Momology Magazine Issue 2.2 Houston - Patience | Page 22

closet PREPARE No matter how large or small your closet is, when it’s overflowing it creates headaches! The first step to organizing your closet is to prepare a staging area divided into three categories: Keep, Donate and Sell. You should go through your closet and decide if it’s something you’re going to keep, donate or throw away, or sell in a garage sale, if you’re up for that. Eliminate items that don’t belong in the closet and ask yourself the following questions as you sort: ♦♦ Have I worn/used this in the last 6 months? ♦♦ Does this still fit/work? ♦♦ Do I really need this? LABEL Labeling is always a good idea! When organizing toys, or items that are grouped together, labeling bins, baskets and boxes keeps them organized and prevents them from getting lost. I’ve done this in my own house with medicines. With little ones in the house I wanted to get all medicines up high, out of reach. I noticed when someone in my house would get sick, finding the medication was frustrating, so we’d just go buy some. Before you know it you’re overstocked (which is expensive) and some stuff was expired because it was hard to find. I got small plastic storage bins, separated out the medications and labeled them with Children’s, Stomach, Cold/Allergy, Eye, First Aid, etc. This allowed us to get rid of expired stuff, see what we actually had and evaluate what we needed, all while keeping it organized on a top shelf in the linen closet. 22