Organizing Your Closet
Detoxing Mind, Body and Spirit: Week 3
At the start of week three, I feel like I am making some real progress in reducing life’s stress.
Week 3 Overview:
* Eat two servings of green vegetables per day
* Give up red meat
* Exercise 5 times per week.
* Meditate 10 Minutes per day
* Infrared Sauna Treatment
* Supplements to reduce stress
* Organize (this week it will be the garage)
* Do something REALLY fun.
Last week went really well, although I did not manage to find the time to meditate. This week, I am hoping to stick to the ten minutes, so that I can increase it to fifteen minutes next week.
Highlight: Cleaning my Closet!
Before: My Messy Closet!
I find that getting to the gym is much more difficult when I am faced with a messy, unorganized closet. Many times, I am hurrying to get to a class at the gym, and I can’t find everything I need. This has actually stopped me from going a few times – not good! So, I called up my friend Heather Thompson, a professional organizer, and she sent over a list of what I needed to do to get my closet in order.
Steps for Properly Cleaning your Closet:
Step 1: Bring trash bags and/or containers into the room to sort items into. Trash bags are great for real trash and items you will donate.
Step 2: Pick a criteria for what stays (haven’t worn in 1 year, 6 months OR I wore that 20lbs ago and by the time I lose the 20lbs, it will be out of style). Also sort seasonal items; even if you go to cold places, you only need so many parkas.
Step 3: Write down your criteria for what stays and what goes and hang it up in front of you. This way you don’t spend time over-thinking your sorting.
Step 4: Take a minute to decide what you want to truly accomplish. Draw a sketch of where you would like to see things go when you are done.
Step 5: If you have a closet with drawers, pull them out and go through them as soon as you can access them. You should know what you want to put back into them from the list in Step 4.
Step 6: For every item in your closet, pull it out and evaluate it. Trash is trash, do not try to reason with yourself. Be honest based your criteria above. If everything goes back in the closet, you have wasted your time. If you need to, make an “I don’t know” pile and have another person (friend, partner, etc) help you sort that part. Anything that you are keeping, but needs professional attention (mending, cleaning or altering) should go into a separate pile too.
Step 7: If you keep more than just clothes in the closet for storage reasons, evaluate if this is the right place for the item. Do you really need the item, and if you keep it, are you storing it in the most effective way for the space.
Step 8: Once you have evaluated each item and it is all in piles around you – STOP. Literally take the trash out. Put the donation bags in the car. Put anything going to the cleaners in the car. Get these things out of the way.
Step 9: Putting it all back. As you put items back in, take the time to store them properly. Hang your hanging clothes, fold sweaters or other items that live on shelves or in drawers. Make sure you have a good way to store any accessories that will stay in the closet (hats, scarves, belts, etc). Review the shoes you have kept and decide if they can just be placed back in the closet or if they need to be stuffed to hold their shape.
Step 10: Now that it is all back in, if it is still over stuffed, repeat Step 6.
If you can, purchase necessary containers to hold your newly sorted clothes and accessories. Stacking on shelves is a perfect way to store things too. An organized closet does not have to be an expensive closet. An organized closet means a space that is holding things you can and will wear and use on a regular basis.
~Heather Thompson, Los Angeles Organizer
After: My Clean Closet!
Looking at my new closet, I feel so much more peaceful. I can now get to where I need to go without losing my mind as I dig through the mess to find something to wear! Also, I am already wearing clothes that I didn’t even know I had. Love it!
