Sorting It Out : Order: People waste time searching for misplaced items yet resist cleaning up, expert says, claiming that they don’t have time.

For many people, a walk through their disorganized home is usually accompanied by an irritating voice inside their head that screams “slob, slob, slob!”

For such unfortunates, life is chaotic at best, full of misplaced papers, forgotten dates, frantic searches for that certain something and despair over pulling out their favorite suit for an important business meeting--only to find that the moths got there first.

It all adds up to more aggravation, more stress.

So each year, promises are made to clean up. “This year, I’ll get organized,” people say. But it often never happens.

“It’s just like any New Year’s resolution,” said Debra Weise of El Toro, a personal wardrobe specialist and organizer. “People resist and procrastinate, saying they don’t have time.”

The point, professionals say, is that you’re the one who suffers the consequences. You’re the one who wastes time and effort searching for misplaced items.

“It’s amazing the new perspective you gain when you get organized,” Weise said. “It’s a relief to open a drawer. It reduces stress and increases productivity. It returns control of your life in space, time and money.”

For Flora Brumley of El Toro, January was the month to start getting organized.

“It was time,” she said. “Nothing had a home, and we were always hunting. We were very disorganized and had no sense of how to get organized.”

For example, one coat closet was stuffed with extra carpeting, bolts of fabric, a tripod, rolled-up posters, coats, gift wrap and tablecloths.

Brumley called Weise to come in and establish rhyme and reason.

After Weise’s labors, Brumley has enjoyed the “radical difference. It’s beautiful to look into a drawer and, most importantly, I can find things. It just makes life 100% easier.”

Just think about it: In an organized home, you’ll have enough space to navigate around your garage and enjoy relaxing moments in clutter-free living areas.

In terms of time, just 15 minutes saved a day adds up to eight full days a year. And in money, you can save enough for a trip to Club Med for those eight days if you’re organized because you’ll be more productive at work, won’t be throwing away moth-eaten clothes and won’t be buying items you forgot you already have, stashed away in some forgotten corner.

Sound good? Read on.

Once you make the decision to clean up that mess and organize your household, there are many ways to proceed. The least expensive but generally most painful way is to do it yourself. But maybe that thought is just too overwhelming. Maybe you have anxiety about throwing items away and have no idea how to organize what’s left.

To guard against potential nervous breakdowns, you can call in a friend who is more objective. But, professionals say, that could be like the blind leading the blind.

In some cases, the most efficient way to change your life may be to get professional help. Such help includes organizers who charge about $25 an hour, closet companies that give free consultations to sell their storage systems and, finally, interior decorators and designers who charge $45 to more than $100 an hour, depending on their expertise in design and architecture.

The difference, designer Lydia Wang Himes said, is similar to whom you choose to do your taxes. You can work out your own or hire a bookkeeper or a higher-priced accountant.

“All designers are really organizers, if you think about it,” said Lana Barth, owner of Lana Barth Design in Huntington Beach. “We take a space and plan it to make it functional with style.”

No matter what route you select, professionals agree that the first step is to discard, discard, discard.

Take large trash bags or boxes and be ruthless, chanting the following maxims:

“When it doubt, throw it out.”

“If you haven’t used it in a year, you never will.”

“Less is more.”

“Would I pack it and move it if I ever left this place?”

Toss away scentless spices, dated medicines and old cosmetics teeming with bacteria. Rip out interesting magazine articles, file them and throw the rest of the publication away. Burn the piles of clipped recipes clogging your drawers. Get rid of broken and trendy appliances. Push out the paperbacks.

If an item still has life in it, Weise said, pass it on to someone outside your household. Sell things at a garage sale, consignment store or through advertising; swap with friends, recycle or donate to worthwhile charities.

When the extra is gone, then it’s time to think about how to organize what’s left.

“It’s important to think about your own lifestyle,” Weise said. “How do you do your laundry? Where do you play games? How do you cook? All of these things will determine how you organize your space. Sit down and really think about it.”

