My house is a BIG mess. Please help!

I am having trouble with my house. I like a tidy house (and clean) but am drowning under all sorts of mostly baby and child things. I spend SO long each day moving stuff from place to place that I am heartily sick of it. It is just all little stuff ie odd socks, bits of toys, bits of paper and stuff that DD carts and spreads all over the house. She pulls everything out and it is a big effort getting her to clean up after herself even a tiny bit. I have places for things- storage and cupboards, baskets etc but still spend so much time putting everything back it its place. Any suggestions?

One thing I do that really helps is never leave a room empty handed. There is always something I can take with me that belongs elsewhere in the house. Obviously I can't clean the whole house by doing this - but think of how many times you leave a room in a day! Thats heaps of decluttering opportunities.
Or maybe it's time to do abit of a cull? Be ruthless & get rid of some things, or pack some toys up for awhile.
As for papers - I was always getting mad over my huge kitchen bench being the dumping ground for all documents, letters & paperwork. I got a wire basket & that sits at the end of the bench. Pretty much all paper goes in there & every couple of days I go through it & file, pay or shred as needed. Really helps!

This might be a stupid suggestion, depending on your house layout etc, but can you keep certain rooms closed? I always keep my master bedroom and spare room closed, and not only does that stop me or DH uding them as dumping grounds for whatever's in our hands, but also, when in cleaning mode, it makes my house feel smaller and quicker to clean.

My house is set up that you walk in the front door into the front entrance, and the lounge room is off that. Then you walk through to the kitchen, and the rooms and bathroom etc are all off to the left.
I find it helps me remain sane if the front entrance and lounge is always clean. At least if someone pops over or something i know the louge is presentable and there is somewhere to sit and not be worried about any other mess.
Everyone is trained not to leave things in there, don't eat in there (kids) and any other mess or belongings can be dumped in the kitchen without me having a melt down. I can close off the lounge door and sit in a nice clean place and not stress. Its always the first place I clean, vacuum and dust :)

We recently had a huge cull.. We hired 2 skips and spent close to 2 weeks throwing out 13 yrs of unused rubbish.. We also took nearly 5 boot loads of stuff to the local charity bins.. we pretty much filled one of the bins they had there plus the larger items we got rid of that say beside them

The other thing you can do if your house is less cluttered then mine was is to buy those big tubs with lids and fill them with toys or whatever else your children play with and put most of the tubs out of sight and just keep one out and swap it around every few days or weeks..

I do the same a s Cheezel monster. also i find if the main living areas are clean that you can have messy bedrooms and feel polite. a lot of people don't think anything if private areas ( meaning bedrooms) are messy. i hide all the mess in the one room......... meaning washing in Master room......... I close the doors and people really don't want to see in there anyway