Time for a life hack – closet organization and closet organization ideas! These tips and tricks to organize your closet will eliminate the chaos you experience in the morning when you are trying to get ready. This organization system is what you need to create a closet where you know exactly where everything is! Home organization can seem like an intimidating task, but if you follow these steps, you’ll complete your closet organization quickly and efficiently.
It’s time to clean out your closet! Project Smart Closet Makeover, begins NOW! There is definitely an order you must follow, so make sure you are taking notes or you have saved the steps below to your phone!
It is so important that you start your day with clarity; and the first thing you do in the morning, is get dressed… or at the very least pick out what you’re going to wear. So if your closet is a complete disaster – you can’t find things, there’s clothes everywhere, nothing is organized – you are starting your day off probably frustrated AND you are wasting time!
There are tools for this job. They are all optional, but they make a HUGE difference!
Closet Makeover Preparation
Matching hangers
I know this might not seem like a must…. but it is! I understand that this is an investment, but I personally believe that it is one worth making.
Huggable hangers
These will change your life! You can get these on Amazon. Count how many hangers you are currently using, reduce that by 25%, and that’s how many I’d suggest purchasing. I highly recommend buying the color nude. Here’s why. Because I know eventually you’re going to want these in every room in your house, and if you pick pink for your hangers, and blue for your partner, then it just becomes a mess. SO keep it simple and keep it nude.
Rolling hanging rack
This is a great investment! You will use this WAY more than you know! It keeps clothing off the floor and off the bed.
Hanging shoe rack
This is where your workout gear, scarves, and maybe socks will go. You might also want to get one of those hanging cubbies. It’s larger than the shoe rack and I love storing my sweats in these!
Here are the steps you need to follow!
STEP 1: Count how many hangers you currently have in your closet.
STEP 2: Make a decision on what type of uniform hangers you are going to replace those hangers with.
STEP 3: Order rolling racks and hanging racks for inside the closet.
STEP 4: Schedule time to dedicate to cleaning out your closet – approximately 6 hours.
STEP 5: Listen to the podcast! Links are below to listen to this 2 part series!
It’s time to take your closet organization to the next level. Get excited, because once your closet is organized, I can almost guarantee you will feel more peace and excitement about getting other areas of your home cleaned up!
Now that you know what you’ll need, lets dive into how to go about this!
Closet Makeover Time!
Step 1 – Take Everything Out of your Closet
Do not sort anything yet! I repeat… do not sort anything! I simply want you to pull everything out and set it somewhere near by.
Hang all your clothing on the rolling rack. If you opted out of getting the rolling racks, then lay your clothing out so that you can see everything.
I want to make sure I’m clear here… take EVERYTHING out of your closet. Everything! Every shoe, every box, ever sock… everything.
Step 2 – Go Through your Items and Sort
Go through every item and sort them according to the following:
Throw away – there are certain items we own that have holes and are in a condition in which organizations will not accept, so save them the time and man hours and just put it in the trash.
Donation or Gifting – these are items either you can give to a group of friends to dig through, or can go directly to a charity.
Maybe – this pile better be small people!!! Our end goal is to keep very few items, items of quality, and items that you absolutely love the way you look in them – so this pile is for the undecided pieces.
Yes – the YES pile contains the items of clothing you definitely want to keep! These are pieces that you love love love and wear all the time.
Step 3 – Transfer Yes Pile to Huggable Hangers
Take your yes pile and transfer those items of clothing on to your huggable matching hangers that I told you order in Part 1. Make sure you group together types of clothing. So for example, put all of your sweaters together in an area, your pants in one area, your suits in one area, etc.
Along the way, think about what hasn’t worked up to this point, and ask yourself what do I need to add to make my closet more efficient? This is different for everyone. Is it hooks? More hangers? Shelves? Just think about what would be ideal, and make it happen. And remember the goal is for your closet to be as simple as possible.
Step 4 – Separate all of your throw away items.
Maybe place them automatically in a trash bag so that you aren’t tempted to pull them back out and add them to a different pile.
Step 5 – Move your Donation / Gift Items
Take all of your donation / gift items and place them at the end of your rolling rack. So keep them separate from your yes items and your maybe items.
Once you’ve sorted through everything, put everything that you’re keeping back in the closet. Display things so that you can see them!