For Himes, owner of Lydia Wang & Associates in Costa Mesa, a home should be “time and motion studied.” When she and her architect husband designed their cliff-side trilevel home in Laguna Beach, it was with organization in mind.

“I definitely believe form follows function,” she said. “If it’s working well, then it’s going to look good.”

The home is a study in clutter-free living. Accessories are generally large and few. Small items are grouped for eye appeal. From the garage to the wine cellar, everything is neat.

“I’m a very minimal person,” she said. “It’s very easy to maintain, so it frees me up to do other things. If it’s organized, it’s easier to get to things and prevents mistakes.”

The design and organization of her home follow the way she and her husband live.

“When organizing, a person must first study their lifestyle objectively, set specific spaces for specific functions and organize aesthetically and accordingly,” she said. “So much of it is just logic.”

Himes keeps stationery in the family room, because that’s where she likes to write thank-you notes and letters while her husband is watching TV. Flower vases are kept next to a sink for water.

Himes said she doesn’t believe in central closets for items such as supplies, linen and dishes. Rather, whatever goes in a particular room is kept in that room. Guest room sheets are kept in the guest room and towels stay in the bathroom. Dressy dishes are in the dining room and everyday dishes are in the kitchen.

For Himes, drawers are key to her organization.

“I like things in drawers,” she said. “You can see things better, and they are easier to get to. It’s like a filing system.”

In the kitchen, a drawer holds spices. Others are designated for round and square plastic containers with lids. Everyday glasses are stored over the dishwasher, making it easier to put them away when clean. Pots and pans are next to the stove, knives are by the cutting board.

“Just think about how you work in the kitchen and keep things closest to where you use them,” she said. “Organize it to flow and save steps.”

In the master suite, organization follows her lifestyle. When she enters her bedroom in the evening, her purse is set down and jewelry comes off and into drawers at an area near the door.

In the bathroom, she undresses. Off the bathroom is a 15-by-15-foot walk-in closet where she stores her seasonal clothes on a mechanized carousel generally seen only in dry-cleaning stores. (Himes keeps out-of-season clothes in separate bathroom closets.) In the morning, the process is reversed.

In the walk-in closet, scores of shoes sit on shelves. Sweaters are in baskets. On a center unit of cedar-lined drawers and shelves is a built-in hamper and a bar for hanging incoming dry cleaning, clothes for the housekeeper to press and items to be packed for traveling. Socks are sorted by color, then placed in drawers, and there are separate drawers for outgoing laundry and dry cleaning.

Although most people can’t afford to build or remodel to suit their storage needs, it’s not that expensive to update and organize the storage space you have, professionals say.

There are stores for do-it-yourselfers. Hold Everything stores in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa, and Containwares in Costa Mesa have thousands of items in stock, in every shape, material, color and size.

“These places are heaven-sent for my business and for anyone who wants to do it themselves,” Weise said. “It’s not just one shoe rack--it’s everything in one spot. And it’s not as expensive as one might think.”

Weise said the typical do-it-yourselfer will spend $200 to $250 for supplies in such stores. For those who want to get really organized without customized built-ins, modular closet systems can sell for $500 to $800, she said.

Containwares’ manager, Lisa Fuentes, said the store’s bestselling storage system is one that can be stacked on top of each other or side by side, with poles between units for hanging space. Wire components include drawers, flat shelves, baskets and hanging grids. The price for an average closet is $500.

For those who want professional help, closet companies will deliver and install modular closet systems for $300 to $1,500 for an average 8-foot closet, said Klaus Heim, general manager of Pacific Organizers in Huntington Beach.

For $300, you’ll get the basic system. For $1,500, you’ll get an accessorized system attached to a quarter-inch cedar backing (to prevent moths) with felt-lined jewelry box drawers, sweater drawers, sock drawers, pencil-type drawers, slide out wire baskets, tie racks and belt racks.

“There’s no effort required for the consumer,” Heim said. “You make the decision and write the check. People who try to do it themselves are usually inexperienced. They run into a lot of time to get the correct configuration, and even then they might not double their storage space.”

