Everyone—well, everyone with a penchant for keeping an organized home, at least—has a list of dream closet organizer ideas. The list might be mental, it might be fleeting, but almost everyone who dreams of a well-organized closet with clever shelving units, baskets, and more has one. In the process of bringing those dreams to life, finding actionable organizing tips and putting them into a cohesive plan might be difficult, sure, but so is finding a time to set up that dream closet.

This sometimes gets glossed over in impassioned discussions of closet rods and shoe organizers, but installing the organizing tools necessary for an organized closet takes a lot of prep work—mainly, taking every last item out of the closet. The best organized closets have to start with a completely clean slate, because only then can you (or hired help) install the organizers needed, and there’s never a good time to pull everything out of that closet (or whatever space needs to be whipped into shape).

There may not be a truly good time, but there is a time that’s better than the others, and that’s during spring cleaning, according to Kevin Busch, the vice president of operations for home improvement services company Mr. Handyman,this link opens in a new tab a Neighborlythis link opens in a new tab company.

“If you’re cleaning out your closets for spring cleaning, that’s the time that makes sense to do closet organizers or those kinds of projects,” Busch says. Spring cleaning often necessitates taking everything—or almost everything—out of a space, and that’s the time to clear it out the rest of the way to install any necessary organizers, he says.

The timing trick works for any large storage space: Think bedroom closets, pantries, utility closets, and, yes, garages. If it can hold your greatest closet organizer ideas, it can use some carefully planned timing for the best possible results.

“Cleaning out the garage, getting ready for spring, [means] putting away the snow blower and the stuff you need more in the wintertime,” Busch says. “This is the perfect time to then start to put in your garage organizers or cabinets and workbench.”

Doing so minimizes the amount of prep needed, as you won’t have to take everything out of the space again for a closet installation planned for later in the year, but it also makes the putting-everything-away part of spring cleaning more efficient.

“Garage organizers, shelves, and things like that allow you, as you start to put the stuff back in, to do it in a much more efficient and permanent way,” Busch says. “Then it’s an easier job when you’re getting ready to do it the next time.”

Spring hasn’t yet sprung, so if you are planning a big closet clean-out in the next few weeks, start thinking about making plans to get some organizers installed at the same time. It may get chaotic, but you’ll save yourself some time and effort in the long run—and you’ll thank yourself during spring cleaning next year.