Organize your items by type of piece, and then by sub categories such as length. So for example, for shirt you’ll have long sleeve, short sleeve, no sleeve, strap, halter all separated out and hung together. Next, within the sub categories hang from either dark to light or light to dark.
I want to see your revamped closet! So if you are on Instagram, tag me and use the hashtag #SmartCloset and I’m going to be searching for these!
FULL PODCAST Part 1 below
FULL PODCAST Part 2 below
Recommended books:
– The Magical Art of Tidying up
– All Too Much – Peter Walsh
I have been waiting for my free weekend to finally clean out my closet! This weekend is THE weekend! 🙂 Thank You Chalene!!
Many cities have textile recycling programs which keep unwearable clothing out of landfills! Donating to these recycling programs is a great way to streamline and be environmentally conscious at the same time. I would encourage people to seek these out.
this is great advice Meaghan!! 🙂
I have so been trying to do this! It’s going down this Sunday! I promise!
I just ordered my hangers, will be tackling this project ASAP.
YASSSS Jennifer! I love it! Get it girl 🙂
GREAT tips! I JUST did a closet clean out and wish that I had waited. I have heard you talk about huggable hangers and the importance of having matching hangers before so I did buy those and LOVE LOVE LOVE them, BUT I didn’t buy enough because I didn’t pre-plan very well. Boo! I would love to know if there is a brand of the clip (pants) hangers that you recommend. I bought the clips separate and they don’t work well. Finally, I would like to add, for people with small closets (no room for hanging cubbies), shelf dividers are a fabulous investment. They keep your items visible while keep them neatly stacked. Thanks as always for the wonderful tips. I appreciate you!
For some reason, libsyn stops the podcast around the 20 minute mark, and refuses to continue. When I press play again, it starts from the beginning; there doesn’t seem to be a way to skip ahead. (Which means I can re-listen to the first 20 minutes–which I don’t mind–but then I can’t hear the rest.) It’s not just this podcast, it’s ANY libsyn podcast. To get around that, I usually save the podcast to my desktop, and then play it. I’ve never had a problem that way. Unfortunately, I can’t download or save the recordings from this page (I tried, and it saved the entire page instead).
On the bright side, I’ve scoped out my hangars (best deal is the 100 piece set from Amazon, at $0.56 per hanger).
(Someone will surely suggest I use iTunes, but I can’t run that program at work.)
Hi Elizabeth! Oh thank you for letting me know about the podcast! Head over to iTunes! It should play fine from there, but I will reach out to me team to get this fixed 🙂
Love! Love! Love! My closet has been made over and Inhave 4 trash bags full of clothes for family and friends!! I love the cubby idea for my workout gear! It makes me excited to workout. Thank you for the great tips!
You’re welcome!
Where did you get the sock cubbies?
amazon! 🙂
I LOVE all the ideas, but where does the rolling rack go?
when you’re not using it, it collapses and you can store in a closet or under your bed
Hi Chalene,
This was a JIT podcast for me! (Just In Time!) We’re in the process of buying a house and I’m cleaning out my closet in preparation. One quick question – can you ID the hangers you suggest for pants/slacks/jeans? Is it the style shown to the left of the cubby you are using for your sweats?
Thanks! Love your podcasts!
Kristin
YOU READ MY MIND!!! I have been putting this off for years. LITERALLY years. Heading to ROSS today for the hangers – I always see them there ! And I already have a rolling rack in my garage. Tomorrow it’s ON! Thank you Chalene!
You go girl!!! I love it! 🙂
This Saturday this is all going down. Everything ordered and arrived.
My husband is actually getting in on it. DATE DAY!!!
Better hangers and one color, I love it! I ordered and am working on it right now!
The hangers are key. I have switched to them in all cupboards – love them! I also am using your idea of the ha hung shoe rack for my workout leggings. It is amazing. Before I would always grab th same ones from the top of the basket. When I go home going to figure something out for my camisoles- again only wearing a few all the time as they are piled in a basket at bottom of closet. Thanks for the podcasts on cleaning your closet. Extremely helpful
So glad you found it helpful! I push those hangers SO much because they are serious life changers! Once you start using them, you can’t go back 🙂
Thank you. I need to clean out my closet soon. Hope I can get my hugable hangers by this weekend. I’ll be sure to post before and after pictures.
I plan on doing this….any recommendations on the cascading hangers?