What’s one thing we all do before facing the responsibilities of our day?
We get dressed.
Do you think it’s possible to feel better about the day if you choose your clothes from a visually pleasing space?
I do, too.
When you select your clothes from a closet that is pleasant and inviting rather than fighting your way through a cluttered and scattered closet, you’ll feel the difference, guaranteed!
It doesn’t have to take a miracle or an army of people to make it happen. Here’s how to create some calm in your closet so your mornings feel the same way.
Unclutter the floor
If your closet floor has shoes strewn across it, it’s time to come up with a solution that will create order. This is something I’ve seen a lot. It’s surprisingly easy to collect more and more shoes especially as your feet change or the styles change or you simply forget what you have or want something new.
Chances are really good you aren’t wearing all of your shoes on a regular basis. But even if you are, you can get inspired by magazines specializing in organizing or images on Pinterest. Solutions that may work for you include:
- Pockets for shoe storage that hang from your closet rack;
- Casual shoes clustered together in baskets;
- Low shelving systems to line up shoes.
- And, most importantly, eliminate any shoes or boots that don’t fit, are too worn, or ones that don’t suit your current lifestyle. That will immediately create more space.
A messy floor could also consist of clothes that need laundering either at home or at the dry cleaners. Choose a pretty hamper to toss your home laundry in and another one for items heading out to be professionally cleaned.
If clean clothes have fallen off the hanger (we’ll talk more about that in a minute) – be sure to hang them up again so you can wear them.
Create beauty and order on the rack
Swap out your wire and mismatched plastic hangers for thin velvet hangers in one color. This step alone will make your closet look so much more beautiful—AND—keep your clothes from slipping off the hanger onto the floor as we discussed in step #1.
De-cluttering tips
Being overwhelmed in the closet happens when racks contain garments that fit along with those that haven’t worked in years. Nearly every woman owns more than one size clothing, but that’s not the problem. The key is to have ONLY the clothes that fit now in your working closet.
Pick a category of clothing like jeans. Pull jeans out of the closet and try them on. You’ll discover that:
- Some of them are no longer flattering,
- Some don’t fit,
- Some are too worn to be seen in public (even if they used to be your favorites!), and
- Some of them are just right.
Eliminate all the items in the top 3 categories. Now you can more easily see what you have and quickly find the pair you want to wear.
Once you’ve done this with one category, go on to another category and do the same. Yes, you must try anything on that you haven’t worn in the past couple of months. I’ve seen the value of this in working with women over the past 30+ years. It never fails and it’s really the only way you’ll know if something should stay or go.
After each category, take a deep breath and appreciate what you have accomplished. You create so much peace of mind when your closet holds only items that work for you right now.
Pace yourself.
Complete one category at a time before moving on to another. Even if you only have five minutes a day to work on this, you’re still making significant progress.
As I like to share, Louise Hay always said, “How you start your day is how you live your day,” and when you start your day with calm and ease, guess how much more likely it is that calm and ease will follow you throughout your day?
These 3 steps make an enormous difference. You’ll see that when you have a system that works for you it makes it easy to have order and beauty in your closet and easy to feel joy instead of stress as you get dressed.
If the thought of doing this makes you hyperventilate or you have the best of intentions but find that months and months go by and you still haven’t done it, I can help you create that system and many more. Get your closet right, and you’ll feel confident, heading into your day. Ahhhh…it’s a lovely feeling and you deserve it!
