4 Surprisingly Easy Ways to Keep Clothes Closets Mess Free

Inside: 4 closet organization tips that work for children or parents. These ideas are affordable and help your family give back to others in the process. Grab your freebie to get organized this year.

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Keeping Organized with Kids

Keeping closets organized year-round is difficult. But when it’s your child or teen’s closet? The task can seem impossible. 

Somehow throughout the last three years, my kids have managed to go through the tween years with fairly organized closets. I don’t credit my children, however, or myself. None of us naturally enjoying cleaning or organizing. Instead, I credit these 4 handy closet organization tools.

Closet Organization Tips

These closet organization tips work awesome in kids’ closets but also great for you. I use these tips in both my kids’ closets and mine.

1. Rolling Donations

Every closet in my house has a box or a resealable bag (the ones comforters come in are perfect for this) either laying on the bottom of the closet or on the top shelf. The idea is for the bag to always be in an accessible area.

Encourage your child to put clothing they don’t like anymore or that doesn’t fit them anymore into the bag or box when they are putting their clothes away or when getting dressed. This saves everyone time from having a bi-yearly sit down of going through their clothes and discussing each item (and probably getting guilt from you as to why they don’t wear some of it in the process.)

Related: Clear the Clutter with the Clutter Coach

Keep a box or bag in your closet as well and when yours is full you can collect them from all the closets and make a trip to Goodwill.

2. Too Many Hats

My son’s hats were taking over the house. I’d find them laying everywhere until I began putting them in his closet. But that didn’t solve much because he just ended up wearing the same one over and over. He couldn’t see all his hats at once. We didn’t like the idea of a hat hook since the hats would cover each other up.

We needed a better organization idea. Finally, by chance, he found this over the door shoe holder that when we saw was perfect for high heels, we knew would also be perfect for his ball caps. He placed the organizer over the outside of his closet door and can now see all of his hats at once.

3. Organize Small Tops

My daughter and I own too many tank tops to possibly be folded. Even if we wanted to fold them, we’d never be able to find any of them in our closet.

Instead, we use these specialty hangers for tank tops or camisoles. Ideally, you’d hang each shoulder on the hanger like the second picture below, but what I like about these hangers is that you can be lazy and hang one side, like the first picture on the left, and your tank tops stay wrinkle free.

4. Clothes for the Week System

This system worked great when my kids were younger but occasionally they still want to do it. Using a hanging shelf organizer like this one, you can have your child put their clothes in each cubby for the week. Most hanging organizers have five cubbies and if you get one with extras on the side as I have below, you can use that for socks or shoes.

Closet organization tip: if you have young ones, fill this up when putting away laundry, its five fewer outfits to put away.

Want More?

And just in case you think my children are neat freaks, there’s a reason I didn’t show off their dressers. As well as these closet organization tips have work for my children, no one’s perfect.

Other Ideas

If these ideas don’t resonate with you, I’ve joined forces with four other bloggers who have more closet organization tips for you. Check out the rest of the series all found at 5 Weeks Decluttering and Organization Challenge.

Your Download

Organizing and decluttering should be an easy, enjoyable part of life. If done correctly, you’ll start to feel good about clearing the yuck out of your life. If done “because you have to”, you’ll hate it and quit.

To stay on the right track with decluttering, download the freebie here and take it one area, yes area, not room, at a time. To read more about the thought behind decluttering areas, check out the first post in this series: How to Clear the Clutter When You Hate to Clean: 9 Easy Tips