can pick up the most trains/cars/balls/etc.  (Because there are two kids, there are two sets of toys out)

But really, the thing that helps the most: lowered expectations of tidiness.

I have a 2 yo and an 8 mo. Here are a few things that I have found to help out with cleaning, organization, and cooking.

For toy organization, we gave up the idea of having a nice "sitting room" and accepted that the kids toys will probably dominate the main area of the house where we spend the most time. We have bought kid furniture and toys that can easily be cleaned up and stored. For instance, my 2 yo has a Thomas train table with 2 large drawers underneath. All train tracks and houses go in one of those drawers, the othe drawer holds puzzles and large games. We have a smaller table with 4 storage bins underneath that hold various toys. Also in our living room, we have a 12-bin organizer. Each type of toy has its own bin: small balls, cars, food, blocks, etc. For the most part, I let my boys play with whatever they want to during play time. I'm fortunate that both of my boys are fairly easy to entertain and will play alone while I do dishes or laundry. My boys don't take naps at the same time, but whenever one child is going down for a nap, I get my oldest to help clean up some. This is usually after I have put the baby in his bed. When I come back to the living room, I tell him we should clean up some, and he is a good helper. It took some time, but he learned that certain toys go in certain bins, and most of the time now, he can clean up all of his toys with minimal help. It may sound like we have a lot of kid toys in our living room, and we do, but it is all contained well because the kid stuff we have is easily stored and cleaned up. We started with good organization, and taught our toddler to help maintain it.  

As far as getting some housework done, I usually get most of mine done while my most difficult child is napping. That is not always the same child every day! Some days my 2 yo is higher maintenance than my 8 mo. Occasionally I get lucky and both boys are in the beds at the same time, not necessarily both sleeping though. My 8 mo will play in his bed for 15 mins or so after waking up, and if my 2 yo is napping at that time, I can get a few things done. I keep a few soft toys in the baby's crib and he is entertained by those. And despite what the experts say about not doing it, a little TV time for the kids can do wonders for letting you get stuff done. We do let our kids watch TV, but we are selective over what they can watch. Baby Einstein, The Wiggles and Barney sum it all up. We don't let our TV turn on and play endlessly, we stick to videos and we don't use the continuous play feature.

Also, rotating out your child's toys is a good idea. My older son outgrew a bunch of toys and I put them away for the baby. When I brought them back out for the baby, my toddler loved them all over again. If you have something you need to work on and need something to occupy your child's attention, bring out a toy he hasn't seen in a while that he can manage w/o your help. We keep a small back pack of new and small toys that our toddler has never seen before and put one in the diaper bag before church every week...it is enough to entertain him through the majority of the worship hour. For these toys, we may buy a pack of toys with 4 or 5 pieces to it, and bring out just one or 2 at a time. For instance, I recently found a Diego birthday set, that included a small Diego and 4 or 5 animals...that made 5 or 6 new toys for him because I didn't give him the whole set at once.

For cooking, I always enlist the help of my husband. We buy all of our meats in bulk and separate it as soon as we get home into what we need for meal servings. For ground beef, if we want something like meatloaf, we make that right away. For everything else, we cook it all up in one day, like a Saturday (usually 10 pounds or so), and freeze it into managable dinner portions. During the week, we pull out one little bag of ground beef and toss it into whatever we are having for dinner. For chicken, we divide up the pieces into freezer bags and freeze it raw. Sometimes we will cook a few pieces and cut it up into smaller pieces before freezing for quick salads. Leave a reminder for yourself, or ask your hubby to do it before he leaves for work, to take out some frozen chicken so it can thaw by dinner time. Frozen cooked ground beef really doesn't need any thaw time. Now that it is summertime, almost all of our meals are grilled, and that saves a ton of time. If you do some prep work on the weekends (or whenever your hubby is home), weeknight meals can be so much easier. If you know you will use chopped onion 2 or 3 nights during the week, then cut up enough of them at once and store it in the fridge. Take advantage of some prepared things...we don't usually make fresh burger patties, but buy frozen angus burgers, ready for the grill, no prep time needed on our part, and they don't fall through the grill grates either. Buy frozen cut up mixed veggies, or the prepared fresh greens for salads. We like carrots, but they are too hard for our son to eat, so we buy shaved carrots. And we buy a lot of frozen foods, not frozen meals, but frozen foods. Things like frozen waffles and pancakes tossed into a toaster take only a minute to prepare for a hungry toddler as soon as he wakes up...save even more time by using your kitchen scissors to cut them up into bite size pieces, skip the syrup, and let him feed himself while you eat your own breakfast. They sound disgusting, but those mini sausages wrapped in pancakes in the freezer aisle aren't all that bad...similar to mini corn dogs. I pop a few in the MW for a few seconds and then heat them through on the stove top just because I don't like microwaved food. Tops, I spend 3-4 minutes cooking these. I use scissors to cut each one into about 3 pieces and let him feed himself. The pan doesn't necessarily need to be washed right away. It won't get greasy or nasty from cooking a few of these...leave the pan on the stove and use it later to heat up something else. And if it can go in the dishwasher, put it in there. If I am in a rush, I put everything in there, even if it isn't supposed to go in there. It gets it out of the sink and out of my sight until I can get to it later on when I'm not as busy. For baby bottles, I keep a gladware plastic bowl in my sink with soapy water in it. As soon as a bottle is finished with, the ring and nipple go in, the bottle gets dumped, and it can sit in the sink until there are a few in there that need to be washed. Frozen pizza paired with bagged ready to go salad is a quick dinner idea. For the summer you can't beat grilled hot dogs or burgers. We buy frozen fries, but we don't deep fry or bake them. We drop about 1-2 tablespoons olive oil into the bottom of a skillet, pour in the amount of fries we need, and heat them on the stovetop in a small amount of oil and in about 10 minutes they are done...no splattered grease on the stovetop, no hot oven to cool down or worry about.

For smaller annoying clean ups, enlist your hubby. My hubby didn't realize how much work he was leaving for me in his morning rush to get ready for work, until I mentioned a few minor things to him. When he shaved, he would lightly hit his shaver on the side of the sink to get excess hair out of it, and he would do a quick wipe and get most of it up, but not all of it. I asked him one day if he could just get some toilet tissue and wipe up the sink counter before leaving the bathroom in the morning and it would help me out. He had no problem with that little extra effort, it took no extra time for him, and it helped me out a lot. Turning off his coffee pot after he was done was another thing. And not leaving a dirty utensil or dish in the sink when putting it in the dishwasher was just as easy. Little things that don't seem like a big deal, and really aren't, but combined just add to the chaos and clutter, can be easily remedied with minimal effort.

I have 2 boys, 2 yo and under, and am almost 5 mos pregnant with boy #3, have 6 indoor cats, and my house is for sale. Family and friends stop by and ask me all the time how I keep my house clean and organized, and most people don't even realize that I have that many pets. I tell them simply, "work smarter, not harder."  

Sorry for the lenghy letter here...but I do have a ton of ideas that I make work for us...if anyone is interested in more ideas, I've got 'em!