One of the most common places in your house or apartment that tends to run into chaos is your closet. Your closet becomes a black hole. You just keep washing things and putting them in there. Half the time you probably don’t even know everything you have in there. Well it’s time to take it back under control. Here are a few helpful hints to get you started. It will make your life a lot smoother if you get organized. 

Inventory 

Yes, you take an inventory of your closet. You need to know what you wear, what you don’t wear, what you will never wear again. In this you must be brutal. If you have a friend that you value their sense of style, bring them along for emotional support. Man or woman, whoever who you are, you are going to have some emotional trauma throwing away clothing. You need to make four piles. Clothing that you actually wear (as in you have worn in the last few months), is the first file. The second pile is clothing that you have not worn in well over a year and will probably never ever wear again. The third pile is seasonal clothing, and special occasion clothing. The fourth pile is clothing you love but you never wear, as well as the clothes that don’t fit anymore. Once you have these piles it will help decide on what to put in the closet and what not to. Don’t forget to inventory your shoes and accessories as well.

Donate 

I know it’s difficult, but that pile of clothing that you haven’t worn in over a year, and probably never will, needs to be donated. Get it out of your face and out of your house. If you find yourself saying the words “but I might wear it” trust us, you know you won’t, so donate it. This is also where your friend comes in handy for emotional support. Try and justify to your friend why you should keep things, and they will blow through most of your excuses. Unless you’re better than the rest of us, plan on donating over 50% of your closet. That’s the goal, as insane as it sounds. 

Put it somewhere else 

The seasonal clothing and the clothing you wish to keep but you aren’t going to be wearing anytime soon, can be boxed up and put in storage. You can also hang formal suits and dresses and put them in another closet or a garment bag and hang somewhere else, such as the garage if need be. Get it out of your closet, it is just getting in the way. When the season comes back you can rotate these items back into your closet. If you gain 20 pounds you can put your fat clothes back in your closet too, but until then box them up and store them. This will in essence thin down your closet tremendously and allow you easier access to see what you have. 

Group things 

Keep things grouped together. Shirts to go with shirts, slacks go with slacks, sweaters go with sweaters. This will make it easier again to see what you have and choose what you’re going to wear. Nothing will be hidden. 

Lions and tigers and shelves oh my!

There are many good closet organization systems, ranging from very cheap to blood draining from your face expensive. You do not need to spend a lot of money to be organized, but it is a good idea to go with a closet organization system. Very often they are modular, and you can customize them for your needs. The idea is to have a place for everything and keep everything in its place. You may moan and groan from the effort to do it, but after you do it you will be so pleased. Every day you go to your closet to get clothing to dress, you will feel a little bit of happiness and pride, and it will make your whole day that much better. 

Taking control of your closet, in a way, is like taking control of your life. We all want our lives to be more organized and easier to deal with, but you have to start somewhere. Organizing your desk, your car, the trunk of your car, the garage, all of these things are things we want to do at some point. An easy one to start with, but which has the most impact on your daily life, is your closet. Get to it.