How to Organize Your Closet (Overig)

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I try to clean out my closet every season. It’s something you should do regularly too. Doing it only takes a weekend and it let’s you see where the holes are in your wardrobe. Here’s my step-by-step guide to get rid of old clothes so you can make plenty of room for new ones.

What you’ll need:
- A day or two of mostly uninterrupted time
- Music that’ll keep you going
- 4 boxes or trash bags for sorting
- A chic, honest friend

Step 1: Gather everything you own
Take everything out of your closet. Empty your drawers. Pull out the under-bed storage. You need to go through everything you have (including jewelry) in order to organize it all.

Step 2: Sort
Grab your 4 containers and label them: Keep, Fix, Clean and Donate. Evaluate each piece of clothing and decide where it belongs:
- Keep: Items that you love and wear, feel good in, that fit you nicely and are in good condition.
- Fix: Pieces that would go in the Keep pile if only the hem was shortened or a missing button was sewn on.
- Clean: Clothes that need to be washed or taken to the drycleaners.
- Donate: Items that don’t fit, you don’t wear, are uncomfortable, unflattering or are showing signs of excessive wear.

Step 3: Deal with the To-Do’s:
After this initial sort, deal with the Fix, Clean and Donate items.
- Take your donations to Goodwill, the Salvation Army or a local charity.
- Drop off your dry cleaning
- Take what needs repairing to your tailor
- Wash everything that is dirty.

Step 4: Categorize
This is the key to an organized closet. Group items either by function or by type.
- Categorize by function: this works well if you have an equal mix of business wear and casual wear. Divide your clothes into work/professional dress, casual wear and formal looks.
- Categorize by type: this method works better if most of your clothes are multi-purpose. If you choose this method, divide your clothes by type, as in jeans, sweaters, t-shirts, blouses, pants, skirts, dresses, etc.
- After your clothes are categorized, sub-divide them by length and color. For example, a short green dress should come before a longer purple one.

Step 5: Put Away
Now that you know what you’re keeping and everything is sorted, it’s time to put it all away.
- Shirts: hang everything but t-shirts on slim, velvet covered hangers. They take up less space and shirts actually stay on them. T-shirts should be folded and either stored in drawers or placed on canvas hanging shelves.
- Sweaters: fold and place on canvas hanging shelves. Don’t stack more than 3 – 4 at a time.
- Pants, Skirts & Jeans: Hang using pant hangers. Pants and jeans should be hung upside down by the hem.
- Intimates, socks, tanks and swimwear: fold and place in drawers. Use clear drawer dividers if necessary.
- Jewelry: buy jewelry organizers or find a fun way to display your collection with a jewelry tree, DIY pegboard or cute hooks on the wall.

Now you can see where the holes in your wardrobe are and have plenty of room to fill them in with new clothes.