You know what it's like, you're late for work and you're wasting precious time rummaging around in your clothes drawer looking for that top that you had in mind.  You can't find what you're looking for and your clothes are spilling out so much that you can't get the drawer shut again.  It's not an ideal situation is it?

Whilst the following tips and ideas may save you time it's really a byproduct of being more organised and making better use of space.  It's all too easy for a chest of drawers to turn into a free for all and on laundry day when your clothes are cleaned, folded and ready to be put away it can often be a difficult task if there's no apparent space in the drawers.

To begin with consider the current contents of the drawer.  Are there items in there that really should be somewhere else?  For example, if a drawer should have only tops and t-shirts and it also has a couple of jumpers and a pair of jeans then they are going to be occupying space that could be utilised by many more tops and t-shirts.  Go through each drawer and remove items of clothing that just don't belong there.  This in itself could create a problem elsewhere, but as you organise each drawer in turn this should resolve itself.

You now have a drawer full of clothes that belong there but there's still no space.  But whilst sorting through them you should be thinking about which items you haven't worn for ages, which ones were probably past their usable life, and of certain ones you'd probably never wear again.  This process of organising your clothes is a good opportunity to get rid of the things you won't or can't wear any longer.  Be ruthless with this as it's all too easy to become sentimental about something you last wore 15 years ago. 

By now if you have properly sorted and been ruthless you may have some space in the drawer, but perhaps not enough so time to go a step further.  The battle to overcome storage issues cannot be won by sorting and dispensing alone.  Time for a new strategy!

It may not be obvious but you can probably fit more in by utilising storage boxes or even completely changing the way in which you place or stack your clothes in the drawer.  Storage boxes will keep smaller items such as socks and underwear together and allow you to use more vertical space.  It also prevents them from becoming mixed up with other types of clothing.  When you consider the way that clothes are normally stored such as in separate piles, it doesn't take long for those piles to become untidy as you rummage through them looking for a specific garment.  Conversely, if you store them vertically as shown in the photo above you can easily find what you want and the drawer stays neat and tidy.