Thinking About Clearing Out Your Closet? 3 Risk-Free Steps Before You Get Started

Is your closet overflowing?

When your closet is messy and you can’t see what you have, clothes get buried and forgotten. You waste time searching for an outfit. And every morning you create a sense of chaos, contributing to your feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.

Are you thinking about decluttering?

But you don’t know where to start?

I have a small capsule wardrobe today, but it wasn’t always this easy and stress-free. My master bedroom closet is Big! And before I started on this journey, my clothes and accessories still spilled out into all the other closets and storage spaces in my home.

I recognize the emotional and sentimental attachment you have with your closet.

Before you get rid of anything, let’s take a more empathetic approach.

Here are 3 risk-free steps you can take:

1. Turn your hangers

Turn all your hangers around, backward.

They should already be facing the same direction (closets 101), but turn them around so that they look backward. Now, whenever you wear an item, hang it back up in your normal way (ie. not backward). After a short time, you will see that you wear only a small portion of your clothes.

Your closet follows the 80/20 rule.

2. Make some space

You won’t need much space.

Don’t overcomplicate this part. You aren’t making decisions today. Push and shove until you have a small empty space in your closet, maybe 2 feet or so. This is going to be your “I wear this all the time” space.

When you find an “I wear this all the time” item (because you’re wearing it all the time!), hang it in this area of your closet.

3. Get yourself a bin

You will need an “I’m not going to wear this” bin.

Move the bin out of your closet. Put it somewhere else in your house. Once you decide to put an item in the bin, you don’t want to be distracted by it and start second guessing your decision.

Once you spend time in the first 2 steps, you’ll see that finding items for the bin is not as difficult as you imagined it would be.

But there is no rush.

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At this point, you’ve made major progress.

You know what you wear all the time. The items that fit. The items that are comfortable. The items that work for you in your current stage of life.

With no risk.

You haven’t gotten rid of anything yet.

But you are on your way to benefiting from a capsule wardrobe!