As a Virgo I naturally love stores like The Container Store (www.containerstore.com) in the U.S. and Solutions (www.solutions-stores.ca) in Canada. All those endless bins and organizers appeal to my innate sense of order. I could (and have) spent hours fingering the jewellery hangers, the belt racks and OMG the kitchen wares. But a lot of my organizational tricks are practically free and work beautifully at keeping my life ticking along. Here are a couple of examples.

Before I retired, every day at the office started with a list of things to do. Stroking off each item gave me a sense of accomplishment. When I employed that system at home for household chores, I ended up with pages of messy, marked-up lists.

My solution was to write each chore on a sticky note and stick it on the kitchen cupboard door in front of my nose. Sometimes I start the day with a dozen stickies which I remove one by one as the chore is done. And I re-cycle these in a drawer. It includes such chores as ironing, laundry, walk the dog, do my nails, clean powder room, etc.

Another organizational compulsion that girlfriends tease me about is the hanging tags on my black pants in the closet. Most of us have many pairs of

black pants of varying fabrics, cuts and even sizes. When I scan them by eye hanging in my closet it’s hard to tell the boot-leg ones from the skinnies or the size 12s from the size 8s. In the semi-light of a closet these tags instantly tell me the pants are “dress black straight leg” or “NYDJ zips at the ankle” without having to pull each pair out and examine them individually. I’m not really neurotic, am I?