How do you deal with discipline?

In our house with 3 children aged between 1 and 4 years old, chaos rules. I have become accustomed to the sympathetic stares of the general public when I attempt to leave said house. Discipline is a daily concern for my husband and I.

At the moment we are trying loads of things and probably failing at most :-) We have a star chart for good behaviour which seems to be a strong motivator for our eldest child and has helped her with showing politeness to people. For our eldest 2 we count to 3 and then send either of them on a time out if they do something different to what they are told. We are usually striving to shout less and offer a calm voice, but the word 'noooo' does get used rather a lot!

As far as possible we try to use the language of virtues and name types of behaviour that we would like to see, ie 'please use kind words' or 'use your helpfulness to tidy up'.

I love to watch TV shows like Supernanny and The 3 Day Nanny. They are great for picking up parenting tips, but also make me feel a little bit smug that my family isn't doing too badly ;-)

Let me know your parenting tips!