Here’s some friendly advice: heed the old saying, “Less is more.” You’ll save an enormous amount of time, money and stress by thinning out your huge wardrobe.

1. Get the proper supplies

Buy a starter set of 30 hangers, or 60 if the closet is shared by two people. Go for the sturdy ones. They can be obtained at a houseware store or online. Buy all in one colour for uniformity [or if you’re sharing closet space with someone, get a different colour for yourself]. While you’re at the store, pick up a few sturdy skirt and pants hangers as well. Vertical skirt hangers with clips that hold 5 – 6 skirts on one hanger are a great choice. In addition, pick up an expandable shoe rack and a tie rack if you wear ties.

2. Start with a clean slate

Pull out everything [yes, everything] that’s currently in your closet. Keep in mind, as you’re doing so, that you probably only wear 20 per cent of your clothes on a regular basis; 10 per cent of them are for special occasions; and the other 70 per cent of them are probably never used at all.

Keep in mind, that you probably only wear 20 per cent of your clothes on a regular basis

3. Separate clothes into five piles

A  Piece of clothing that meets any of the following criteria:

• it is outdated
• it is ripped
• it is stained
• it doesn’t fit [if you’re not sure whether or not it fits, try it on now]
• you think it may come back in fashion someday
• you wouldn’t dream of ever wearing it again

B   Wire hanger pile. If you have any wire hangers in your closet, this is where they go. Here’s the problem with them: they’re weak, they stick up in the air, and they damage your clothing.

C   Clothes that need minor repairs such as sewing a hem or replacing a button. If it’s too much of a hassle to repair it, then don’t put it in this pile.

D  Clothes you love and wear at least once a month AND clothes you love and wear at least twice a year [special occasion wardrobe]. Your wardrobe should always make you feel good about yourself. If you don’t love it or wear it often, it doesn’t belong in this pile.

E  Any other items that don’t fit into Category A, B, C or D.

4. Category A or B

Dump it or donate it. Okay, now here’s the fun part. Grab a large garbage bag and dump everything [yes, everything] from your ‘A’ pile into it. Bring it to your local charity organisation first thing in the morning. If you’re still reading this in disbelief, take a deep breath to get over the initial shock, then resolve to toss it or donate it. You’ll feel better in the end. While you’re at it, take all those terrible, awful, lousy wire hangers in your ‘B’ pile and bring them to your dry cleaner’s for recycling, or dump them immediately. Are you still considering keeping something from pile ‘A’ or ‘B’? Please, dump it. It’s clutter. You’ll feel better about it later when your closet is organised, inviting and free of chaos.

5. Category C

Now that your ‘A’ and ‘B’ piles are donated or trashed [I hope], let’s move on to your ‘C’ pile. This pile should contain those articles of clothing that need minor repair. Get a basket or container; dump this entire pile in it. Now, carry that basket over to your clothing repair area. Give yourself a two-week deadline. If the repairs are not done in two weeks, dump or donate the entire basket. After all, if it’s not important enough for you to repair, it’s clutter. It’s easy for clutter to build up, and I want to help you eliminate any chance of it happening to you again.

6. Category D

Organise your keepers. Sort everything in your ‘D’ pile by category of clothing [blouses, skirts, pants, suits and so on]. When done sorting, start with one category. Take one article of clothing at a time, put it on a hanger [the colourful, sturdy kind] and hang it in the closet. [Important note: If you found something that didn’t belong in the closet in the first place, don’t put it there again.] Do this until you’ve managed to hang all of your categories of clothing, making sure that all clothing and hangers are facing the same direction. [By the way, if you share your closet with someone, don’t mix clothing together. Put each individual’s clothing on either side of the closet.]

7. Category E

Categorise and organise everything. Now is the time to categorise what is there in the ‘E’ pile. If these are items that have to be stored in your closet for lack of any other storage space, then start by sorting them. Then, get some inexpensive organising containers so that each category remains separated and place the containers on shelves in your closet.

8. Sort your shoes

Now is a good time to set up your brand new, sturdy, expandable shoe rack and neatly place your shoes on it.

Remember that a well-organised closet always has room to accommodate more clothes or accessories

9. Finishing touches

Now, you’re ready for some finishing touches. If you install a few hooks on an empty closet wall, you’ll be able to hang belts, umbrellas and handbags. If you’re lucky enough to have cubbies in your closet, purses and hats can be stored there; otherwise, put them on your closet shelves. You can even pick up a clear, over-the-door shoe bag for small accessories such as hosiery, scarves, jewellery and so on. Don’t put shoes in the shoe bag. It may sound funny, but these bags are too flimsy and awkward for the weight of most shoes, plus they collect dirt from shoe bottoms.

10. Final thoughts

Don’t overstuff. There should be plenty of room in your closet to get an item in or out. If there’s not, consider thinning out your wardrobe a little more. The goal here is quality, not quantity. Don’t buy another thing to wear without first determining if you really need it. Some people like to discard something they’re not really happy with anymore, for a new item.

