Cleaning Essentials

Organize Your Clutter

Tackle three of the worst junk-prone places in your home with these quick tips from Peter Walsh, author of Enough Already! Clearing Mental Clutter to Become the Best You.

Get shoes off the floor to organize your closet instantly. Use shoe racks and keep pairs you don't wear every day in their boxes. "Stick a photo of the shoes on the side of the box so you can see what's in there," Walsh says.

Create a storage zone for each kind of item -- gardening equipment, tools, sports gear. Keep stuff you seldom use out of the way by putting it on a shelf that hangs from the ceiling, like the ones at SafeRacks.

Clear out your kitchen junk drawer like this: Put everything in a box then for the next month, every time you use an item put it back in the drawer. At the end of the month, get rid of what’s left in the box.