Once you have the basic organized home, you can add boxes, crates, tins, bins, buckets, baskets and many specialized containers.

“This is what I call ‘finessing’ the job,” Weise said. “You can leave a lot of things out as long as you leave them in the right kind of baskets and establish some sense.”

For the bathroom, there are electric towel-warmer racks, shower caddies, make-up caddies, laundry bags and toiletry organizers.

For the bedroom, there are elegant earring files, necklace holders, acrylic lipstick organizers, thread galleries, flowery garment bags, mothballs, plastic shoulder covers to protect clothing, cedar chests, wood sewing boxes, behind-door hangers, 21-pair shoe racks, stocking organizers, cans for buttons and awning-striped hat boxes for shoulder pads and other sundries.

If you lack space, take hints from recreational vehicles, said Barth of the Huntington Beach design shop. Use storage chests under the bed and hide them with a dust ruffle. Wicker chests double as storage and tables. Armoires can be used to stash everything from clothes to TVs.

For children’s rooms, you can buy heart-shaped buckets and duck-shaped baskets. Clear plastic containers hold small toys and baubles. Modular systems for the closet are expandable and can grow with the child.

For stuffed animals that take up so much space, Barth recommends painting dowels and using cup hooks to attach them to the ceiling as decorative objects, or creating a tree to hang them on. Shelves over windows can store books and objects that children like to collect.

For the kitchen, use dividers for drawers, labels to alphabetize your spices, frozen-food racks, tiered hanging baskets, under-the-sink shelf systems that swing out, cereal stackers, two-tiered lazy susans, pull-out trays, canisters, wine racks, grids for utensils, plate stackers and cleanser racks.

Put little-used appliances up high and move frequently used items to the front, Weise said.

“Pyramid” items so that the largest are in the rear. Assign a junk drawer and a drawer for coupons.

Hang a calendar for appointments and another for reminders to clean the coffeepot and iron. Keep birthdays and anniversaries in a date book and go shopping once a month for all the cards. Keep ongoing shopping lists to save time.

For your tapes and records, there are oak CD files, stackable carousels and even a colossal CD tower that will hold 552 discs. Book collections can be arranged by subject and author, thereby making them more likely to be used.

For the laundry area, fold-down ironing boards can be attached to the back of a door or the wall. Weise recommends buying a bar on which to hang cotton clothes for drying, thereby prolonging the life of the garment, and for hanging shirts when they come out of the dryer to avoid unnecessary ironing. Pants stretchers that can be found in catalogues will also eliminate ironing and therefore save time, Weise said.

Then it’s time to attack the underbelly of most homes, where refuse is thrown to deal with another day: the garage.

“People think that being organized means to box everything and shove it into the garage,” Weise said. “But cleaning out the house and putting it in the garage doesn’t mean the job is done.”

For the garage, Containwares sells Santa-decorated cartons to hold Christmas ornaments and plain boxes with labels designating everything from screws to sockets. One of the store’s most popular items is chrome shelving that costs about $40 each.

“Each shelf holds from 500 to 700 pounds,” Containwares manager Fuentes said. “It can be used for gardening supplies, tools and even in the kitchen as a baker’s rack.”

Closet organizing companies sell garage storage systems with drawers, cabinets, workbench areas and pegboards. The average person will spend about $1,000 on such a system, Pacific Organizer’s Heim said.

Weise said once people get organized, most will keep things clean: “If you do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. So it’s a matter of doing it to make it a habit, and therefore effortless.”

Still, others are hopeless, Weise said: “Some people, no matter how organized you get them, just don’t want to be bothered. Others may be shopaholics, or they grew up in the Depression and can’t throw things away. Or they may be avid collectors.”

For such intractables, she suggested a maintenance program, where a professional will come in as often as necessary to keep them organized.

“Like they say, there’s a place for everything and everything in its place,” Weise said. “If it’s a mess, organize it.”