The older I get the more I appreciate the great big important things in life – good health, great friends, a wonderful job, the opportunity to travel.

I’ve especially enjoyed watching my children grow into happy, independent adults with exciting and busy careers of their own. Family events are even more enjoyable now that we’ve welcomed a son-in-law into the fold.

You’d think, with all this abundant abundance going on, all the little tiny things in life would disappear but the opposite seems to be true. Here in my dotage I get a giant jolt out of the oddest things – a full tank of gas in a freshly-washed car gives me a solid sense of accomplishment. An Amazon email announcing the delivery of laundry pods and sparkling water makes me blurt a relieved and audible ‘Yay!’. And waking up to the day’s outfit already hanging on my closet valet rod sends me absolutely to the moon.

Secret # 5 – The joy is in the little things.

• A valet rod is a retractable gizmo that allows you to hang a selected group of items perpendicular to all the other hanging items. Valet rods are readily available and can be retro-fitted into any existing closet.
• Matching bins or baskets for all your bin and baskety things elevate your closet game to a whole new level. Get new matching containers and use the old unmatched ones somewhere else. Maybe in somebody else’s closet.
• Find a spot for the thing that makes you smile. There’s a nice clear open space on the shelf under the high hanging rod for my jeans. Right now, I have placed a small painted tray my daughter brought back from her semester abroad in London. The tray organizes a couple of bottles of perfume and a tiny photo in a tiny frame of my children’s tiny faces from back when they were tiny.

Secret # 6 – The floor is for rugs and feet.

• As in, there is nothing allowed on your floor except a rug (or carpet) and feet (yours and the furniture’s). In other words, shoes don’t belong on the floor unless they’re on your feet. And the feet of a stool (or chair or dresser or standing jewelry box) are allowed on the floor but nothing else. Not a box, not a dirty shirt, not a suitcase, not a thing.
• (Psst…this is magic.) Do a test – grab all the stuff on your closet floor and throw it on your bed. Look at your closet. Now grab all the stuff on your bed and throw it back on the closet floor. See the difference? And the most magic-y thing of all is this secret tip works everywhere; your closet, your pantry, your office, your car.
• Once your floorspace is clear, you can vacuum from wall to wall every single time you vacuum. Clean is good.

Once you get the hang of them, employ all of these secret Closet Nirvana tips everywhere and rule the world. Or at least rule your world.

View The Secrets to Achieving Closet Nirvana Part I and Part II.