By LISA PHILLIPS / Guest Columnist

Color is everywhere! Spring brings out bright, cheerful colors for everything from our clothes to our dishes and even to our phones.

While women typically change colors more often than men, it is a universal fact that color can change a mood, bring back a memory or remind us of a task.

Here are a few ways to use color to help make daily organizing systems easy and fun, especially for younger children.

Assign a color to each family member: Let each person pick his or her color. That color will now be the color of his or her toothbrush, placemat, laundry basket, etc. Everyone will know which socks go in what basket, who put his or her toothbrush away, and who needs to put his or her dishes in the sink.

Food storage: For leftovers this week, use the blue lids. Next week, switch to the red lids, or use a blue and red marking pen.

This helps you remember how long the casserole has been in the refrigerator and when it is time to discard the meatloaf.

Color folders: Use color folders for action items for each family member. Mom’s folder is red; dad’s is blue; and each child has his or her own color. For reference files (files that you need to keep but not look at on a daily basis) use different colors for utilities, auto, finances, etc. This makes filing so much easier.

With the use of color, you can identify things three times faster than using one standard color.

You will know what container to look in for your winter hats, batteries or extra nuts and bolts.

Just about everything comes in colors from plastic containers to file folders to water bottles.

The orange scissors stay downstairs and the purple scissors are for the kids to use.

Store fall decorations in the orange crates, and pull out the yellow plastic container to start your spring decorating.

Never underestimate the power of color!

Lisa Phillips, is the owner of SimpleWorks. She can be reached at lisa_phillips@bellsouth.net, 981-7733.