Professional organiser, Nathalie Ricaud, from Get Organised & Beyond, shares 7 simple steps to organising your wardrobe - and keeping it that way!
Do you have a wardrobe over-spilling with clothes yet feel you have nothing to wear? Maybe you’ve tried to organise it in the past, but it seems like nothing’s changed? Or perhaps you’ve put it off altogether, because you weren’t clear on how to begin?
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Read on as Nathalie shares her step-by-step approach to organise your wardrobe and tips to maintaining it.
STEP 1 | Envision What You’ll Gain From Having An Organised Wardrobe
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Maybe you want to be able to save time and easily put an outfit together, or save money and be more discerning when it comes to buying new clothes. Whatever your reason is, having clarity on what you want to achieve will help you get started and keep you motivated along the way.
STEP 2 | Regroup And Categorise
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Gather in your bedroom all the clothes you own, including the ones from the laundry basket and ironing pile, or stored in another room. Sort your clothes in categories - whether it’s by type, occasion/activity, colours or a combination of these.
STEP 3 | Purge
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Go through each of your categories and decide what to keep and discard. Purging by category is the only way to appreciate how much you have and decide how much you should keep.
Keep only what you need, use and love. And fit into your closets. Use these 8 questions to help you declutter:
1 | Is it in good condition?
2 | Is it comfortable wearing?
3 | Does it fit me NOW?
4 | Does it fit my body shape and colours palette?
5 | Does it fit my lifestyle?
6 | Does it make me feel good?
7 | Can I pair it with other items in my wardrobe?
8 | Is it more work to take care of it than I really care about it?
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Clothes that you don’t want to keep can be donated, given away, recycled, sold or swapped. Dispose of these as soon as the purge is over. Otherwise you risk starting a pile of clutter elsewhere, or changing your mind. Or having someone coming in and questioning the decisions you’ve made.
Give yourself a deadline for the clothes you need to alter, give away, recycle, sell or swap and if you haven’t done what you needed to do by your deadline, then donate the items.
STEP 4 | Put Your Clothes Back In Your Closets
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Every category of items needs to have a dedicated home so you can easily remember where to put an item away and where to retrieve it. Make sure that the clothes you most frequently wear are easily accessible. Otherwise soon enough you’ll be shoving them back in your closet instead of keeping them neatly folded. Also what you can’t see, you don’t use.
STEP 5 | Use Containers, Baskets, Or Boxes To Keep Categories Together
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It’ll help ensure the items belonging to the same category won’t end up in various parts of your wardrobe, set a limit on how much to own and make cleaning easier and faster. Invest in organising aids only once you’ve decluttered and organised your clothes so you’re clear about what type of organising products you really need.
STEP 6 | Fine-Tune
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It’s not always possible to get the organising right first time. You may realise after a while that the home you’ve allocated to your pants would be better used for your T-shirts, or that the basket you’ve allocated to your scarves is too small. Make adjustments until the system really works for you.
STEP 7 | Maintain
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Practise the following if you want to keep your wardrobe uncluttered and organised in the long run:
- Return things where they belong after you use them
- Purge regularly and often
- Buy only what you need
- Practise the “one in / one out” rule
- Build a capsule wardrobe of essential items that can easily be mixed and matched.
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Yes, it’s a bit work, but trust me, you’ll get a huge weight lifted off your shoulders once you’ve done it. Take a minute to close your eyes and bring the vision of a wardrobe full of clothes you’ll wear and make you feel great. Why couldn’t it be yours?
About Nathalie Ricaud
Nathalie Ricaud is a professional organiser and the founder of Get Organised & Beyond. She helps individuals who feel overwhelmed by all their "stuff" let go of things that are just stressing them out, and feel in control of their home and life again. She helps them establish systems to make sure they can find what they want when they need it, and maintain a clutter-free, organised and peaceful home.
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