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Ouch. This one is painful. Personally, closets are where my own decluttering efforts will focus during this Decluttering Party we have going on here.
I’m proud of how I’ve decluttered my kids’ clothing in the past four years. I still have a long way to go with my own clothes.
But I have made progress. In this post, I’ll share strategies I’ve learned for cleaning out the closet and links to my own clothing decluttering projects.
As always, I’m also pointing you to this post where I link to most of my decluttering strategies. I use those strategies in all my decluttering efforts.
Accept that Clothing Can Be Clutter
This one was hard for me.
Clothing is useful. You have to wear it EVERY single day (really), and it gets dirty/stinky so you have to have multiples of it. As someone who used to struggle with keeping laundry under control, having extra clothing was a source of comfort to me. The more clothes I had, the less I worried about hitting a day when there was nothing clean to wear.
Except that, ironically, we frequently did hit those oh-my-word-are-we-out-of-undies-again days. And I now know that one of the main reasons those days happened was that we had too many clothes.
Just like I explained in the post about decluttering your kitchen, it’s a big ol’ vicious cycle. More clothes mean I can wait longer before I have to wash them. Waiting longer to wash them means I have more to wash. Having more to wash means I’m more overwhelmed. Being overwhelmed makes me think I need more clothes. Buying more clothes means I can wait even longer.
And so on and so forth.
I finally accepted that ANYthing I had too much of, ANYthing that made me feel overwhelmed . . . was clutter. Therefore, clothing was clutter for me.
Do the Easy Stuff First
I know. I say this all the time. But really, all of my basic decluttering strategies apply to all decluttering situations. I’m just breaking it down by project-type this week.
Specifically, “the easy stuff” in my closet is the stuff I have been meaning to get rid of, but haven’t.
Things with holes. Things with stains. Things I NEVER wear because they don’t fit right or itch or are a color I don’t like.
Let’s not discuss (today) why those things are still in there. Once the “duh” things are gone, the racks (or piles) are much less overwhelming.
It’s so simple and obvious that you might be tempted to skip it, but don’t. Making visible progress right away makes a huge difference in how a decluttering project will go.
Treat Your Drawers as Containers
Just in case you are from Texas, I’m talking about dresser drawers. Not drawers like you wear over your hiney. (Drawers can be Texan for undies.)
Anyway . . . containers are meant to contain things. To limit them. (Really. If this boggles your mind, don’t worry. It used to boggle mine too.)
Drawers are containers. I used to get tempted to run out and load up on storage containers when I felt the urge to get organized. This never ended well.
There is a time and place (and function) for storage tubs, but first . . . use your drawers as containers. Containers provide natural limits and boundaries. Begin by removing everything in one drawer (not a method I recommend for non-clothing drawers).
Refill that drawer with your favorite items first. ONLY put the things you love love love in there. The workout pants that you choose first every single time they’re clean. The t-shirt that’s oh-so-soft and is the perfect length to hide what needs to be hidden.
If you run out of FAVorite things but the drawer still has room, leave the not-favorite-things in a pile and move on to the next drawer to repeat the process. Again, only put back the items that make the I-LOVE-THIS cut.
If you get through all the drawers and there’s still room, choose things out of the pile that you want to keep. Put them in a drawer. If the drawers are full and you run across something you really want to keep, that’s fine. Just choose another something (already in a drawer) that you’re willing to get rid of to make room.
Whahhh???
Right.
The drawer is the limit. Once it’s full, something has to come out in order for another thing to fit in.
If I’ve hurt your feelings, I’m sorry. Go here to see that I truly do understand your pain.
A Word About Laundry
In the post about decluttering a kitchen, I recommend washing the dishes first. Seeing every dish clean at one time can be a real slap in the face for a plate-lover.
But oh my word . . . the thought of catching up on laundry before even starting to purge clothing can make a girl like me give up before she starts!
So don’t. Go ahead and declutter the easy stuff. Use your drawers (and closets) as containers before you start hyperventilating over the piles of dirty (or clean) laundry you need to conquer.
