Fashion Sizzle Presents Beauty Fashion Week 2019

Simply Organized has a number of great products to help you keep your closet organized. It’s time to rock your closet to make it functional (and dare I say, FUN?!).

Here are five fairly easy steps to help you do it.

Feeling overwhelmed already? Recruit the help of a friend or family member for an extra set of hands and moral support!

Then follow this map to closet bliss:

#1 Pull EVERYTHING Out

Yes, your room is going to look like a clothes heap for a little while but this step is essential. You need to be able to truly assess everything that you have so you can determine:

What you have in excess
What you are missing
Clothes that are already on hangers can stay on hangers. NOTE: You may also have clothes in dressers or other areas outside the closet. Please include these in the process so you are truly doing a FULL assessment of your wardrobe.

Depending on the size of your room, piles of clothes will end up on your bed and on the floor. THAT’S OK! This won’t last long. Stick with me.

Once everything is pulled out of the closet, this is your golden opportunity to clean. Many dust bunnies may have accumulated in your closet space spreading unwelcome allergens onto your clothes.

Vacuum and dust the area. You can also use cleaning wipes or a wet rag to wipe down any drawers, shelves, and other cabinetry. OK…now your closet is super fresh. 🙂

#2 Separate by Type

Separate all your clothes by type. They may have been in somewhat of an order in your closet or drawers, but this step is helpful for you to discover where you have excesses and where you have holes in your wardrobe.

This is the time when you realize, “WOW, I guess I have a thing for black sweaters, because I have 16 of them.” 🙂

When you’re determining “ types”, think about them in terms of how you live your life. Do you need to dress a certain way for work (i.e. suits, business casual, uniform)? If so, you may want to separate those clothes out so in the morning rush, you can quickly and easily locate what you need.

I actually wear a uniform to work so ALL of my “work clothes” (uniform shirts, uniform sweatshirts, skorts/shorts/pants) hang together in one section of my closet. It’s a 10 second process of pulling out whatever I need each morning. Easy as pie!

Map out HOW you are defining types. For some people all “shirts” go together, whether they are short-sleeved or long-sleeved. For others, they prefer separating them out.

Get very clear with yourself as to how YOU want to do it. A poorly-defined system will not sustain itself. Write your “types” out Then create an actual map of where each type is going to live in your closet, shelves, and dresser(s).

#3 Determine Your “Defining Elements”

In her book, “Let Go of Clutter” professional organizer Harriet Schecter addresses the concept of determining your “defining elements”. For the purposes of closet organizing, we are talking about the defining elements in your wardrobe, but this same concept can be applied to any items you bring into your home.

You want to determine the specific elements that you gravitate towards in your wardrobe. It may be certain styles, cuts, or colors. Schecter gives the example of “pockets”. She discovered through her own process of determining her “defining elements” that she didn’t like to wear anything without pockets. Subsequently, this made it very easy for her to purge items (Step #4) that didn’t have pockets.

As she got more and more attuned to her own “defining elements,” she realized that she actually only liked a certain type of pockets. Again, she could further fine tune her wardrobe even more based on this knowledge.

What are the clothes that you seem to wear all the time, even though you have a closet full of options? Those ones probably embody some of your own “defining elements”. Write down what those elements are. In fact, put them in your phone so you can reference them when you are out shopping if need be!

As an example, my defining elements are:

COLORS: Black, White, Pink (other colors in very small quantity)
SOLIDS: Prefer solid colors (prints in very small quantity)
STYLE/CUT
Tops: prefer overhead shirts vs. button-up
Bottoms: prefer straight-leg pants vs. skinny jeans style, prefer low-waisted bottoms overall
EASE OF WEAR: Prefer items that don’t require special accessories (i.e. avoid purchases of items that require a strapless bra)
VERY LITTLE DRY CLEANING NEEDED (only for formal attire)
NO IRONING NEEDED …EVER (I don’t own one!)
Getting clear on your personal “defining elements” will make the purging process in Step #4 much easier. This personal understanding will also prevent future purchases of items that do not fit the mold of your own “defining elements”.

#4 Purge, Purge, Purge

You now know what you like and what you tend to wear often. You’ve determined your “defining elements”. Now’s the fun part…(YES, it IS fun because now you have a context for what to keep and what to let go!)

Review each pile of “like items” (the piles you created in Step#2), one pile at a time.

Immediately pull out those items that do NOT fit your defining elements.
Immediately pull out those items that do NOT fit you right NOW! It doesn’t matter if it fit you last year…does it fit you now? And a quick tip about your “fat clothes”…keeping them is just telling your mind and body that you think you’re going to get “fat” again. Like Elsa from Frozen says, “Let it go!”. 🙂
Immediately pull out those items that are no longer in style and/or that you don’t feel awesome in. If you feel “ugh” when you put something on, it’s truly going to affect your confidence level and your “mojo” throughout the day!
Since you’re already determined via your map (see Step #2) where items are going to live, you have already limited the amount of each type of items you can keep because you can only keep what will fit into your pre-designated space. Bravo!

If you purge through a pile using the above steps but then you realize that the remaining items STILL won’t all fit in the pre-designated home, keep purging.

An overflowing closet space is like an overflowing file drawer; it’s not functional and you’re going to avoid using it. That is self-sabotage and we’re not down with that!

NANCY’S TAKE ON DONATIONS—GET READY FOR THE TRUTH BOMB!:
I know it feels better to give things away than to throw them away, but some clothes truly don’t qualify for donation. Stained or ripped/broken items don’t belong in the donation pile; they belong in the dumpster. Donate items that are in good condition only. Don’t make the donation companies do your dirty work.

If you don’t already have a favorite charity and would like a complimentary pick-up of your donation items, you can schedule one through any of these local organizations:

Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Hawaii
Kidney Foundation of Hawaii

#5 Track Your Progress with Backwards Hangers

You’ve pulled everything out of your closet. You’ve organized by type, and determined your defining elements. You’ve purged and purged some more.

Now is the grand finale. Return clothes back into your closet, shelves, and dresser(s) as defined by the map you created in Step #2.

For those clothes that will be hung, put your hangers back into the closet BACKWARDS. Yes, have the open end of the hanger facing you when you look at your closet rod.

It may feel a bit awkward to have all the hangers backward at first, but there is a functional purpose for this. Once you wear an item, hang it back into the closet in the traditional way. This is an excellent way to see with a quick glance what clothes you have worn and which ones you haven’t.

If you still have clothes hanging “backwards” (i.e. you haven’t worn them) three or more months from now, they may be ripe for the donation pile! I love this hanger exercise…gives me a great objective sense of what I’m wearing and what I’m not.

Wishing you total closet bliss! It makes for a much better morning routine. 🙂

P.S. Wall hooks or over-the-door hangers are a great place to hang “in-between” clothes…these are clothes that have been worn once (so you don’t want to put them back into your closet) and that you plan to wear again very soon.