It is always a good time to organize your closet, but especially in January for Clean Out Your Closets Month.  Why, you ask?  An organized closet helps you focus, makes decision-making and getting ready easier,  clears the clutter and elevates your favorite stuff to new heights. 

Click here for some great Pinterest Visuals of organizing solutions!

First, ask yourself:  What does not belong in my clothes closet?  Regardless of your closet size, the following items do now belong in your closet (though I have found them in client closets over the years):

• Old or broken computers, lamps, picture frames and golf clubs
• dog crates for non-dog owners
• furniture
• 20 year-old college text books
• other people’s stuff
• Christmas decorations / wrapping paper
• costumes unless it’s halloween,
• 11 pairs of ice skates (one closet)
• Shopping bags, un-delivered bags of clothing to donate or to go to other people
• The list goes on and on and on….

If you need more space, even after removing these obvious clutter culprits, it is time to dig a little deeper. Luckily, there are easy filters to make more space:

• Parcel out bedding to worthy charitable causes, under-bed storage, linen closets, top shelves in Space bags, or really big zip-lock bags.
• Store these types of clothes in well-labeled plastic bins in the basement / attic / garage:
  • Off season clothing (summer stuff in winter, heavy stuff in summer), sporting goods and overcoats.
  • Clothes that don’t fit your life today.  E.g, old work uniforms or work suits, maternity and postpartum clothes.  If you don’t expect to wear an item in the next 6 months, it does not belong in your closet.
  • Keep clothes for today’s life, and the life you want to have, at the front of your closet.
    • Ditch the fat jeans, it makes it too easy to slide back into bad habits!
    • On a job search?  Fine tune your professional look so you are ready for the interviews and new job.
• Purge or recycle dry cleaner bags and empty hangers.  It’s amazing how much space you can reclaim, and your closet will look so much tidier. 
• Pull out sentimental items you won’t ever wear but want to keep as treasure (Thanks CB and MB!).  Keep them (within reason) in well-labeled, stackable plastic containers elsewhere in your home.  Attic, basement, just out of your clothes closet.
• Let go of your shoe boxes.  I know some folks love their designer boxes.  The problem is that we forget and don’t use what is inside the boxes.  Clear boxes or over the door shoe racks are a much better solution for seeing and using what you have.
• Cut out duplicates:  Keep less in regular rotation.  Just last week, we removed 6 white t-shirts from each of my son’s drawers.  They only wear them for sleeping lately, so having 12 in the drawer just doesn’t make sense.  We’ll keep the extras in a bin in the laundry room, and replace worn out ones as needed. 

So, now you have made some space by clearing out some closet clutter. How do you optimize the space and stuff that is left?  Two words, Friends:  Vertical Space. 

• Use any blank wall or blank door, including the wall behind your hung clothes, for hooks and vertical hanging storage solutions (click here for some great visuals!!)
• Add an over-the-door hook or two for Clean-ish clothes.  You know, Clean-ish?  Not dirty enough to wash, not clean enough to get hung back up with everything else?  In my closet, clean-ish clothes are usually jeans or lounging pants, pajamas, perhaps a hoodie.  Limit the hanging options and wear stuff again until it’s ready to wash. Just do not let your clean-ish stuff mound up on a chair, bench or dresser top, because then it gets too difficult to determine clean / dirty vs cleanish.
• Double-hang your clothes closet (thanks SM), to double your rod space while better utilizing your vertical space. 
• Add high shelves in every closet for large items or off-season clothing (thanks WM).
• Climb your walls and doors. 
  • Use over the door hangers and hooks, 3M Command hook or permanent metal hooks screwed into the wall or wood work.
  • Mount a soft shoe sorter on a hook on the wall for handbags
  • Purchase hanging sweater stackers (per SM) to mount on your closet rod (see Pinterest page), and roll the sweaters in the compartments to use the space even better.
• Kid Closets (thanks AM, JF, WM and CD):    
  • Hang everything on hangers, so your kids can see what they have. 
  • Use dressers or shallow bins on shelves for small or tough to stack items like undergarments, socks, jammies, t-shirts. 
  • Make Regular purging less of a drag:  Make it routine, to go through stuff a couple of times a year, remind everyone that new stuff can’t come until we purge the old, and make it fun (sweeten the deal with Pizza or ice cream when you’re done!  Thanks CD!)

Embrace an organized closet today, so you can see and use your clothes better tomorrow!