How to Declutter Your Closet in 3 Simple Steps

Spring is just around the corner! It’s an excellent opportunity to declutter your closet and prepare your wardrobe for a new season. Decluttering your closet every new season has several advantages. First, it allows you to go over your wardrobe and understand which items you own. Second, it helps you take better care of your clothes when you organize them in your closet. Lastly, it’s a great way to shop your closet before adding new items to it. Moreover, it is an opportunity to examine your style and better understand which items work for you and which don’t and act accordingly.

Step #1 – Take all the clothes out of the closet

Start by taking all of your clothes out of your closet and placing them on your bed. This way, you’ll be able to see all the items you have. Sometimes the amount of clothes that we own can be quite surprising.

This is a good opportunity to screen out items and realize that we don’t really need so many clothes in order to build a versatile, timeless wardrobe.

After taking all the items out of your closet, sort them into three piles:

1. The ‘Yes’ pile – Items that you love and wear often.
2. The ‘Maybe’ pile – Items you are not sure about. We will address what you should do with them later.
3. The ‘No’ pile – Items you don’t like anymore, that don’t suit you or that no longer reflect your personal style.

Step #2- Sort your clothes

The ‘Yes’ pile – Items you love and wear

The ‘Yes’ pile is the most simple one to create. Any item you love and wear regularly will go into it. These are your wardrobe staples, which probably also reflect your personal style the most. These staples will help you build your wardrobe’s foundations while you add items from the other piles.

The ‘No’ pile – Items you don’t like anymore

This pile will include the items you no longer enjoy wearing. These are items that don’t fit your current size, no longer reflect your style, or are worn-out and can no longer be worn. Chances are you haven’t worn these items in over a year. They probably also take up valuable space in your closet. The presence of these items in your closet might make you feel like you have nothing to wear. They’ll also make it harder for you to see the other items in your closet. This is why you need to declutter them. You can decide whether you should try reselling the item, donating it, or taking it to the nearest textile recycling point according to the condition it’s in.

The ‘Maybe’ pile – Items you are not sure about

The ‘Maybe’ pile will usually be the most challenging one. This is because it contains items that you probably like but haven’t worn recently. Some of these items might be harder to part with because of their sentimental value. The following guiding questions can help you decide what to do with them:

1. What is the condition of the item? Is it worn out? Can it be fixed?
2. Does this item fit your current style?
3. Does this item fit your lifestyle today?
4. Have you worn it in the past year?
5. Do you already have similar items in your closet?
6. Would you repurchase this item?
7. Can you think of 3 possible outfits you can create with this item?
8. Does this item have sentimental value for you?

According to your answers you can make one of the following decisions –

1. Move the item to the ‘No’ pile
2. Store it for a while. If it’s an item you’re not sure you want to part with yet, or it has sentimental value for you.
3. Return it to your closet

Step #3 – Return the items to your closet

Once you have finished sorting the items in your piles, you can start returning them to your closet. Return the items from the ‘Yes’ pile and the ones you’ve decided to keep from the ‘Maybe’ pile. I recommend storing seasonal items that don’t belong to the current season separately, to free up space in your closet. After you finished organizing these items in your closet, you can start planning possible outfit combinations. For more info on how to plan your outfits, read here.

I try to go over my closet and declutter it every three months. It helps me to maintain an organized wardrobe while keeping only the items I love. This way, I can get the most wear out of them.

Want to declutter your closet too? Great! I have prepared a short tutorial guide that will help you decide what to do with your items 🙂

Good luck and let me how it went in the comments!