1) There are a few things that just must be done on a daily basis. One of these things is dishes. We must plan and prepare meals to save money and eat healthy. Plus, we want to spend that quality family time sitting around the table just talking to each other and enjoying each other’s company. However, these meals inevitably create a lot of dishes. Pots and pans, plates, endless cups and glasses; they can quickly turn into a mountain of dishes that nobody wants to touch.

Get a handle on dishes and make them easier to get done by changing your habits just a little bit. Reward family members for rinsing their dishes before they go into the sink or dishwasher. This will eliminate the need to scrub and make washing them a lot faster. Institute a restaurant rule for yourself that helps to keep dishes under control. That rule is to wash as you go. Every time you are done with a measuring cup, frying pan, spatula, or bowl used in preparation, go ahead and quickly wash it by hand. This will reduce the nightly dishes to simply plates, silverware and glasses.

2) Laundry is the other big problem in most households. Many people can get the laundry into the washer and dryer, but hesitate when it comes time to put the clothes away. It’s not that we don’t really want to do it, it’s just that we know it will be a hassle. Using hangers, like specialty clothes hangers, in your closets will make the job easier because you’ll save space and everything will have a place. Plus, the closet looks neater and inviting. Your clothes are easily found and put away, saving you more time than you would think.

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.

You may be dedicating too much space to hanging room in your closet. If you wear a lot of dresses and suits, then you may need a lot of hanging space. However, you may be able to make better use of the space by installing some shelving. You can work around the existing bar, or take it down and get a new, adjustable bar. If you hang a lot of shirts and pants, you can double up the bar, using one for pants and one for shirts. You can keep a high bar on one side of the closet or the other for your longer items, like dresses. You may find that you still have the same number of feet of space for hanging that you did before, but now you have half of the closet that can be used for shelves, cabinets, and drawers.

If you’ve read anything at all about closet organization or design, you’ve probably seen the term “vertical space” a lot. Making use of the space that is normally wasted in the closet is a great way to get more things organized in a smaller space. You can look around the closet and see where space is wasted. Usually, it’s above the top shelf, on the floor, or on the front corners of the closet. Check to see if you can move your top shelf up and extend it out to the front wall of the closet. You may be able to push your hanging rods back a few inches, creating more space in the front of the closet.

After you’ve made room, think about how you use your closet. Things that you use most often should be front and center in the closet. Arrange shelves and rods based on how often you use your hanging or folded clothes. Looking at your current closet, you can identify problems that need solutions. Do your dirty clothes pile up in the floor? Is your closet full of clothes that you no longer wear? Do your shoes end up crushed in a mountain on the closet floor? You may need a space for a laundry basket, a bin for clothes that need to go to charity, or cubby-style shelves that run up the front corners of your closet for shoes.

Things, like formal wear and other dress clothes, are not used very often. These items should be the furthest back in your closet. Use sturdy clothes hangers, like wooden hangers, to hang heavier suits and coats. You can also store your out of season clothing up really high because you won’t need to access them very often. Using plastic containers with lids is a great way to store clothes for many reasons. If you pack your clothing items in separate containers, then you can use the containers for storage and display. For example, you can have your summer socks and winter socks in separate containers. Take down the one for winter, take off the lid, place it on the summer sock container, and simply switch them out. Making switching from one season to the other an easy process will help you to keep your closet organized year round.

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) I know you don’t have much time, but try to set aside a couple of hours for accomplishing this task. Pick a time when you are most alert so that the job goes quickly. Get your coffee and get ready to work! Turn on some dance music to motivate you to move quickly.

2) Start pulling things out of your closet and tossing them into three piles. One pile is for things you will keep. You may want to put this pile on your bed or use a rolling garment rack so that you don’t wrinkle the things that are going back into the closet. The second pile is simply for trash. Throw away things that are stained or damaged. Also try to throw away other things that you’ve been keeping forever but will never use. The third pile is your give-away pile. Donate items to friends, family, or a charity if they can be used by someone else. If you have enough, you may even decide to have a garage sale.

3) Now is the time to bag up your trash pile. Take it out right away. You don’t want to run out of time and end up leaving the mound there to get scattered. Bag or box up your donations and seal them off. Put them into the trunk of your car or out on the porch for clothing donation pick-up. If you leave your give-away pile lying around, you might change your mind about getting rid of everything that you should. Remember, out of sight, out of mind.

4) Put everything that you will keep back into the closet in the order that you think would be most efficient. Some people line things up by length, shortest to longest. Some find it easier to find what they’re looking for if they hang things according to color. You may decide to put the things that you use most often in the center and work your way out from there.

5) Think about using specialty clothes hangers. Some hangers have clips or loops for coordinating outfits onto one hanger. This can be really helpful when you’re running late in the morning. Some save space and help you keep things from getting crowded. Coat hangers, like wood hangers, are curved just right and keep your suits and coats perfectly spaced while supporting tailored shoulders.

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.

Don’t depend solely on the bar. If you only wear suits and dresses, then a hanging bar may be just fine for you. But, most people need to keep a lot more of their belongings in the closet. Figure out which arrangement of bars and shelves best suits your needs and change it up a bit. You don’t have to get elaborate. You can move your bar up to make room for another one below. You can move it down to make room for shelves above. Divide the closet so that you have shelves on one side and bars on the other. Whatever suits your needs is what is best for you.

Utilize space that normally is ignored or goes unnoticed. If you read closet organization sites, you will notice the term “vertical space” mentioned over and over again. This is because people don’t notice just how much space they are wasting. Shelves can go up to the ceiling. Use bins and other containers to store small items.

The rule of thumb when organizing your closet is to keep the most used items right in front of your face. You can design your whole closet with this concept. Imagine and omni light, bright in the middle and fading out to the edges. The center focal point should be the first thing that you go for in the morning.

Let’s say that you shower and go straight for the closet to get dressed. You should probably have a laundry basket or bin for wet towels directly in front of you or just to the side of your closet. A hook for your robe should be easily reached from the center of your closet. Right in the middle you can install shallow drawers for underwear. Shallow is best because you can actually see what you have. Imagine if your dresser were designed like a large cabinet style tool box. Lots of shallow drawers means that things don’t get crammed to the bottom.

Next come shirts. Do you wear t-shirts? Can you fold and stack them on a shelf for easy access? Maybe put a shelf directly above your drawer. Then your hanging shirts should be right there within reach. Pants, coats, dresses, etc. should be arranged in the order that you normally put them on. Shoes do not have to be on the floor. You wear them every day. Reserve the floor, side areas and top shelves for items that are seldom used.

If you need to make better use of your hanging space after you install drawers and shelves, get specialty shirt hangers and pants hangers that take up less space. You can coordinate outfits so that you can grab them and go, while saving up to half of the space on your bar by hanging them together. Enjoy your smartly designed closet!

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