Q) It seems like I spend half my time taking vitamins and medicines. The bottles have outgrown my medicine cabinet in the bathroom and are threatening to take over my dresser in the bedroom.

I use a little plastic holder with the days of the week for my vital medicines but often get confused when I take the vitamins and other non-essential pills. How would you handle it? Thank you.

Reply: First off, congratulations on mastering your day to day plastic holder strategy! To eliminate the confusion, I would next separate the essential from the non-essential pill bottles.

If it makes sense to keep your essentials in a medicine cabinet, keep them there. If there is a more convenient location, move them.

Transporting and storing cumbersome quantities of little bottles is easier with an inexpensive ($5.00 or less) clear storage container that has a lid and handle.

You can use a second container for non-essential pills, which keeps them separate from the others, but handy and conveniently located. Perhaps you can store these in the kitchen or a different bathroom.

No matter how you store them, a good system for differentiating pill bottles is to put colored dots on the lids using stickers, magic markers, crayons, or whatever.

You could put pink dots (or smiley faces) on pills you take in the morning, green dots (or peace signs) on your afternoon meds, and so on. Or, a yellow dot on essentials, blue on non-essentials. You get the idea.

Taking pills might be a drag, but you can spice it all up using funky stickers and bright colors. In fact, use these ideas wherever you can, like to differentiate file folders or specify priorities on a list-it is fun and energizing!