Here’s the thing. Those things sitting clean in your drawers and hanging in your closet? They’re the things that aren’t dirty. This means a lot of them probably aren’t your favorites because they haven’t been worn. Getting them out of the picture will help you gain decluttering momentum.
And as you do laundry, practice that irritating totally logical one-in-one-out rule.
Does thinking about laundry give you heart palpitations?? You can read about my own Laundry Metamorphosis here. I’ve chronicled it all on this Slob Blog and can say that four-and-a-half years into my deslobification process, I DO have laundry under control.
Now for links to my past clothing-decluttering projects, mindset changes and other random clothing-focused posts:
One Week’s Worth of Clothing – My Drastic Summer Experiment (This crazy whim helped me change my mindset about my kids clothes more than anything I’ve ever done.)
Week One Report on My Drastic Clothing Experiment
Random clothing-focused posts
A Looser Moral Code Might Really Help
Three Tips to Prevent Overbuying at Thrift Stores
Clue #1 in the Master Bedroom Mystery – Good Intentions, Bad Results
Give it to Nony . . . She’ll Take Anything
It’s Okay to Keep One, Right? (How I handle keepsake baby clothes.)
Clothing Decluttering Projects
Sometimes a Good Purge is Just What You Need (When my best friend helped me clean out the closet.)
Organizing Products and Why They Scare Me – Changing a clothing storage solution that had NEVER worked.
Purging Kids’ Clothes . . . Again (Unexpected benefits of a “quick” purge)
Ten Things . . . Just Ten Things?
Where Fine Washables Go to Die
Two Newly Empty Storage Containers (Going from three to one clothing storage container!)
New here? Well Howdy-doo?! (That’s Texan for “How do you do?”) Be sure to check out my decluttering page, my free printable checklists, my e-books (on sale this week!), my podcasts my explanation of why I don’t worry about being normal, and more about what you’ll find here at A Slob Comes Clean!
What are you decluttering this week?
My newest book, Decluttering at the Speed of Life is now available wherever books are sold!
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--Nony
Today I posted the results of my first declutter project: my shoes! While this is not my whole closet, it is a portion of it. I decided my tackling my whole closet at once would be too overwhelming as it is going to be a HUGE task. Thanks for your inspiration! Keep it up 🙂
Scary thought, tackling clothes clutter. Not sure what to do about my daughter’s clothes. She has enough to stock a small resale shop…and apparently loves them all. But since they’re confined to her room, and she is responsible for washing them, I’m not going to worry about it. My son is happy with the basics, so his aren’t a problem. Mine – While I have nowhere near as many as my daughter, I have clothes I know I haven’t worn in ten years. I guess I’ll set a goal of taking a big bag to the Hospice store on Friday.
Drawers are definitely ‘texan’ for underwear. I almost couldn’t finish reading your article after I read that. We do have some funny words here in Texas!!
Your recent posts inspired me to do some serious decluttering. I made a list of every space that needed work. I started with my laundry room. Got rid of cleaning supplies I didn’t like or use such as the swiffer that required refilling with their cleaner. I sorted through a couple small boxes of decor that I don’t have out because of my small place and decided to donate a few things I decided I wouldn’t ever use. Then I decluttered the bathroom which mostly consisted of tossing half-used and now expired medicines. I still have a lot to go but it’s so freeing to get rid of things, especially when it’s so easy to do.
This isn’t really about clothes, but the message hit home for me about our towels of all things. I was noticing how they are getting frayed around the edges. We have been married for 25 years and I can not remember purchasing a single towel for us, so the towels we have were ones we received all those years ago.
I want some new towels!
In true Dave Ramsey fashion, I was mentally adding up the cost to replace all our towels so I could start saving for them. I just counted what we had in the bathroom. (Oh, did I mention that it’s just my husband and me in our family?) Yesterday when I counted we had…25 towels! 25! And that doesn’t include the ones in the dirty laundry. My first thought was that is going to cost a fortune to replace all these! Then I started thinking why do we need to replace all of these?
