Getting dressed will be a lot easier with these 10-minute closet organizing tips

NEW YORK - Is your closet an overflowing disaster? Clothes packed tight, shoes in a hodgepodge on the floor, purses, scarves and sweaters piled high on the shelves?

Some tips for organizing your closet in 10-minute chunks:

1. Plan. Decide what sizes you are going to keep, what is going to be stored in the closet, where you are going to take things that you no longer want, said Standolyn Robertson, certified professional organizer in Waltham, Mass.

2. Take the dry-cleaning bags off, said Lisa Zaslow of Gotham Organizers in New York. "It takes up space, makes it harder to see your clothes and is actually bad for fabric," she said in an email. Remove empty hangers.

3. Organize clothing by type - blouses, pants, skirts, jackets, suits, etc., said Zaslow. Then spend another 10 minutes arranging by colour. As you go, get rid of anything that is worn or stained, that doesn't fit, that isn't flattering or that you just don't like. Store the things you wear most often in the most accessible parts of your closet.

4. If you have a lot of short-hanging items, use a closet doubler that hangs from the top rod to increase your hanging space, said Zaslow. Put your slacks, blouses, jackets and skirts on the bottom rung.

5. Hang all of your fall clothes backward, said Ecker. As you wear them, put the hanger back on the rod the traditional way. At the end of winter, if an item is still hanging backward, it's probably something you should get rid of.

6. Tackle the shelves. Use dividers to create cubicles, said professional organizer Erica Ecker of The Spacialist in New York. "They slide right in a shelf and make perpendicular barriers so your piles of sweaters, shirts and jeans don't avalanche into each other."

7. Put like with like in terms of shoes, said Robertson, immediate past president of the National Association of Professional Organizers. Stick all the tennis shoes together, the sandals together and so forth. Put a magazine in the boots to get them to stand up. Remove shoes that are too small or need to be repaired.

8. Take advantage of unused space. The dead air between the floor and the bottom of a skirt or dress can hold clear plastic bins on wheels for shoes, belts and other accessories. The back of the door can have hooks or over-the-door pocket-type organizers.

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Primping in 10 minutes or less is a realistic goal as long as you have all that you need - and nothing you don't - immediately available. Invest one afternoon to assess the condition of your hair and skin, get a haircut, buy the cosmetics colours you want to wear that season. After that, the clock can start ticking.

HAIR

Make sure you are using products appropriate for your hair type (moisturizing ones for dry hair or volumizing for fine hair, for example), advises stylist Frederic Fekkai. Otherwise, you'll waste time in the styling process trying to undo what you've just done in the shower, he explains.

After hair is towel-dried and combed, address volume and texture.

If you have curly hair, you want controlled volume, which you get by applying mousse, gel or hairspray only at the roots around the base of the neck. Flip hair upside down, then - using one hand like a clip to gather the ends - blow-dry the roots of the hair. Direct the nozzle of the dryer upward so it will give lift to the base, which will later act as support to the hair at the crown.