1) You’ve got everything set up how you want it, now it’s time to focus on some smaller details. One way that highly efficient people stay on top of things is to think about everything in order of importance. You can apply this concept to your closet organization routine. Prioritize things according to how often they are used, moved, or replaced. For instance, you probably create laundry, use shoes, underwear and socks nearly every day. These items should be your top priority. Every time you use your closet, make sure that the laundry is in the basket or hamper where it goes, the shoes are on the rack, and the socks and underwear are stocked well enough for the next day. This quick check will help you to avoid that slow creeping mound of disorganized stuff that is so easy to go unnoticed until it becomes a big job.

2) Your second priority is to make sure that things kept in the closet are actually put inside. Keeping a basket or dryer of clean laundry around for a while can cause you to end up with wrinkled clothes. It’s difficult to find what you need, and your clean clothes are likely to get mixed up with your dirty clothes. Create a system to make sure that things go into the closet instead of being set aside. You can use a rolling garment rack to quickly hang clothes as they come out of the dryer. Set a timer when you fold a load and see how long it actually takes. Sometimes you’ll spend hours or days dreading a job that actually only takes you about five minutes. Make sure that your closet is arranged in a way that makes it simple to put things in when you’re in a hurry.

3) Another time and space saving technique is to use cascading hangers. If you hang outfits together in one space, it is super easy to get ready in the morning. If you’re not pulling out things and trying them on, then you won’t mess up the things that you already had organized. Using clothes hangers that are made for the clothes you are hanging helps you to maintain their shape and come straight out of the closet, wrinkle-free. Use sturdy coat hangers or wood hangers for heavy items so that they don’t end up on the floor. The less work that you make for yourself, the more likely you are to stay organized.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

1) Have you ever heard the saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Well, when it comes to your closet, you really need to take it to heart. You may even want to make yourself a little sign that you see every time you open the closet. Visual aids will help you to remember not to throw things like your shoes into a pile instead of putting them back on the rack. It is important to stay focused on maintaining the organization level of your closet every time you use it. If you really stick to your guns, it will become a habit to immediately hang things that need to be hung. Habitual organizing will help you to transfer that mentality into other areas of your life. Make sure that your closet is perfectly organized every time you close that door and you will save yourself from having to constantly manage the mess.

2) It’s one thing to make sure that everything is in the closet where it goes, but it’s another to make sure that everything in the closet is arranged in the most efficient way. The arrangement that works best for you may be different from the way that your friend organizes, so take your habits and your needs into consideration as you arrange your clothing.

For example, you may want to line up your clothing by length. Hanging all of your short items together will make room beneath for taller things, like boots, a laundry basket, or a set of drawers. Hanging things by color makes it easy to find what you’re looking for and also is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, keeping you focused on maintaining that neatness whenever you see it. Arranging things according to use will help you to not only find what you need in a jiffy, but will also make putting laundry away a snap. If the things that you use most often are all on the right, then when you put things away, it is likely that almost everything will go on the right.

3) Use containers and closet accessories that help you make a specific place for everything. Don’t just pile all socks, hose, underwear, swimwear, and pajamas into one bin. You’re bound to have to dig and mess everything up. Even worse, you will constantly be buying new items that you think you need because you can’t find what you already own. Use smaller bins to separate and organize so that when you put things away, you know exactly where they go. As for your hanging clothes, you should always use the clothes hangers that protect your clothes, make them easy to access, and save you as much space as possible. You should always use wood hangers or coat hangers for heavy items, but you can save space with cascading hangers or coordinate hangers.

Read Part 2 of this article to learn more rules of staying organized.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

1) Before you pull your winter clothes out of storage, get your closet ready for the change over. Take out a few summer clothes that you might still need on unseasonable days. You may need just a few t-shirts and shorts set aside. Try not to keep out too much, because winter clothes are larger, bulkier, and will use more space than your summer wardrobe.

2) Time to store the rest of the summer clothes. Use the space underneath your bed, couch, in the garage, or a spare bedroom closet so that you have plenty of room in your closet that you use everyday. You can even use a garment rack if you have a lot of clothing that needs to be hung. These racks can be covered and zipped to keep the clothes fresh and free of dust until the spring. Use air-tight containers whenever possible to keep your clothes free of moisture. Cedar or cedar hangers can also be used to absorb moisture and help you to avoid pest, mold, or mildew problems. Once your summer wardrobe is stored away, you can start pulling out the winter clothes.

