Is Your Closet a Mess? Is your Closet a Mess?by Connie Limon (Email: connielimon@yahoo.com) If your closet is a mess and needs some serious organizing this article should help you at least get started organizing it. Don't allow your nice shoes to be scattered all over the closet floor or anywhere else. There is a solution to scattered shoes. Try using a good shoe rack or shoe cubbies. They are very in expensive to own. I have used the over-the-door shoe bags and it solved the problem but not as neatly as a nice shoe racks or shoe cubbies. They are a bit more sanitary as well. Avoid the shoe racks that are slightly slanted. Shoes without heels have a hard time staying put on these types of racks. A good shoe rack is one that is flat with a minimum of two shelves. Another option is a shoe caddy with 9 to 12 squares (3 squares horizontal and 3 squares vertical. If you have a small chest or better yet if you can have a small chest of drawers specifically made to fit a small space in your closet it can provide a lovely place to organize your hosiery and sock collection. You can organize the drawers with plastic baggies. Place one pair of sock, tights or pantyhose in each plastic bag. If you have a little extra time try to organize even further. You can place a label on each bag to distinguish black socks from blue socks, casual socks from dress socks. This tiny organizational tip will save you time (you can post on your time management list as extra time to spent more constructively elsewhere) when you are looking specifically for a blue pair of socks. Black and blue socks seem to all look either black or blue when you are in a hurry, and it seems I am always pulling out the wrong color. Now that you have all socks, tights, and pantyhose neatly packed in plastic bags and labeled, line them up according to color and/or category. What is even nicer now is to place a divider in front of each category and/or color with the name of that category and/or color boldly printed on the front. Make it pretty and even more fun by decorating your dividers with some favorite graphic such as roses, butterflies or angels as a border all around and have the name of your category and/or color right in the middle of your decorations in whatever color that matches your border or simply dark black. You can use this same method to organize small change purses, billfolds, cigarette cases, key holders, glasses holders, cosmetic bags. If you have a lot of these as well, you might have two separate small chest made to fit inside your closet to store and organize both sets of items. As you go through these items and organize them you will find some you just do not want to keep anymore. Stash them away in a box for your yard sale or Goodwill donations. Small leather goods that are something like what you would call "antique" at some point in life can also be sold on places like E-bay. I am sometimes so pressed for time I will end up wearing blue socks when I should have chosen black socks. Worse yet, is wearing white socks with black pants......incidentally though this is my favorite combination, although not an acceptable fashion statement. If I could I would wear only white Hanes anklets. I do have a few pair of the other colors though and labeling the bags is a big help. One thing about it for sure if you have lots of clutter, you will feel more stressed. After I finish writing this article telling everyone else how to start getting organized at least in their closet, I probably should try and organize some of the things I see to the right on my desk area. It is more stressful to live in a cluttered and chaotic environment. As soon as I look over there, I feel a sudden drop in my heartbeat, then a speedy up heartbeat, and feel an extra surge of tension radiate throughout. I suppose one can only conclude that living in an unorganized environment creates more tension and stress. A great rule to follow is if you have something in your closet that you have not worn for a year, most likely, you will never wear it, and it is time just to toss it, sell in a yard sale or send it to the Goodwill industry. Another horrible habit to get into is tossing your hat, gloves, scarves, coats and sweaters on top of sofas or chairs. The reason for this is probably because you have no designated storage area for these items. With all else you have just added to your closet you may find your closets not the best spot for these items. What about the wall space though inside the closets? There probably are not pictures or decorations hanging on the walls in your closet and if you can squeeze in a hook or two, this would be a perfect spot to hang your hats, scarves and most used outer sweaters. I hope you have the luxury of a separate coat closet, however, with nothing but coats hanging on the most durable type of clothes hanger you can find. I find that storing a matching pair of gloves in the pockets of my coats works well for glove storage and retrieval. Scarves can be hung around the collars of coats and rest on the hanger until time for use. For children, you can do the same with their gloves and try will hard to teach them to put their gloves straight into their pockets before hanging coats in the closet. Now what about umbrellas? I personally like a nice looking umbrella stand which adds some color and decoration to my room as well as holds all the umbrellas. Well.....at least you might get started on your way organizing your messy closet with the help of this article. I need to finish labeling my sock bags! Author: Connie Limon. Visit us at http://www.selfimprovementbook1.com and sign up for our newsletters. Self Improvement Book is a guide to information about self improvement, personal growth and self help tips. It is an organized directory referencing information in other websites on the World Wide Web. This article is FREE to publish with the resource box.  ¶ 3:56 PM