How I FINALLY Conquered My Closet Clutter Pt 1

Hello Friend,

Today, I'm excited to share Part 1 of my own personal journey to finally getting my closet clutter under control. At the beginning of 2023 I was just sick and tired of wearing pieces that I didn't feel good wearing or wasting time, energy, and money making or buying pieces that weren't going to get worn. To keep this post from being too long, I am going to break it up into a couple of posts. In today's post, I will be sharing my story. In the next post, I will talk about the lessons that I learned.

Purging My Wardrobe

At the beginning of 2023, I gutted my closet and drawers because I was overwhelmed by all of the clutter. It got so bad that I eventually stopped putting my clothes away. Instead I’d let them pile up in a basket near my bedroom doorway. And that wasn’t a good solution, because I think that seeing them there was keeping me from being able to sleep well.

I also realized that the stuff was actually keeping me stuck because I wouldn't let myself do much of anything else because in the back of my mind all of the clutter needed to be dealt with first.

Though I knew that I needed to deal with the clutter, I just didn't know exactly where to start. For me, figuring out what to keep and what not to keep just seemed too hard. I was emotionally attached to my clothes.

Then one day I realized that instead of focusing on what I needed to get rid of, I only needed to focus on what I really wanted and needed to keep… and this would be ONLY the things that I enjoyed wearing. So one day I removed everything from my closet and drawers to the front of my house so that I could have a clean slate.

My biggest issues were with my work wardrobe. Getting dressed for the days I wasn't planning to leave the house was easy but getting dressed for the days that I was going into the office was much harder, so I decided to start there.

At the time I was working every other week in the office so I sat down and figured out how many looks I would need to get me through a week without having to repeat pieces or do laundry during that week.

The pieces I enjoyed wearing most to work were comfortable midi length dresses, crew neck tees, loose and drapey cap sleeve button ups, blazers, and medium wash jeans.

So with that I put back 3 pairs of my favorite jeans, my button ups, my favorite blazers, my favorite dresses and a few pieces to wear around the house. I also decided to hold on to a pair of black straight leg trousers.

I wanted an alternative to the jeans and midi dresses so I decided that this would be the perfect time for me to try out some new pieces. With that in mind I added a few pairs of jogger style cargo pants, a couple of midi length skirts and a couple of pretty loose and drapey blouses to create enough looks to get me through about 8 work days.

I decided to hold off on making a decision on the rest of the clothes left in the front of the house because I wanted to see if I would need or miss any of them. I waited about a month.

After a month, I found that the distance and time passed had severed all of the emotional ties that I had had with most of the clothes. I think I may have gone back and gotten one piece and after wearing it one time I ended up putting it back because I didn't love myself in it. At this point it was much easier to let the stuff go that I didn't love and that I knew I wasn't going to wear.

So for the rest of the year I just enjoyed wearing the few pieces that I already owned along with the new pieces that I was trying out.

Conclusion

This journey of decluttering and rediscovering my wardrobe has been incredibly enlightening. But, this is just the beginning. In Part 2, I'll share with you the lessons that I learned in hopes that they might be helpful to you. Part 2, will be going up tomorrow so stay tuned. Until then...

AngieDiwann