Don’t roll your eyes at an organized closet. I know that I did for years, and now I realize how very wrong and naive I was. An organized closet can change your life for the better. Does this seem too simplistic? Well, it’s not. Someone once told me that spontaneity could only be achieved by organization. I scoffed at this person back then, but 20-plus years later I have to say, “You were so very right.”
BAD CLOSET = BAD LIFE
There’s a very good reason why the closet is often used as a metaphor for secrets, fears and repression. Closets are small, dark, messy spaces holding our deepest personal stuff: our masks, the fat clothes, the hole-ridden shoes, the bags that stash our hidden packs of cigarettes and much more. It’s time to come clean and dump all our past stuff and secrets; it’s time to come out of the closet - literally. Take every single thing, including hooks and nails, out of there and scrub the closet clean. When you’re facing the clean slate of your future, be particular about what things you let stay in your world.
SHOULD IT STAY OR SHOULD IT GO?
Seventy percent of your stuff should not return to that closet. That’s right; I said 70 percent. There is only one way to execute this purge successfully. Grab every large trash bag or box you can find and start tossing.
Here are the criteria:
Does the object remind you of something bad, scary, unhealthy or gross? Toss it.
Does the clothing fit you perfectly? No? Toss it. And I don’t care about your promise to lose five pounds for a friend’s forthcoming Tahitian wedding.
Have you worn it in the last two months? If not, toss it.
Would you wear this to your high school reunion weekend? If not, toss it. You obviously don’t feel comfortable or ‘‘you’’ in it, so it must go.
BE YOU
Let your true colors fly. If you love clothes and fashion, you should seriously consider remodeling your closet into a small office and transforming your second bedroom into a closet. If you’re not a fashionista, your small closet will more than suffice. But - and this is a serious but - do not keep clothes in there that you don’t actually wear consistently. If you are a dressdown diva, toss those nylons and skirts and high heels and tell the world that you simply will not take it anymore. You are who you are, and who you are lives in comfy clothes. If you’re a dresses-only gal, donate those jeans and sweats to Goodwill. I hereby announce that you are free to be you.
BE DARING
A while back there was a viral post about the “One hundred thing challenge,” where a blogger was telling people that he was going to simplify his life and get down to owning just 100 things. Many people tried the challenge and maybe you should too. One article on ZenHabits (tinyurl.com/mun6oob) gave some tidbits about why you should try it and how to set some rules to the challenge. If you’re up to it, you could start small and aim for having just100 things in your closet. Or maybe for the more daring, make that number 50. Do you think you could do it? I mean, how many pairs of shoes and jeans do we all really need? And imagine how much less laundry you would have. More to the point, don’t we all really just wear maybe 10 different outfits in our closets to begin with? Be honest. Be daring.
Your closet is just a scaled down version of your world: organized or messy, color-coordinated or all combined, too bright or too boring, open or full of secrets. You don’t need a life coach to set you on the right path; you need a closet makeover. So get up and go reorganize your closet today and watch what happens tomorrow.
Paula Sirois is writer and holistic health therapist with RockZebraCompany.com
HomeStyle, Pages 35 on 01/25/2014