If you can't find anything when you need it, it's time to get organized.
Closets cannot hold everything you or your family have ever owned. Like a child's toy box or your kitchen junk drawer, your closets can become so cluttered that you can no longer use or enjoy the items in it. When broken, out-of-season or outgrown items have taken over your closet space, it is time to sort it into boxes and discard or donate what you cannot or will not use. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Label six large cardboard boxes as follows: "used daily" "used weekly" "seasonal" "needs repair" "give away" and "trash."
2. Remove items from your closet one at a time. Place each item in the most appropriate box. Try on clothing as you sort. Place any items with rips or stains in the "trash" box. Place clothing with missing buttons or zippers in the "needs repair" box.
3. Place all clothing that does not fit in the "give away" box, even if you intend to lose weight or think you might gain weight. Sell the clothes that don't fit if you can and buy or trade for clothes that do. Place any clothing that is no longer in style in the "give away" box as well. Keep any classic items that do fit.
4. Take the "give away" box out to your car as soon as it is full.
5. Look through the "used weekly" and "used seasonally" boxes. Remove any usable items that no longer reflect your current interests and tastes or the interests and tastes of your family. Box them and take them to your car to be given away.
6. Hang out-of-season clothing that fits and is in good repair in the less-accessible side of your closet or pack everything into space-saving storage bags. These bags use a vacuum cleaner to remove air from the items in the bag, allowing bulky coats, pillows or quilts to be reduced to a few inches in thickness.
7. Hang clothing that you wear daily within fingertip reach, organized by type and color of garment or as complete outfits. Use clear plastic shoe boxes, under-bed storage boxes and other closet-organizing items such as multiple-garment hangers to keep everything in its place. Make labels for each storage container so you can find things at a glance. Use pictures of the items in each container so that children who have not yet learned to read can match them to the items they need.
8. Bag all items that you need to discard and put them outside the house, on the curb or in your trash bin.
9. Take the "give away" boxes to the nearest day care center, school, shelter or donation center right away, to prevent the items in them from migrating back into your freshly organized closets.
Tags: give away, clothing that, items that, Place clothing, that longer
