Travel tip: There’s a simple tool in your hotel room that will close up that irritating gap between the drapes.

Have you ever noticed that hotel room drapes seem universally unwilling to close fully, so that there almost always is a gap between each side. That’s not the end of the world…until you’re trying to sleep in and the sun pours through. Good morning! Not.

The ever-resourceful Carol Margolis, author of Business Travel Success and the Smart Women Travelers blog, gave me this ingenious tip: Use one of the clip-style hangers from the closet to “clothes pin” together the drapes before you go to sleep. Problem solved.