3) Determine what will take up the most space by spreading out what you have. Categorize your wardrobe into multiple sections so that you can see how much space you’ll need for each thing. Bulky coats, ski gear, and other big winter accessories will usually take up the most space. If they’re taking up too much space, consider using a coat closet, armoire, wardrobe, cedar chest, or garment rack for these items. Saving space for your everyday winter wardrobe will make staying organized a much easier task.

4) Smaller items, such as socks, pajamas, thermal underwear, hats, gloves and scarves need to be stored where they can be easily accessed without getting mixed up. Small bins, buckets and baskets are great for storing these things where you can get to them. If you don’t have the shelf space in your closet, consider installing some small shelves in the front corners of your closet. You don’t need a lot of space to organize these small things.

5) You can also use specialty hangers to hang and organize scarves, gloves, belts, and hats. A scarf hanger has a series of holes where scarves can loosely hang and dry when necessary. Some hangers simply have a series of clips that can hold things like hats and gloves when they’re not in use. Single and double clip hangers can even allow you to hang boots to dry when they’re wet with winter snow. Get creative with keeping the little things organized and you’ll be better off all winter long.

6) Hang the rest of your winter clothes on the clothes hangers that are designed specifically for them. Some are made for delicate fabrics, sweaters, or heavy coats. Choosing the right hanger, like a coat hanger or wood hanger for coats and suits and a hanger designed not to stretch out the necks or shoulders of your clothes, can help you to stay organized and protect your clothes from damage.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

Hiring a professional organizer can help you to come up with some nifty ideas on how to get your closet organized and keep it that way. Some people find that the cost of hiring a professional is offset by the money that they save on the products that they order. If you’re planning on designing a closet that will serve you well for years to come, hiring a professional organizer may be the way to go.

If you don’t have the money to invest, then you may want to do the job yourself. Some professionals will do a free or low priced assessment for you and help you come up with ideas for what to do with your closets. If you don’t want to go the route of a professional, use these tips to get the job done right yourself.

First, go through all of your belongings and make sure that everything has a place. Categorize things into general categories so that you can see what you have. If one category is too large, let’s say, your t-shirts stack up to considerate proportions, then you should consider breaking it down a little further. You can arrange by length, color, or use to start. For example, you may have some t-shirts that are okay for yard work or painting, while others are casual, work casual, or nice enough to wear under a blazer or cardigan. Some may be just for working out. Consider moving some of them to your categories for “work clothes” or “active wear” to narrow down the stack.

When you are considering storage space in the closet, look for areas that normally go unused. Look up high and towards the front corners of the closets. You may find it beneficial to use storage outside the closet to make room for the items that you use most. Look under the bed, in a trunk, or on a rolling garment rack for spaces outside the closet for storage.

When you’re done choosing containers, closet systems, hanging rails, shelves and cabinets, make sure that you don’t underestimate the importance of a good hanger selection. Hangers can help you to save space and make your closet look uniform and nice. Wooden clothes hangers are a timeless choice that protect your clothes while ensuring that your closet will look great every time you open it.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

Start with the things that you use most. This could be your jeans and t-shirts, or your work clothes. These things that need to be accessed most often should be in the front and center of your closet. By putting the things that rotate in and out the most in an easy access area helps to ensure that they’ll go back where they belong when you’re putting them away. If you have to get a box from the top shelf every day to put away your t-shirts, you’ll end up avoiding it and just piling them on the nearest shelf.

As a general rule, put the things that you use least up high, out to the sides, in the back or on the floor. Things that you want to keep organized and that need to be accessed most often need to be in the most accessible place.

Next you should make sure that you have a container, drawer, or special clothes hangers for each type of thing that you keep in your closet. Shorts should go in a drawer, stack neatly on a shelf, be kept in a big basket, or be hung on a special hanger with clips. Socks, scarves, mittens, gloves, hats, shoes, tote bags, robes, ties, belts, purses and other little things should all have special bins, baskets or hooks. You may have to install some shelving to accommodate everything that you want to keep in your closet.

Minimizing what you own makes everything a lot easier. Most of us hold onto clothing for ten or more years. However, a lot of these clothes have been stained, lost their shape, are out of style, or we are just simply never in the mood to wear them. Use the old trick of turning all of your hangers around backwards on the bar. As you wash and wear clothes, hang them back up in the normal fashion, with the hook facing the back. At the end of a year, give away whatever is still facing backwards without thinking twice. This will help you to really get rid of what you don’t need and free up some closet space.

