A few weeks ago, I came home from work exhausted and literally tripped four times in my room because there was so much stuff on my bedroom floor. For the last month, we have had family visiting us, I have had a full work schedule and all of my free time has been spending time with the family. With all of this going on, my clean laundry pile and dirty laundry has been growing. My shopping bags of recent purchases have turned into clutter because I haven’t had a few free minutes to put it away.
I hope you joined me on my Insta Stories as I took you along on my closet cleaning. To start with, I have a very tiny closet. I spent about two hours taking everything out of my closet to clean it out and then using creative storage solutions to find ways for all of it to fit back in. Every few months I take everything out of my closet to find new ways to store things in my room. I have a full closet of clothing and shoes, but I am constantly taking garbage bags filled with clothes to Goodwill to donate. This isn’t my first post about organizing my room, and will definitely not be my last! I have a very small closet, but need a lot to fit into it. If I can make everything look neat and have a place, I am positive you can too!
Here are some closet organizing tips I shared in my Insta stories. If you like posts like this, let me know in the comments so I can share more.
- Get Comfortable Put on comfy clothes, light a candle, put on a good Netflix show to get yourself in the mood to start a project like this. The most difficult part is getting started. Once you start cleaning your closet, you can’t really stop because your room will become a mess in the process ! HA! Make sure you have enough time set aside to do this.
- Take Everything Out of the Closet I find it helpful to take everything out of your closet to start with a clean closet with nothing in it. I color code all of my shirts on my bed, put all of my purses in a pile and shoes go in a bin. A new thing I have started to do is to separate my work clothes and casual clothes.
- Make Piles Once everything is on your bed (or floor) I start to make piles for items to donate, seasonal storage and things to keep. I also make a pile of my work wardrobe and my more casual stuff. I’ll explain this last part further down!
- Make sure you love it before you put it back in your closet… I make sure that I love it before I put it back in my closet. I also have rules like does it fit correctly? Have I worn it in the last year? If I haven’t worn it lately, why not? I also put a year rule on my clothes. If it is from high school – donate immediately. If it has been in my closet since college- think hard and find a good reason to justify keeping it.
- Work Wardrobe and Casual Clothes Since we spend more days a week wearing work clothes than the basic t shirt or leggings, I found ways to make more room in my closet. I only hang my clothes that I would wear to work and my casual t shirts and more weekend apparel is folded and put in a hanging closet organizer. Just by doing this I saved sooo much room in my closet. It is also very helpful because when I wake up tired in the morning, I know I can just grab a top and I can make a work outfit easily. And of course, my closet is organized by short sleeves and long sleeves and then by color.
- Invest in Good Hangers Before you hang a thing in your closet, go to Costco and buy felt lined hangers to replace all of your current hangers. It makes a closet look neat, prevents clothes from falling off hangers and it takes up less room in the closet.
- Organize Your Off Season Clothes I have my winter wardrobe in cardboard boxes and organized by style and by fall/winter. I also have written on them what is in them so I know what is in each box. Helpful when you are looking for that cozy cardigan but can’t remember what box it is in!
- Creative Storage I took a bookcase that went on top of a desk and put it in my closet to store work pants and jeans. On the bottom, I use boxes to store my sandals, leggings and sweatshirts. No matter how big or small your closet is, it is helpful to put a bookcase or other storage in your closet like I did to make the best use of your closet.
Some friends from college wanted to come visit me and at first I said I couldn’t because I had work. I decided that work needed to come second and I needed to take some time out of my day to spend with my friends. As much as I got anxious about working a long day and then spending all of my free time with my friends that I usually spend sleeping, I realized that I need some girl time. After working a 9 hour day, my girlfriends and I headed off to a bar near me and we were out until 1am. I was exhausted, but I was happy to spend some time with the girls. A gentle reminder to make time for the people around you even if you have to be a walking zombie at work the next day.
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