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I love to de-clutter.
I really do. I love getting stuff out of my house and knowing that I won’t have to deal with it again. I especially love to declutter my clothes.
I hate having a full closet, but feeling like I have nothing to wear. It’s really just because I can’t see what I have when my closet is packed to the brim!
I just went through all of my clothes and then I went to visit my sister and helped her go through her whole closet too. I figured I’d share my super-fast and simple closet decluttering system in case ya’ll need to declutter your closets and don’t know where to start.
Completely empty your closet
I know this is the most cliché advice ever but there’s a reason that every decluttering tutorial ever starts by telling you to empty your closet.
It works!
There is something that happens when you see all of your clothes in one place. It really forces you to be honest with yourself about how much stuff you really have. When you’re confronted with the every piece of clothing that you own in one huge pile it becomes impossible to tell yourself that it’s not that bad.
Also, you have to finish going through your clothes if you ever want the pile to get put away. I’m a big fan of putting all your clothes on your bed to sort through them. That way you have to finish before bed time if you want to be able to sleep in your bed!
We’re going to do a quick sort for the bulk of your clothes but first it’s important to understand the categories that you will be sorting them into.
You are going to make three categories.
Keep
First is a keep category. These are the things that you wear all the time, love, or are necessary parts of your wardrobe.
This would be your favorite jeans or shirts. Also in this category are your winter coat and your swim suit. They aren’t items that you wear all the time but they are essential parts of your wardrobe in the appropriate season.
Get rid of
The second category is the get rid of category. These are things that you don’t love, never wear, or that don’t fit.
The sweater that your mother in law gave you that you never liked but kept out of obligation would fall into this category.
On that note, it can be really hard to get rid of things that people gave you, even if you never wear them or you don’t like them. Don’t feel guilty. Just appreciate the thought behind the gift and let the item go.
Maybe or I don't know
The third category is the maybe category. This is the category for anything that doesn’t immediately stand out as belonging to either the get rid of or the keep categories.
These are items that you might want to try on or that you are torn on getting rid of. If you don’t know what you want to do with an item, just put it in this category.
It’s super important not to get stalled out in this process of de-cluttering. Having a maybe pile lets you keep up the momentum and avoid getting stuck on an item of clothing.
Quick Sort
Once you understand the categories, you’re ready to start your quick sort.
Give yourself no more than five to ten seconds to make a decision on each item of clothing. Anything that takes longer than fifteen seconds to decide on should go into the maybe pile.
It’s important to move quickly and trust your gut feeling on this. The really awesome thing about doing a quick sort like this is that it makes it possible to get through almost all of your closet really, really, quickly!
Instead of spending hours debating over every single piece of clothing, a quick sort lets you sort through ninety five percent of your clothes in under ten minutes.
Sort the 'Maybe' category
Once you’ve sorted all of your clothes into categories you’re going to tackle your maybe pile and sort it into keep and get rid of. This is one of the most time consuming parts of decluttering your closet, which is why we’ve left it till the end.
By this point you’ve built up some momentum with your quick sort and you’ve already kept your very favorite items.
This does a couple things for you. First it removes some of the pressure you feel to keep items that you don’t actually love or wear. Since you’ve already kept your very favorites you don’t feel as worried that you’ll accidentally get rid of something you’ll really miss having.
Second, because you’ve already seen all the things you decided to keep, the bar has been set a little bit higher. In your mind, you’re comparing the items in the maybe pile to the items you decided to keep. I find that often times the items in the maybe pile really don’t stack up all that well once you’ve compared them to the obvious keep items.
Third, because you’ve already sorted out the get rid of and keep items, the maybe pile isn’t very intimidating.
When you try to figure out your maybe items while doing your quick sort you tend to get stalled out and think that the WHOLE pile will take that long to go through.
Most of the items in your closet are very easy to make decisions on. By taking care of them first, the pile of clothes that will take a little bit longer to go through is much smaller.
When you’re going through the maybe category I have a few criteria that I use to help make a decision. You may have more requirements for the clothes you decide to keep out of the maybe category, I would consider these the bare minimum though.
Does it fit?
A lot of people really struggle with getting rid of clothes that no longer fit them. My personal rule for clothes that don’t fit is this.
Am I actively and consistently doing something to get them to fit again?
So if I’m actively working out, eating right, or whatever other changes I need to make to get my clothes to fit and they are within one to two sizes of my current size, then I can keep them if I really love them. And you have to be honest with yourself on this question.
It’s not “am I going to do something to get back in these clothes”, it’s “am I already doing it”. It’s so easy to tell ourselves that we’re going to do it, we’ll start first thing tomorrow. But often times tomorrow never happens and ten years later we’re still holding on to our someday they’ll fit again clothes.
What about maternity clothes? If you’re planning on having another baby then keep them obviously. But they don’t need to be in your closet.
Put them in a plastic box and store them someplace else. I have a row of cupboards that are up out of every day reach that I store mine in.
Do you like it?
Compare it mentally to the clothes that were an easy keep decision.
Do you love these clothes as much as you do the ones you decided to keep?
As I mentioned before, often times I find that the clothes in the maybe category are really clothes that belong in the get rid of category. It just isn’t obvious until you’ve already sorted the rest of your clothes.
Also, the decision making process gets easier as you go through your stuff. So the shirt you had a hard time getting rid of when you first sorted it into the maybe category is usually a pretty easy decision when you come back to it after you finish your quick sort.
Is it ruined/stained/ripped?
Unless it is your very, very most favorite comfy pajama shirt or a shirt you use to paint in there is no reason to keep clothes that are ruined.
I know, you’re going to fix that rip. No, no you are not. If you were going to fix it, it would already be fixed.
Same for stained cruddy clothes. Keep a pair for messy chores and get rid of the rest. I have two or three pairs of work jeans and I think that’s plenty. I’m frequently doing pretty gross, dirty chores (cleaning the chicken coop, mucking out stalls, cleaning the dog run, weeding the garden) and I’ve yet to wish I had more work jeans.
In general, if it’s trashed put it in the trash already!
Do you need X number of that piece of clothing?
Seriously, do you need fifteen dresses?
For me I wear dresses once a week to go to church. I don’t need more than three or four dresses or skirts. If you wear a dress or skirt to work every day obviously you will need more than I do. I may need more work clothes than you. Or you may need more than I do.
It’s really a personal decision on how many of one item you need. For example, I have probably five or six basic black t-shirts. For a lot of people that would be a totally excessive number of black t-shirts, but I wear them three or four days a week. It totally makes sense for me to have several of them because I wear them. All. The. Time.
You have to make sure the number of any one item makes sense for you to keep.
Finish!
All that’s left is to put all of the clothes you’re keeping back in your closet and donate or sell the clothes you are getting rid of. I prefer to donate my old clothes or hand them down to family members.
Whatever you decide to do with them, do not, under any circumstances put them back into the closet! This is a one way trip.
This is why I prefer to donate. I go through my closet, sort my clothes and then all the donate clothes go out to the car the very same day.
The final step is to stand back and admire how much nicer your closet is without being stuffed to the very tip top! This is my favorite part of decluttering and it makes it all worth it when I can step back and see the difference.
What are your biggest struggles with organizing or decluttering? Comment below and let me know!