Use specialty clothes hangers to make more space. Coordinate outfits or use hangers instead of bins for little things like belts, scarves and ties. You’ll notice a huge difference in how easy it is to maintain an organized closet when everything has a place that is easy access and when you’ve minimized the amount of clothing that you have to organize.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

1) Doing things right the first time is important. Don’t camouflage problem areas or rake things into a box that you’ll never get to. If you haven’t been able to keep the area organized before now, then simply clearing it off is not going to get to the root of the problem. Figure out why things in this area keep getting messy. Create a solution to the problem so that things don’t pile back up putting you right back where you started. In fact, the focus of organizing shouldn’t be to get things “cleaned up”. Truly think about the fact that you are working on finding a solution to the clutter problem.

2) Develop good habits by training yourself for a few days. As you move around your house, talk to yourself out loud. When you set down your purse, wallet, keys, or cell phone, commentate your activity so that you are not mindlessly making messes everywhere that you go. This practice helps to focus the mind and keep the concentration on taking responsibility for your actions. If you have to say to yourself, “I am laying my jacket on the ottoman” instead of “I am hanging my jacket in the coat closet”, then you’re more likely to do what you’re supposed to do instead of taking the shortcut.

3) If shortcuts seem to be the way things go around your house, then cater to them. If coats come off the second people come in the door, then hang a hanging bar there stocked with clothes hangers, like coat hangers. It doesn’t matter that the coat closet is just a few feet down the hall. If habits die hard and it’s going to cause a daily fight in your home, then it just isn’t worth the stress. Figure out ways to make life easier for yourself when you organize and you’ll be on your way to being an organized person all of the time.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

1) Getting it done right the first time is important. If you’ve somehow found the time to tackle an area, then you’re not likely to do it again anytime soon. Therefore, make sure that you do it right. Don’t focus so much on getting it done quickly as getting it done correctly. Dumping everything into a box that you’ll “go through later” is only masking the problem.

2) Find a specific place for things. If you think about it, you can categorize everything in your home. For most people, it becomes difficult when it’s time to organize random items, like the kids’ school work, old photos, knick knacks, souvenirs, and even sentimental clothing. If you actually make a list of what you own and divide it into categories, this category would probably be called “miscellaneous”. Ban the miscellaneous category from your life and you’ll begin to see things in an organized manner.

3) Miscellaneous just means that you haven’t thought about it or made an effort to compartmentalize these items. That’s why they build up and cause problems. They’re like the virus of your organized home, taking hold wherever you let them touch. Some things may seem like junk, but they are actually very precious to you. Take the kids’ school and artwork, for example. This is something that would be great to keep, so you make a stack. Eventually the stack has to be thrown away because it’s just mixed up with a lot of other junk. Fix this one problem by making a specific place for all of the kids’ work to go. A portfolio for each child will fix the problem. When you’re looking through their work and see something you want to keep, toss it in the portfolio. If it’s filed, it’s not junk, but the keepsake that you had hoped it would be. Make the file easy to access so that you actually use it.

4) Think conservatively. Only you can set boundaries for yourself. If your house is really full, then you’ve allowed yourself to own more than you need. Clothes can become a big problem because we’re constantly updating our style, size, or simply adding to what we own. Get your closets in order using special clothes hangers, like wood hangers, to keep them nice and neat. Get rid of something every time you bring something in and it will stay organized.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

Start by evaluating your priorities when it comes to storing things. Do you really need every single thing in your closet? Not only can you most likely get rid of a lot of things, but half of the things in there probably could be stored somewhere else. Make rules and boundaries for your precious closet space so that you can make it more efficient and effective for what you really need it for.

Blankets, suitcases, pillows and other items can come out of the closet and be stored underneath beds. You can put them into large plastic containers that will protect them from dust, pests, and pets. Categorize your storage items as much as possible so that when new things show up in the bedroom, you’ll know where you should put it. This will help you keep your closet organized once it gets that way.

Now that you’ve narrowed down what you want to keep in your closet, organize it outside of the closet. Use the bed or the floor to stack up the things that you want to keep in the closet. Play around with configurations to see what you like. Do you think you could make more space if you hung all of the items that are the same length together? Hanging all of your pants together, or smaller shirts together often makes room for a second bar, drawers, or laundry basket underneath. Doing this can actually double your space.

