Organizing my Closet

Did you know that people only wear 20% of the clothes in their closet? That means 80% of my closet is being wasted, in regards to both space and moolah! How terrible is that! Unfortunately, I know it's true for me. I'm terrible at going through and purging. I always think "i just haven't found the right occassion for this yet" or "maybe i'll like it better if I lose 10 pounds". With 2 moves last year, I had plenty of opportunity to let go of some clothes, and while I did let go of some things, I know I should have let go of much more. I've had some clothes since high-school but I just can't give them away.

I recently attended a workshop called "Image and Influence - Polishing your Professional Look." I was there to "test it out" to see if it would be a good program to offer to our employees. I'm so glad I got the opportunity to go because it was definitely an eye-opener. Most of the things the presenter said seemed obvious. Of course I shouldn't buy a shirt (even though it's cute and on sale) if I have nothing else in my closet that I can wear with it. It's just going to sit there in the 80% and be wasted. I learned A LOT during the 3 hour workshop and one of the biggest take away's was about reorganizing my closet. So this past weekend, I decided I should try and implement some of the things I learned. It's not going to be an easy (or short) process but eventually I'm going to get there.

Hang up everything
It's ok to have bras and undies, as well as jeans and workout clothes in your drawers but everything else needs to be on a hanger. So that means during the winter, I need to hang my sweaters up instead of stacking them neatly in a drawer or on a shelf. The thought is, if you can't see it, you forget about it. And if it's slightly inconvient to get (you need a chair to step on, or it's a the bottom of a pile and you'll have to refold everything) then you won't take on the hassle to wear it.
It took awhile but I went through all the drawers and pulled out all my tops. I also hadn't made it through all the boxes yet so I took the time to do that this weekend too. My closet isn't big enough to allow me to hang up all my winter tops but when the seasons change, I'll need to rotate my clothes around. I also moved all my "party" dresses down to the basement bedroom closet. I obviously don't need those on a regular basis so it's better to use their space for clothes I could be wearing.

Organize by color
When you try and decide what to wear in the morning it's usually decided by the mood you're in. And that relates to color. I'm feeling fun and energized so I'll go to a pink top. Or I want to crawl back into bed so I'm going for a grey or black cardigan. Sorting by color makes it quicker and easier to find an outfit in the morning. The other important reason to organize by color is for buying new clothes. It's much easier to visualize what clothes you have when they're sorted by color. Then when you consider buying something new, you can think, "what do I have to wear with this?" and "do I really need another one of these because I have 5 like it already?" This way you don't purchase something that ends up in the 80% of unworn clothes.
Before my clothes were (loosley) organized by function - pants, skirts, sweaters, short-sleeve tops, etc. Sorting them by color was only slightly better than having to alphabetize files, because I discovered a few shirts that were hidden. Now that it's done though it's kinda neat to see how many and what shade of color I have. I realized that I have very few prints. (If you have lots of prints, she said to organize it by whatever color is most dominant.) And I don't have any yellows or oranges. Which I remember she said was ok. 80% of people look good in cool tones while only 20% look good in warm tones. I'm a cool tone girl.

Flip the hangers backward
This trick is for people, like me, who have a hard time letting go of clothes. Flip all the clothes around so that the hangers' open ends curl towards you. Then as you wear an article of clothing, flip the hanger back around normal (away from you). As you continue through the season you'll flip more hangers back around normal but most likely at the end of the season/year/whatever stopping point you want to use, you'll be able to easily see which clothes you didn't wear. If you didn't wear it this year, you're probably not going to wear it next year so it's ok to let it go.
This also took a while to do. I would suggest doing it before or at least at the same time as organizing by color. If you wait to do it last, you'll have to do each hanger individually otherwise if you do it as a group it might mess up your flow of colors. I'm really hoping this well help me purge at the end of each season. Even though I might really love a shirt, if I passed it by every morning for 6 months then it needs to find a new home where it can actually be worn. The Pioneer Woman just did this and gave out all her new or almost new clothes to her readers. I think she's gifted them all already but here's her first post about it.

Well, I think this about wraps up my longest post ever! :) Here's a snapshot of my still-chaotic-but-with-a-little-more-purpose closet. Organizing my shoes are next on my list.