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Baskets, I put everything in baskets! I hate clutter and disorganization so this keeps things in order and out of sight!

Million dollar question!

I have no idea, but I definitely feel your pain.

ugh I hear ya! I have this problem with our kitchen table and kitchen island. It's the drop spot and I can't seem to keep it at bay. Mine looks way worse than yours! I clear it off like once a week or sometimes even less and it's messy within a day.

Somethings that help is I take a laundry basket and I go around picking up stuff that doesn't belong in that room and then I go through the basket and put stuff away. Everything needs a home! That's my problem. I have stuff that doesn't have a home so it ends up scattered on the table. I've found my most organized space in my home are ones where every item has a place.

As far as mail and paper go. I try to deal with it daily and go paperless! Most of my mail is junk so it goes straight into the recycling bin. I also have a 2 files hanging on the wall. One is for "to file" and one is for "action" so I put things that need immediate attention in the action folder and things that need to be filed in the "file" folder. Then I try to sort through it once a week, although I'm slacking on that at the moment.

Here is some inspiration for ya:
http://hisugarplum.blogspot.com/2012/03/organized-family-drop-spot.html
http://www.maillardvillemanor.com/2012/06/reader-request-paperwork-organization.html
http://fabulouslyorganizedhome.com/2013/01/31/creating-simplified-organized-personal-reference-files/

i have been battling the clutter battle for years. my only solution has been to become a minimalist (currently a work in progress). less stuff, less clutter. more stuff, more stress.

I read the mail and recycle it or put it on my husband's desk.

Are you married to the placemats? what if you did a tablecloth instead and used a big basket or bowl on top to hold the stuff.

I throw everything away. I HATE that with pregnancy people keep giving me all this paperwork. I have junk from daycare, from the pediatrician, from my OB's office, from all the baby classes. UGH. DH tends to be more of a packrat and will keep things. We have a stupid practice dummy for infant CPR sitting on our table because he insists he's going to practice before baby gets here. Part of me thinks I should throw it away and see if he even notices, haha.

Our kitchen table tends to be our dumping ground too. The only solution I've found is throw everything away you possibly can. And find a permanent home for the other things. If they don't have a permanent home, are they really necessary? I don't do baskets, because like @MrsWagon, I hate baskets of junk sitting around, that's just not a great solution to me. But we do have a mail holder on the wall and I put things like coupons or other important paperwork (like forms for baby's birth certificate) that I truly don't want to throw away. But then every so often we have to clean through that too and I get annoyed, lol.

I'm a big time minimalist (and so is my DH) so we don't have too much clutter. BUT our dining table totally looks like your pic at the moment because we use this table as a dining/office/arts & crafts table. So we use tons of bins (with lids so that they are stackable). And I love using thsoe wheelie carts with drawers.

My table was way worse and I finally cleaned it all off the other day but it is half way back to were it was. It seems to be that is where everything ends up that doesn't really have a place.