It's Time to Clean Out My Wardrobe

The day arrived. I'd been psyching myself up for this for some months.  I was all fired up and set to clean out my wardrobe. You know how that feels don't you? I find it's always a big, big job, but this time, I cracked it!

Okay, yes, I have too many clothes (Shhhh... don't let my husband hear me say that!), way too many. It's okay, part of this round of reorganising is to clear out things I've been holding on to for a very long time. 

This time I had a new strategy. I'd been thinking long and hard about it, and I was pretty sure I'd cracked it. 

Often I get everything out and place (or is that throw...) it on our bed and on the floor making a huge mess. Of course this then takes hours and hours to sort through, and most times I don't get it completed the same day. In fact, at times it has been weeks (OMG, who said that!).

But, with my new grand plan, I was set to try again.

The plan was to hopefully avoid feeling totally overwhelmed. And, I actually cracked it! Well.. almost...

My first task was to make space by doing a little wardrobe reorganising in the spare room. This was all part of the master plan. Once this mission was completed, I set to work. 

I'd figured out my approach in my head, now I just needed to implement it. Here's what I did:

1. Removed my hanging items that I've not worn and placed them in the spare room wardrobe space. This of course took about three goes because, as you do, I'd look at something and think, Oh yes, I'll wear that. But then I'd give myself a good talking to, before it was reallocated to the secondary space.
2. Next I moved my winter coats, jackets and other items to the other wardrobe and already our walk-in wardrobe was feeling quite different. I could actually move the coat hangers. Like I could slide them and move them along even. This was a miracle in itself. 
3. At the same time, anything I recognised as something I'd never wear again (or had never worn... eeeek!) went straight into a large black plastic clean sack for the charity store. 
4. The cube shelving where all of my t-shirts, jeans/pants, exercise gear, and sleepwear was next. I have so many flippin t-shirts! I mean so many. 
5. Then it was my shoes. I have a few of these as well (whoops!). I packed away my winter boots into their KMart plastic boxes (it seems they only have the boot ones in winter but the others are great too). 

Working through what would go was the hardest part. Getting those pangs of, maybe I'll wear that someday, were rife. But I had to be strict this time. There are plenty of people who would really appreciate the things I was donating, and that makes me feel so good. I knew that if I didn't put those bags into the car and take them to the charity bins immediately, there was every chance I would take things out. With the car packed up, off I went. 

One hick up in my process this time was a planned trip away. I didn't quite get to finish the sorting, but completed that upon my return. 

I'll definitely use this wardrobe organising strategy again next year; it worked really well. Now I have the spare room wardrobe with clothes I don't wear so often, and best of all, I have space in our wardrobe. And even better than that, I feel more organised. 

When was the last time you had a wardrobe organising session? I'd love to know how you do it. Tell me in the comments.

Until next time,