1) Declutter First
Before taking on the task of (re-)organizing and properly storing your clothes, I highly suggest you edit your collection of items and declutter anything you no longer love, need or doesn’t fit. As a first step you have to take out everything of your closet(s) and dressers. This is the perfect opportunity to go through your items and assess whether you want to keep them or if they’ve served their purpose and you can let them go. If the latter, put those clothes in bags or boxes to be donated or sold as soon as possible. Only those garments you truly love wearing should go back into your closet. Declutter first so you can cut down on the time and effort needed to organize your remaining items. Another plus is that decluttering creates space in your closet.
2) A Section For Items That Don’t Fit (Yet)
During the decluttering process you might have come across clothes that don’t fit you but you’re not ready (yet) to let them go. That’s ok. However, I suggest to keep those clothes separate from the clothes that fit you right now. This way you don’t waste any time sifting through clothes you can’t wear. Everything that takes up prime real estate in your closet should properly fit you. Put those items that don’t fit away in a box or a drawer that is out of the way. In addition, I suggest you set a reminder to revisit that box or drawer in about 6-12 months from now to see if anything fits by then. If not, I suggest to let them go and free up that space in your closet.
3) Organize By Category
For a fully functional closet, I recommend you organize your clothes by category. Don’t organize by outfits, but by simple categories. If you’re mixing and matching pieces (like most people), organizing by categories makes the most sense as it helps you find things quickly. Look at the types of garments you own and determine your categories and make sure they don’t overlap. Again, keep it as simple as possible. Common categories include coats, jackets, suits, dresses, skirts, t-shirts, pajamas, workout clothes, etc. Determine your categories and make sure every item you own belongs to one of the categories.
4) Hanging vs. Folding Clothes
Clothes can either be stored hanging or folded. Generally, items (or rather: categories) that are hard to fold or that would wrinkle too easily when folded should be hung. I usually recommend to hang up coats, jackets, suits, dresses, skirts, blouses, dressy tops and dress pants. All other clothing categories can be folded. Of course, if you have more hanging space than folding space, you can hang up more categories. For example, you might decide to hang up jeans and t-shirts as well because your dresser is rather small and can only really hold your pajamas and workout clothes.
5) File Folding Is Preferred
When it comes to folding your clothes, I recommend the file folding method as opposed to the stacking method. File folding clothes means you’re folding your clothes into neat, tight rectangles that stand up on edge. After folding, arrange the clothes in your drawer standing upright. This is a game changer as it makes each folded garment easily visible and retrievable. I only recommend stacking heavier garments like thick knit sweaters or bath robes as those don’t lend themselves to fold tightly and easily become undone. Rather fold those garments flat and stack no more than 3 or 4 of them neatly on a shelf.
6) Organize By Color
Within the categories you determined earlier, I suggest you organize items by color. Organize from darker colors to lighter ones. Once a new category begins, start again from dark and go to light. The order of colors I usually apply is this: black, gray, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, pink, cream, white. This way of color coordinating your closet helps you not only find items you’re looking for within categories with ease but it also helps you spot when a new category starts in your closet. Bonus: it also looks visually pleasing.
7) Dealing With “In-Between Clothes”
The question that comes up frequently is how to store those clothes that you’ve already worn but that aren’t “dirty” enough to be put in the hamper. I’d say it really depends on what YOUR personal comfort level is with that. Here are a few different options:
- Organize them back in with your “clean” clothes (aka, the clothes that you haven’t worn yet after they last were washed). The logic here is that if they’re clean enough to be worn again, they’re clean enough to go back in the dresser/closet.
- Keep them separate from the “clean” clothes you haven’t worn yet. Two options:
- Hang them all up on hooks or hangers in a separate section of your closet all the way to the left or right from your clothes rack. Or if you have hooks, hang all of those in-between clothes on designated hooks. This way you immediately know and have access to those types of clothes and they live there until they’re ready to go in the hamper.
- Similar to above, create a section in your dresser drawer (all the way to the right or left) where all of those in-between clothes live. Again, makes knowing and accessing them easy until it’s time for them to be washed.
- Do a hybrid version of no. 1 and 2. E.g., if you feel comfortable for jeans to go back in with all the other jeans, but you want comfy clothes to have their own “in-between section”, then that’s what you do.
If you’re not sure what works for you, just try out one of the versions mentioned for a week and see how you feel.
8) Use Organizing Products Wisely
Less is more when it comes to implementing storage products. If you use too many or unnecessary products, they can make your closet look cluttered and take up more space than you’d like. That’s why I recommend you buy organizing products as one of the last steps in your process once you’ve decluttered and can assess what you really need to buy. This saves you money, time and energy. If you need organizing products such as bins, carefully measure the areas you need them for. In fact, measure twice! This prevents you from buying the wrong products that you’ll have to return.
9) Label For Maintenance
After (re-)organizing your clothes, you might need to get used to where things have their new place. Your brain needs some re-training and labels can help with that. For clothes you store in drawers, it can be useful to label the top of the drawers. Label each row of clothes with its category name. If you happen to store folded clothes in bins on shelves, you can label the bins. For hanging clothes, you can use clothing rack dividers for each category and label them accordingly.
(Lisa Tselebidis is a professional organizer and KonMari certified consultant offering in-home services in the NYC, New York-area as well as virtual services worldwide. Get in touch with her HERE.)
