How did I do it?

Invented this system and have had ZERO cloths on the floor of our walk-in closet for the six months since I implemented it.

1) Accept that my closet will not look like in the magazines and I didn't have the budget for a ton of geegaws.
2) Realized that I was too tired to hang up cloths when I undressed at night so I'd toss them on the floor. This behaviour was not going to change.
3) Found it stupid that my girlfriend and I seperated our cloths.
4) Any device that has drawers is doomed to fail. Drawers imply folding *everything*...
5) Accept that I'm not going to change my habits to accomidate a stupid closet, so I could design the closet around my habits. This is key!

So:

- Mixed our cloths and grouped them by type.
- Button downs & slacks go onto hangers.
- "Heavy use" tshirts & bulky things like sweaters go to onto a wooden shelf that is above the hangers. These are *not* folded, just tossed up there.
- Got a cheap open topped plastic bins for socks and undies/bras- two for me, two for her. Socks in one, undies in the other.
- We have open faced racks for shelves for things that should be folded. I put the pants right below the undies, and sorted the shelf so the cloths that get used the most are on the highest shelves.
- I created a blank spot on the hanger-poll for tossing cloths on at night. When I undress, I just throw them over the poll and deal with it when I wake up. I gave us enought space for 3 days worth of slacking before we'd have to really sort the cloths properly.

On habit that I *had* to change was making sure I'd fold things *immediatly* when I removed them from the drier. I than *force* myself to properly put them away when I walk up from our laundry room (apartment complex...). If I dont, than the laundry basket will eventually start getting "questionable" cloths tossed into them, spoiling everything.

I am glad you found a system that works for you and you are correct that often times I successful system goes around who you are with only minor modifications here and there.

I have only one basket for clean clothes and three separate baskets for our dirty things. . . I have three separate ones so we sort the laundry according to color when we toss them into the dirty basket. A full basket alerts me to the need to do that particular load. . . .prevents me from using too much RAM trying to figure out what needs to be washed. . . . I simply throw in the clothes in the full basket.I have a single clean clothes basket because it prevent me from letting too many clean clothes stack up. When the clean basket is too full it is time to put the stuff away.

We keep the dirty clothes baskets by the foot of our bed, tidying up for over night company requires stacking the baskets and putting them on floor in closet. . . closing closet doors. . .normally I keep them in plain sight because it is against my religion to look for things to wash. The baskets being right at the foot of our bed means dirty clothes normally make it into the dirty wash instead of on the floor, on the sofa, on the bed or chairs ect. . . . .

Congratulations! :) I might try those tips you mentioned. Thank you.