How-To: Organize Your Closet

Choosing an outfit each day can be frustrating or even discouraging. The potential for negative projection onto your wardrobe may be decreased [or even eliminated?] with a well-organized closet. Organization is something I wholeheartedly celebrate and enjoy: I'm always trying to improve on the way my home is ordered to make it the most clean, comfortable, and convenient environment possible. To that end, and for the sake of this blog, let's start in the closet!

Here are some suggestions on how to organize your personal closet:

• Arrange a week's worth of outfits in the front

This way, each day is ready and waiting for you, and you're able to look ahead and plan out your week with some strategy. Make it like a little project at the end of the weekend to plan your next seven days with clothing based on what you know of your plans.

• By color

Sometimes I like to choose what to wear based on what color families I've worn recently. I realize probably not everyone cares about this, but I like to vary color schemes throughout the week instead of, say, wearing five different shades of blue-themed outfits five days in a row. With a closet organized by color, it helps to categorize into families and visually separate like items to help you pick from different sections and use the entirety of your closet's color wheel. 

• By what you've worn recently already

This method makes it easier to avoid repeating a lot of same pieces. If you've worn it and it's come back through the laundry, hang it in the back of the line to assist turning your attention toward some of the pieces that may get less exposure. 

• By season

If you're fortunate enough to have your closet be big enough to hold all your clothes at once, than this method will be nice to create relevance for current weather. You could either hang all warm-weather pieces together and all cool weather pieces together, or you could categorize by piece. For example: hang all your shirts in graduating order: halter/spaghetti strap, tank/sleeveless, cap/short sleeved, 3/4 sleeved, long sleeved, sweaters. 

• By piece

That is, in some order that helps you see in outfit equations instead of just in separates. It could be something like: skirts and pants, then tops, then vests, cardigans, and blazers, and dresses at the end. With this order, you could go down the rack and create an outfit choosing a piece from each major category [bottoms, top, completer (vest, cardigan, or jacket)...and if you're really stuck, skip straight to the dress section and get your outfit in one choice!].  

• By casual to dressy [or vice-versa]

This will make it easier to pick clothing based on occasion [work, leisure, fancy night out, casual dinner with friends, etc]. Instead of having an occasion in mind and taking one glance at your closet before determining you have nothing to wear, you will have already narrowed the field by categories and can determine from your categories something you already deemed situationally appropriate. 

• Space-saving idea:

Hang more than one piece on a hanger. I know it sounds obvious, but it's also very convenient. If you take the time to hang a coordinating top under each cardigan in your closet, then you'll have already assembled outfits ready for the taking--just add a pair of jeans or a skirt.