If you install a second bar, consider moving the top bar up a little. There is usually a lot of unused space by the ceiling, so you may be able to move that shelf up higher, too. If you have longer dresses that need a high bar, install a smaller one on one side or the other of the closet so that they can hang down. You may also decide to push the bars back so that you reveal space at the front of the closet.

If you do have some room at the front, you can install shelving. Corner shelves, cubby shelves, or just book style shelving can give you tons of extra storage in a small space. Utilize boxes, bins, baskets and buckets for these little hidden spaces.

When you are done, update your clothes hangers. There are many options here. You may love the look of luxurious wood hangers. You may decide to go with hangers that save space. There are also specialty hangers, like belt hangers and tie hangers that can help you keep the closet organized.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

Start with the things that you use most. This could be your jeans and t-shirts, or your work clothes. These things that need to be accessed most often should be in the front and center of your closet. By putting the things that rotate in and out the most in an easy access area helps to ensure that they’ll go back where they belong when you’re putting them away. If you have to get a box from the top shelf every day to put away your t-shirts, you’ll end up avoiding it and just piling them on the nearest shelf.

As a general rule, put the things that you use least up high, out to the sides, in the back or on the floor. Things that you want to keep organized and that need to be accessed most often need to be in the most accessible place.

Next you should make sure that you have a container, drawer, or special clothes hangers for each type of thing that you keep in your closet. Shorts should go in a drawer, stack neatly on a shelf, be kept in a big basket, or be hung on a special hanger with clips. Socks, scarves, mittens, gloves, hats, shoes, tote bags, robes, ties, belts, purses and other little things should all have special bins, baskets or hooks. You may have to install some shelving to accommodate everything that you want to keep in your closet.

Minimizing what you own makes everything a lot easier. Most of us hold onto clothing for ten or more years. However, a lot of these clothes have been stained, lost their shape, are out of style, or we are just simply never in the mood to wear them. Use the old trick of turning all of your hangers around backwards on the bar. As you wash and wear clothes, hang them back up in the normal fashion, with the hook facing the back. At the end of a year, give away whatever is still facing backwards without thinking twice. This will help you to really get rid of what you don’t need and free up some closet space.

Use specialty clothes hangers to make more space. Coordinate outfits or use hangers instead of bins for little things like belts, scarves and ties. You’ll notice a huge difference in how easy it is to maintain an organized closet when everything has a place that is easy access and when you’ve minimized the amount of clothing that you have to organize.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.

1) Think about your closet as a three-dimensional concentric space. Things that you use the most often should be front and center. You may want to install a divider in your closet. A shelving system straight down the center of a reach-in closet works very well. These shelves can be used for things that you need to grab in a hurry. Things that you use every day should go here. Shoes can go near the bottom, jewelry at eye level, and bins containing your underwear and socks can go in between. Having these smaller, easier to lose items within easy reach can make your mornings run more smoothly.

2) Installing a shelving system down the center of the closet has other benefits as well. This divider can be as little as twelve inches wide, but help you to create a lot more space. If you make the shelves deep, you’ll be taking advantage of the most amount of space. You can store items that you don’t use very often far back on the shelves and the things that you use most often in the front. This extra storage can help you to keep things off of the floor and free up space in the top of your closet for larger items.

3) Another benefit of a center storage system is that you can attach a hanging rod to the left of it for longer clothing, like dresses and coats. On the right side, you can install two hanging bars, for shirts and pants to neatly hang. You may have room below your long hanging clothes for a shoe shelf. Now, instead of an eight foot hanging bar, you have over ten feet of hanging space, plus over eight feet of shelf storage.

4) Finish out your closet with the right hangers and it will always look nice and neat. Using coat hangers or wood hangers for coats and suits will ensure that they always look nice and are ready to wear. Other clothes hangers should also be chosen by function. A good clothes hanger will have smooth edges, high quality parts, and help protect your clothes. When everything is where it goes and ready to wear, your mornings will be easy to manage once again.

About the Author: Charlie Hafter is on the staff of Closet Hanger Factory, a leading online resource for clothes hangers. Get all of the closet and clothes hanger accessories you could need at http://www.closethangerfactory.com, which is recognized worldwide for their excellent quality hangers.