Closet Organization: declutter your wardrobe and find your clothes again
What do you need from your clothes closet? Funny question, eh. But when you think about what your clothes closet is supposed to do, you can get a head start on organizing it so that it actually does the job. So, what does the ideal wardrobe do? It can…
- Store your clothing in one convenient location
- Keep the rest of the room clothing-clutter-free
- Protect your clothes
- Save time and stress by displaying clothing for easy choice when dressing
- Save work by storing clothes wrinkle-free and clean
- Provide a relaxing, peaceful bedroom atmosphere
Does your clothes closet do its job for you?
Or does it come up short in some (or many!) areas?
The #1 reason why a clothes closet doesn’t do its job is that it’s too full. An over-full closet is inconvenient, you can’t get things out without disturbing other things, you can’t find things, it overflows into the rest of the room, clothes get wrinkled and even damaged from being packed in too tight, and you can’t see what you’ve got when you come to dress.
How to declutter your clothes closet
If your closet is over-stuffed, you need to declutter it to get rid of some of the extras. Check for these decluttering candidates:
- Worn out, ripped or stained clothes and shoes (you only need a few for washing the car and gardening!)
- Clothes now out of fashion (and you hope will never be back “in”!)
- Items which don’t fit (even if you get back to that size, will you still want to wear those clothes?)
- Things you wore once and found you didn’t like
- Things which don’t go with anything else
- Items which you haven’t worn in more than a year and are never likely to wear again
- Non-clothes: where else could they be stored?
Sometimes simply getting rid of the obvious clutter frees up enough space that we can go on and organize, but usually we need to dig deeper. Often, too, getting rid of just a few things doesn’t solve the long-term problem and we’re back where we started within a few months.
Finding a long term clutter solution
A long term solution takes more effort and more thought, and sometimes we need a bit of help. Getting a friend or family member to come and help is a good way to improve our motivation for getting rid of stuff, but does have drawbacks. An even better way is to work on ourselves from the inside out so that we can a) let go of the things which are cluttering up our lives, and b) stop bringing more clutter in! There are several online books and resources available to help - check these out and see which would suit you best:
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