If your closets and drawers are already overflowing, the first thing to do is get rid of what you don't need. For a messy closet, schedule an hour for cleaning. Start at the door of the closet and work your way in. Have boxes labeled 'Throw Away,' 'Charity,' 'Move,' and 'Miscellaneous.' When the hour's up, quit and schedule another hour a few days later. If you try to do the whole closet at once, you're liable to burn out before the job is finished. If you're unsure about what to keep, ask yourself if you've used an item in the past year, or if it has special monetary or sentimental value. If not, out it goes. It takes nerves of steel to clean a closet. Once you've gotten rid of the excess junk, you can start to put what's left in order. The best way to organize any big space is to make it into a lot of little spaces. For closets, that could mean adding shelves or storage cubes. Put the things you use regularly near the front, where they'll be handy, and work back from there. In organizing drawers, plastic silverware separators are good for any drawer. Use them to divide the drawer into several smaller storage areas. You can even label each section, if you like. For a do-it-yourself project, you could even make your own separators out of thin strips of wood.
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