Is your New York apartment lacking closet space? While you probably can’t do anything about the size of your closets, it’s definitely possible to get more organized!

Make the most of your space with these four easy steps to organize your closet.

1. Clear It Out

When taking steps to organize your closet, you want to start by taking everything out. If you’re like most New Yorkers, you probably have stuff crammed into every corner of your closet. While it’s great to make use of the whole space, it’s impossible to organize a small closet when it’s full. Take the time to empty it out so you can really see what’s in there.

After your closet is empty, give it a good cleaning. Dust all the shelves and clean the floor.

2. Determine What to Keep, Donate, and Throw Out

After your closet is emptied, it’s time to determine what to do with everything.

Look at each item individually and add it to one of these three piles:

• Keep
• Donate
• Throw Out

Try to be brutal! Ask yourself, “When is the last time I used this?” If it’s been a while (or you forgot it was even in your closet), you can probably get rid of it. There’s no point in organizing things you never use.

After you’ve gone through everything, look through the keep pile one more time. If you can, add a few more items to the donate or throw out piles. When you’re done sorting everything, bring the donate items to your local thrift store and trash the throw out pile right away. That way you’ll be less likely to sneak items back into your keep pile.

3. Get Organized

Now that you’ve sorted everything, the next step is to organize your closet.

Before you put anything back in your closet, go through the keep pile and put like items together. Clothes should be with clothes, books with books, makeup with makeup, etc.

Now look at your closet to see if there are any organizing tools that would make your closet more efficient. The goal is to make use of every square inch of space. Consider adding another hanging bar below the existing one, installing extra shelves up high or down low, investing in matching hangers to save rod space, hanging a shoe organizer or wire shelving system on the closet door, containing small items in boxes, etc. If you’re at a loss for how to make it work, consider working with a professional closet organizer.

The Container Store is a great place to shop for home organization tools, although there are plenty of other options, too.

4. Put Everything In Its Place

It’s time for the most satisfying part of the process: putting everything in its place.

Don’t just throw everything in there though! Install those closet organization tools you picked up in step three, then neatly put everything back, giving it all a permanent home and keeping like items together. That way, you’ll be able to find things later.

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