Congratulations! You’re done. Don’t you feel great?! You deserve a special reward for your hard work. Treat yourself to dinner, or a double hot fudge sundae. Go for a massage. Rent and watch a favourite movie. Be happy. Your closet is!

The post 10 steps to a happy clothes closet appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Default design

When we don’t intentionally design a system, one will form anyway and it probably won’t be an optimal system; it seems to work for us, so we just continue to mindlessly use it. But using complicated systems for doing things like chores, cleaning, gardening and errands produces unnecessary stress.

Let’s look at a complicated system for cleaning our house that might get formed if we don’t deliberately design it:

Rita and Dhruv Gupta, a couple with two children, intend to keep a clean house. But the kids keep Rita busy and she can’t find the time to clean the glass showcase that is slowly accumulating dust. Dhruv is too tired to do it when he gets home from work. They also have a broken couch, chipped cabinet and paint peeling off the walls that they need to attend to. One by one, things start to pile up and the house starts to get messy.

One day the Guptas have guests coming over. Dhruv rushes around pushing the kids’ toys under the sofas to keep them out of sight. Rita quickly dusts the house, hiding the broken items and they are yelling and screaming at each other. So though the house looks ‘clean’ on the surface, there’s still a lot of hidden clutter and mess even when the guests do come over.

When we don’t intentionally design a system, one will form anyway and it probably won’t be an optimal system

Now, your house might not be this bad, but you get the idea. Things get problematical because there is no process by which to keep the house tidy and we get stressed out by the last-minute maintenance and constant mess. We clean only when we have people over and then let things deteriorate again until the next guest comes over, or until we’re sick of the way things are. A look around our house could reveal there are dust bunnies under the furniture, grime in the fridge, and we don’t even want to talk about what’s in and around the bathtub.

Designing a system that works

The solution to eradicate the mess is to design a simple system and create a routine that works for you. Here are some systems that might help you get started; you should modify them to suit your convenience. An important starting point is to write your ‘simple systems’ down, put them somewhere you’ll see them and focus on making them a habit for at least a month.

Here’s a sample system for house cleaning:

1. First, allocate a weekend dedicated to cleaning, so you can start your simple system with a clean slate. Get the whole family involved, and clean one room at a time, from top to bottom, clockwise, until you’re done. It helps to get rid of clutter.
2. Once your house is in order, have a clean-as-you-go routine. When you’re getting ready in the morning, do a quick wipe around the sink, toilet and bathtub. Put things away as you go through the day. Wash the dishes when you’re done using them instead of piling them to be washed at night. Mop the counters and table when you’re done cooking or eating.
3. Also have a daily routine: every morning, make your bed, take out the trash and restore anything that is out of its place to where it belongs. In the evening, sweep the kitchen/dining room and do a quick pick-up before hitting the sack.
4. Have a weekly routine: either designate one day for a quick one-hour clean [it shouldn’t be that dirty if you’ve been cleaning as you go], or have different days designated for different things—for example, wash the linens on Monday, vacuum clean the living room on Wednesday and so on.
5. Every few months, do a deep clean: wipe down the refrigerator and oven, clear out the cabinets.

Get the whole family involved, and clean one room at a time, from top to bottom, clockwise, until you’re done

Other chores

Besides cleaning your house, you probably have other chores you need to do on a weekly basis. It’s good to get a weekly routine going so you never forget to do them and you know when you have to do what.

Here’s a sample:

• Monday: Prune plants
• Tuesday: Clean the car
• Wednesday: Pay bills, update financial documents
• Thursday: Errands, groceries
• Friday: Change linen
• Saturday: Tidy the closet
• Sunday: Family Day

Efficient errands

By continuously doing chores everyday throughout the week, you will keep stress at bay, and also save time and money. Here’s a simple system that works well for me:

1. Keep an errands’ list and add to it as you think of things, so when errands’ day comes, you know exactly what you need to do. Also keep a running grocery list.
2. The night before your errands’ day, plan your menu for the next two weeks, jot down other items like—stationary that your kids require, or hardware like nuts and bolts you might need. Then look at all the tasks on your errands list and plan out the best route.
3. On errands’ day, you spend a couple of hours doing all the errands on your list and then buying all your groceries on the list. One trip, planned resourcefully, saves fuel, time and multiple shopping trips.

Once you get things in order serenity follows, with a knowing that you don’t have to rush around cleaning things up at the spur of the moment.

I advocate doing the important things first; don’t put them off by focussing on the small things. But the small things add up to big things. They weigh on you till they become a burden.

Instead of waiting for that long weekend or holiday to clean the house, do it one day at a time. Clean everything and put it where it belongs as soon as you finish using it. In the end, your house looks immaculate, and you feel incredibly relieved because the clutter and the list of chores were weighing on you mentally as well.

Keep cleaning your house. Try it. You’ll love it.

A version of this article was first published in the January 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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