How To Effortlessly Declutter Your Closet: 7 Tips That Work

This post is all about decluttering your closet!

Decluttering your closet can seem like a daunting task in the beginning, however, if successful it will be incredibly rewarding! Decluttering your closet not only makes your life easier but can reduce the mental fatigue and stress of too many clothes (most of which aren’t even worn).

One of my favorite new decluttering methods that I recently came across explains how you should flip your hangers in the opposite direction. This will show you every piece of clothing that you don’t wear!

I’ll definitely be implementing this into my decluttering strategy with my own wardrobe moving forward. I’ll expand on this later in the post!

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Table of Contents

1. Make A Plan

First, before going all crazy and removing all your clothes, you need a plan. Yes, I know this is some groundbreaking stuff, but to effectively declutter your closet, you need to put a proper strategy in place.

You’ll want to start by considering your style. Assess the clothes you have and see if they match your current style and persona. This will help you right off the bat to determine what outfits and clothes to keep and what clothes you should buy to replace those items.

During this phase, you’ll also want to consider making a capsule wardrobe. This type of wardrobe allows you to mix and match pretty much anything in your closet and is a great way to make a practical minimalist wardrobe for all seasons.

Once you’ve glossed over your wardrobe and determined your current style, grab some boxes, bins, and or trash bags to organize and separate your clothes into different categories.

For example, you could separate your clothes like this:

For clothes, you’d like to sell, keep them neatly folded in bins
When giving clothes away, place them in trash bags
Finally, for damaged, old, and unused clothes with no value, just simply put them in a trash bag for trash

2. Mentally Prep For Your Wardrobe Makeover

Relax and take a deep breath!

If you have a lot of clothes like most of us, just remember to take your time and stick to your plan. It may be challenging to get rid of tons of clothes and it also may not be too bad. One of the hardest things you’ll run into when decluttering your closet will definitely be attachment.

Attachment to your clothes and how they make you feel and how much you enjoyed them. There will be some clothes that you just absolutely love, but simply don’t fit anymore or are unworn for whatever reason. Just try to mentally prep yourself, and be aware that there are clothes you’ll want to keep that you’ll ultimately have to part ways with if you want to declutter your closet completely.

Declutter one group of clothes at a time and try to go through the easy stuff first. Clothes you already love and still wear can go in a separate pile. This pile can go off to the side and can be a sort of pass for clothes you already know you’re gonna keep and use. This makes it easier down the road when you’re doing some serious decluttering and getting rid of those 50/50 items.

3. Be Strategic When Decluttering Large Amounts Of Clothes

When decluttering your closet, not only is a proper plan ideal, but you also want to be as strategic as possible when carrying out this plan. This means breaking things down into smaller easier sections instead of decluttering piles and piles of clothes altogether.

For visual learners check out this video for more decluttrering tips:

Break Up Your Wardrobe Into Sections or Seasons

Take the time to split up your clothing into smaller sections. Preferably with this method, separate your clothes by season:

Fall clothing
Winter Clothing
Summer clothing
Spring clothing

Next prep those boxes, bins, and or trash bags to separate your clothes and actually get them categorized:

Separate your clothes into these categories (or any variation that works for you):

Keep
Sell
Donate
Trash
Maybe

Once you’ve got these systems set up and in place, you can move forward and start your decluttering process and go through each season of clothing one by one.

This is also the phase where you can start to plan to replace old or unused clothes with new ones. We’ll cover more of this process below…

4. Start Decluttering + Prepare To Let Go!

Here’s where your planning and mental prepping come to test! If you’ve got tons of clothes, now’s the time to make a dent and declutter everything according to your plan.

At first, this may seem daunting but it’s important that you just start somewhere! Embrace the feeling of letting go and just realize most of the clothes you have are replaceable, and in reality (this is what I’ve learned) you most likely will replace your unused clothes with much better clothes that are more trendy and current to your style.

Just realizing that even your favorite clothes are replaceable will give you that freedom and openness to make quality decisions when it comes to decluttering your closet. Just remember that attachment is your enemy, and finding the perfect balance between minimal, practical, and enjoyment is the goal.

We certainly don’t want a wardrobe that we don’t enjoy. We need to have enough clothes for daily life and other occasions, and we want our wardrobes to be simple but effective.

For us to declutter our closets and get to this point, we need to ask ourselves a few questions when we start to categorize our clothes and decide what we want to keep:

Do I wear this item regularly?
Does this piece of clothing serve a purpose (work, pajamas, vacation clothes)?
Does it still match my current style?
Do I still enjoy this piece of clothing? (AKA does this clothing bring me joy or make me happy?)

If you’re able to go through your closet and ask these questions, you’ll be able to weed out the clothes your just holding on to and be able to identify the clothes you need and the clothes you enjoy!

5. Shop For New Clothes To Replace The Old

Here’s the fun part!!

Once you’re done decluttering the majority of your wardrobe, now you can start to create a capsule wardrobe or buy new clothes for your new style. Don’t go overboard and set a limit as to how large or small you’d like to keep your wardrobe.

Without setting a limit you’ll be back where you started and that’s a big no-no. All limits aside though, this is your opportunity as a minimalist or someone who enjoys simple living, to go out and enjoy some shopping and create a semi-new wardrobe for yourself.

And trust me this is something that you will update and do periodically. I constantly look to update my wardrobe or replace any clothes I feel I don’t want or need anymore.

A great way to update your wardrobe and keep track of the clothes you’re wearing would be to use the hanger method mentioned at the beginning of this post. This method is great for helping you visually see what clothes you wear and what clothes you simply have not touched.

To try this method all you need to do is re-hang all of your clothes with the hanger facing the opposite direction than normal. Every time you wear a piece of clothing, you can spin the hanger back in its normal direction. This ensures that all of the clothes still hanging will easily be seen with the hanger facing the wrong way making it easy to identify the clothes that have not been worn.

Give this a try and see if it works for ya!!

6. Remember There’s No Ideal Wardrobe For Everyone

Your Ideal wardrobe has practicality, functionality, and a specific style to match YOU.

You don’t need to get rid of all your clothes and have an empty closet. Don’t worry about how many clothing items you have or if it’s “minimalist enough”. Create a wardrobe that you’ll love and works just for you.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a minimalist, decluttering your closet is definitely something that will greatly improve your life and make it easier!

7. Don’t Forget To Have Fun With It!

When feeling overwhelmed don’t forget that this process can be enjoyable. You’ll be able to replace old clothes and start fresh! This is where you can get creative and pick out a color palette for a capsule wardrobe or find new ways to express yourself with your newfound style.

Regardless of your goal, decluttering your closet doesn’t have to be a chore. Let it be something you enjoy! Put some music on in the background or watch your favorite show while you declutter. Anything to make it less of a drag on your time.

Just remember that this process will be beneficial to your daily life and will make your life a lot easier, trust me! Having a simple, neat, and organized closet with a minimal wardrobe is lightyears better than a messy cluttered, and unorganized closet!

If you’re looking to declutter your closet soon, check out these productivity planner templates! These can be used to prep for your big decluttering project and will keep you on track to hit your goals!

Rachel Frampton

Wednesday 19th of January 2022

I would like to de-clutter my space, and that is why I've decided to start looking for a self-storage unit where my other things will be placed. Thank you for sharing here as well the importance of letting go of unnecessary things. I also agree with you that it will be smarter to categorize the items.

Miguel Rodriguez

Friday 21st of January 2022

Thank you, Rachel!