Then I started thinking about our towels and how they are everywhere! They are in two drawers in our bathroom vanities (the normal container for them), they are in the cabinet over the toilet, they are stacked on the countertop waiting for my husband to put them in the cabinet over the toilet because I can’t reach that high and they are stacked on the tank of the toilet (for the aforementioned reason).
I came to a conclusion…we don’t need 25 towels for the two of us. We probably don’t really need 10, but that is what I am going to budget for.
I am going through the towels today and donating 15 to our vet’s office.
My sweet husband just read this and he informed me that 10 towels will only work if we do laundry more often. 🙂 He’s right, but I’m getting rid of those 15 towels anyway.
Happy New Year everyone!
Go you!! And you just may find that doing laundry will be easier when you have fewer towels!
Oh I needed to read this today…I will leave it open at work & re-read it before going home & I will clean out the drawers. Everyone’s. Especially the kids. They chose the same 3 or 4 outfits regularly & I just keep piling in the clothes. Mostly because the better-off-than-me-neighbor gives me all these nice items and I happily stack them in their respective rooms because they are such nice, name brand clothes- and they never get worn. One in, One out. Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m kind of offended…I’m from Texas and I do not call my underwear “drawers.” Maybe you watched a cowboy flick and think it’s all the same and for that I’ll say “Bless Your Heart!” I knew what you meant by drawers…Yes I specify dresser drawers and even if there are people out there who do call underwear drawers – they can put two and two together about what kind of drawers you are meaning. Just like when you can decipher Polish (the country) and polish (buffing an object.) But thinking as the teacher that I am everyone can gain the knowledge necessary by context clues if you did not specify and just said drawers. Thank you for talking down to us like we are two years old…
Don’t be offended! That was just me being funny! I was born here in Texas and have lived here all but a few years of my twenties! (And I don’t think I’ve ever watched a cowboy movie all the way through in my life!) We called them “Drawers” in my family. My husband’s family has been here for many generations and you wouldn’t believe the expressions I’ve learned from them!
Hopefully Kim will find her sense of humor while she is decluttering.
Awwww. My winky face didn’t publish at the end of my comment. I guess that serves me right for being snarky. 🙂
I never knew Texans called underwear “drawers”, I’m From the UK and my eighty-five year old mother calls unders drawers, I thought it was a quaint old English expression!
Since writing this last year, I’ve seen the expression in various non-Texan books!!
Being from Texas, I actually had a giggle at the drawers teasing. Though, I heard it more from my grandparents in Oklahoma than in Texas! Hopefully Kim will realize that you were just joking around .. and also that Polish is a language and Poland is a country. 😉
I recently saw a one-in-two-out rule on another site (don’t hate me) that made me think, am I even doing the 1N1out rule?
I am guilty of keeping a super cute shirt that looks good on me when I’m feeling skinny, but that hardly ever happens anymore. I am allowing myself to purchase clothing for myself when I need it (which is why I keep them because I never allow myself to get new items.)
While decluttering during a fold and put away session I found that I really hate a lot of my clothes but only keep & wear them because I’m too cheap to buy more. No more!!
And I have no problem doing the 1N2Out if it’s my kids clothes so a jump to mine should be easy, right?
Oh Brittani, you made me laugh!! I don’t hate you. And yes, giving myself permission to buy a thing or two when I NEED it helps me get rid of things!
side note pretty obvious so that’s probably didn’t mention it but favorites of that type of necessary clothing item. if perhaps you put socks underwear and bra all in one drawer you still need a certain amount of each even if all the undies are your favorites and you can’t stand any of your bras. I have multiple pairs of capris I love and a few thin long pants but for that week or two in winter where I need extra warm pants I only have one I love. I live in to mild of a climate to fully pack away all seasonal cloths it is safe to say I wont need a winter coat or mittens for summer but I never know when I might need a hoodie and sweat pants in July or short sleeves and Capri pants in February. but I love the container idea. I have been practicing it currently three month pregnant and about to move so I have some weeding to go through. anything my pre-pregnancy size that is not nursing friendly like most dresses and a few tops and some of my bras. go bye-bye when I grow out of it. because I plan on breast feeding past a year and when shortly after that I will be trying for baby number two. nothing I have is worth holding on to for three or four or more years.
