In preparation for the teen organizing seminar that I’ll be presenting at next week, I thought I’d give you some ideas for organizing your own teen’s closet.

Teen Closet Before:

Here’s the funny thing. This closet, as is, will never, ever be organized. This shelf unit is just not ever going to work for this particular kid. This is what I call a classic “technical problem”. Even after doing the sorting and purging that she needed to do, here’s what her “organized” closet looked like. (Remember, I usually guide this work, but the teen actually does the sorting and purging, so she can get the hang of it.) So here it is, organized, but still not fixing the real problems:

Can you see how this is just never going to work for this kiddo? There isn’t enough structure in the right places, and it just isn’t ever going to be pretty enough for her to be motivating. Oh, and she can’t actually reach the top hanging rod, but yet there’s a ton of wasted space at the top.

 Teen Closet After Organizing:

Notice how this setup makes the best possible use of all the space, while so many things are still easier to get to? Oh, and it’s pretty. Like most things we do, this only took a few hours, and she loved it, mostly because of her new signature purple hangers. Her brothers wouldn’t be caught dead stealing those!

I hope this gives you some ideas for organizing your own tween’s or teen’s closet.