If your closet is a jumble of mismatched shoes and purses all over the floor, dry-cleaning bags sticking out every which way, outfits you haven't worn in months (or years!) hogging up all your space, and a general mess of wrinkles and missing buttons, don't despair. It's time to get a grip, and what you need is a plan.
Step 1. Evaluate your horrible closet. Open the door, and stare the beast in the face. The first thing to determine is whether the root of the problem is the closet, or the lack of a system for using the closet. Look carefully at the following: IF your items were properly put away, would you have enough hanging space? Shelf space? Drawer space? Shoe space? If the answer to those is yes, then congratulations! You can move right on to the next step. If the answer is no, you have a little more homework. Make a list of exactly where your closet is falling short. Now take all of the internal measurements of your closet. You'll need to make a visit to your local hardware or department store to get the organizational pieces you'll need, or if you're really in a tough situation, make use of one of the many closet design tools available online. Once this is taken care of, you're ready to move on to putting the system in place. You'll need the following: a couple of large garbage bags, a laundry basket, and a starter set of hangers. These hangers should all be matching, and NOT made of wire, which get all tangled up and damage your clothing. Don't forget hangers for pants and skirts.
Folding Clothes Racks
Step 2. Take EVERYTHING out of the closet so that you can start with a clean slate. As you take them out, you will separate them into three piles:
damaged, outdated, or doesn't fit (if you're not sure, try them on now)
pieces you still like but need minor repairs (think buttons, hem changes, etc)
pieces you wear and regularly AND feel good in.
Now, take all of the items from the damaged/outdated/doesn't fit pile and put them in the garbage bags. Remove them from the house immediately. Go put them in your car to be dropped off at the donation center the very next time you're out. There is absolutely no need to keep these items in your life. Examine the items in the minor repair pile. Place these in the laundry basket. Set a deadline to make the repairs, or they join their friends at the donation center. If something isn't important enough for you to repair in a timely manner, it's not important enough to keep. (The fastest way to get this done is just to take them to the drycleaner and let them do it for you. It's very inexpensive, and can be done in just a day or two.)
Step 3. Move on to the pile of your regularly worn items, and separate them into categories by TYPE of item. I recommend the following: sleeveless, short sleeve, long sleeve, sweaters and jackets / blazers, skirts, pants, and special occasion. When that is done, place the items to be hung on hangers, and fold the rest. Here's a tip: the more you are able to keep like items together, the easier it is to find what you're looking for, and also to maintain the system. For instance, if you just hang ALL of your short sleeve shirts, instead of hanging some and folding others, you only have one place to go to find them or put them away, right?
Step 4. Arrange each category by color as follows: whites and creams, pinks, reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples, brown, blacks, grays. The logic is simple: Let's say it's summer and you've grabbed a pair of brown pants. You now know right where to reach for a sleeveless or short sleeve top to match, instead of having to rifle through to find the color you wanted! (I also know a lot of organizers who sort by color only, and not by style. My problem with that is that the sleeveless shirts get lost in the long sleeves, and the long sleeves get swallowed by the sweaters, and the bottoms aren't separate from the tops, so you still have to do a fair amount of shuffling to put an outfit together.)
Step 5. This is about controlling the little things: the underwear, socks, bras, hosiery, scarves, ties, etc. For this, I strongly suggest a set of stacking shelves or drawers, into which you can put separate plastic organizers for each item - many stores even sell dividers designed for each of these things. No room for shelves or drawers? Get one of those wire, over-the-door shoe racks. They are terrible for shoes, but are a perfect accessory organizer in disguise! Necklaces can be hung over the prongs to keep them from getting tangled, earrings and watches from the cross-bars; bras, pantyhose, belts, purses and hats are also now right in reach!
Step 6. It's now time to address the shoes, if they live in the same closet as your clothes, and we're going to use the same process we followed earlier. Put them in pairs if they aren't already and then assess them. Do you wear them? Are they in good condition? How many of that color do you have? If you have more than 2 or 3 of any color, it is probably safe to pare down. When you put the keepers back into the closet, just like the other categories, arrange them in rainbow order so that you know just where to reach for what you want, and you know just where to put them away at the end of the day. You'll now find that not only is getting ready a much smoother process, but that maintaining the system is a no-brainer, and I know you'll agree that when your morning goes smoothly, it's a much more pleasant beginning to your day's journey.