There’s only one thing more satisfying than organizing your closet: Doing it on the cheap.

The most important first step toward an organized closet is editing what you own.

Make peace with the realization that those pants are never coming back into style, you’re never going to fix the rip in that jacket lining, and that linen blouse is going to stay a rumpled mess. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for those things. Give them away, throw them away or sell them.

Professional organizer Kandy Walker Sartori of Organizational Cleaning in Akron, Ohio, goes so far as to recommend getting rid of 80 percent of your clothing. Most of us wear 20 percent of our clothing 80 percent of the time, she said, so getting rid of the excess will free closet space without putting a serious crimp in your wardrobe choices.

In particular, clothes that are too big or small need to go, she said.

Now that you’ve culled out the excess, here are some nifty ideas for storing what’s left:

Take advantage of vertical space by hanging a shoe organizer with clear pockets on the back of a door or on a wall. Use it to hold small items: jewelry, hats and gloves, socks, even shoes.

Look up. See all that unused space over the closet door or high on the closet walls? Install a shelf there to store seldom-used or out-of-season items.

Remove the closet rod and reinstall it higher, and then install a second rod below it to double your hanging space. Or just suspend a second rod below the first using rope or chain.

Install a towel bar to hang decorative scarves, or hang them from the bottom of a clothes hanger with shower rings.

Use more shower rings to hang purses from the closet rod.

Glue or staple mesh to a picture frame and hang it on the wall for an earring organizer. You can use any kind of mesh that earrings can hang from: window screen, chicken wire, hardware cloth, radiator screen or even burlap.