Are your books in print that I can buy or just e-books? I know, a book is more clutter, but I have a hard time reading on the computer screen, hurts my eyes.
Sorry, Amy, but as of right now they’re only e-books.
I understand this. BUT, how do you handle,
Winter clothes and summer clothes, and clothes for work, if you could find someone to work for? Right now I alternate winter and summer clothes, by YIKES! Putting them in tubs and in the attic. No extra closets… Unless you count the top rack of my granddaughters’
Closet!
Help!
You handle them the same way. Whatever there is for that season has to fit in the space you have, and whatever is kept for the next season has to fit in the containers you have which have to fit in the space you have to keep those containers.
For the items that I could not possibly donate, I wear for cleaning/dusting/really horrific projects and then promptly throw them away. This way the items get “one more use” before I need to “purge” them from my space and I am not using clothes that would (in my weird mind) “destroy” my washer with whatever I pick up from my “project” at the time. This allows me to declutter my closet in a slow manner, but in a way that I can accomplish other tasks at the same time! (It may not be the best way of doing things, but it works for me as I work through my deslobification process. If I didn’t find Dana’s book/website, I never would have accomplished what I have so far!!)
Great idea!!!
I’m an artist and the clothes I work in get really beaten-up. I used to have a job that involved lots of travel and I would buy a cool tshirt on each trip. Weeelll that was in the 80s.. and those shirt look really rough, but for some of them I have actual really good memories. Those shirts become my studio shirts and I just can’t worry if I get paint or rust on them. I also wear studio shirts for grungy cleaning… really messy cooking… or sometimes eating spaghetti… but I DON”T go out in public in them.
BUT I have a funny story about this. We’ll soon be moving away from the place I love to go to a job my husband loves. Where I am now I can get to the beach in 20 min. I’ve vowed to take in as many beach sunsets as I can before we move.
I have a alarm that tracks the sunset and goes of a a set time before each day. I drop what I doing, get in the car and drive – no decision making – the sun won’t wait on me to mull things over – so I can’t take a ton of time changing clothes. In fact if I decide I want to get in the water I just walk in in whatever I’m wearing.
Right now I’m decultturing for the moving and cleaning for the house sale and fixing stuff like a wild woman.. so i’m wearing those studio clothes… and I have this one t-shirt that makes me laugh every time I see it. It’s bright turquoise and says “HOT 1” in big yellow letters. What’s funny is that my mom bought it for me (probably at a thrift store) because she knows I love the color.. but somehow she missed those yellow letters.
The other day the alarm went off, I took off my tennies, stuck my feet in beach sandals and grabbed the bag I always take with me. The sunset was casting a beautiful light on the water – it looked like a huge pink and green opal and it was really warm that day. I dropped my bag and walked straight into the water. After the sun was down I got out and walked along the edge of the surf, drying off and enjoying the last of the light. So… here’s this 53 year old woman, walking on the beach in a wet tshirt that says HOT 1 – totally surrounded by cute little college girls in who had come out for the beach drum circle. It was pretty ridiculous.
xo!
I once worked in a big-box discount store, and had to wear black pants and a collared white shirt. I had accumulated about 15 pair of pants and 10 shirts. I would sometimes be scheduled to work 9-10 days in a row, so I decluttered 5 pair of pants.
Drawers are for containing clothes I actually wear?! I honestly never thought of that….Let’s see my bureau has four drawers (I think, since I seldom look in it)…The top drawer has all those “things” that are too small of a category to go anywhere else…eyeglasses…binoculars…bookmarkers…greeting cards…keys…gift cards…you get the idea. The rest, well, I am pretty sure one has really old bathing suits (going back to college). The ones I currently wear hang in the closet! One drawer has lingerie from the past, you know the really pretty stuff that never comes out of the drawer because its either cold and you want the snuggly stuff, or its hot and you want a tank top and shortie pjs. And one drawer, maybe, has some really old clothes from work days …. I mean like (blushes) maybe the 80s. What a concept. I could just chunk all this old stuff and actually use my bureau! Dana you have opened my mind’s eyes.. Laughing at myself.