Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [54]
Columnist Mark Morford put it very succinctly: “Clear out your clutter. Strip it all to the beautiful essentials and then keep it that way.”
Symptom #20: Too Many Clothes
Solution #20: Closet Tricks
There are three great design themes: making something beautiful, making something easier, and making something possible.
—Dan Saffer, interaction designer and author
There is a better way
Many people live for years with overstuffed closets where finding the right thing to wear is hard. Pulling one piece out knocks others off their hangers. Clothes don’t look their best because they’ve been jammed tightly together. Why make yourself crazy with something so basic as getting dressed?
The reverse clothes hanger trick
Close your eyes and imagine the benefits you could be enjoying as you trade quality for quantity with your clothing. You’d have space in closets and drawers, no bad choices to work around, a release from emotional baggage, the ability to see what pieces you still need to create your ideal wardrobe, plus the opportunity to recombine clothes in fresh ways and to rethink your identity. Sounds good, yes? So how to knock out that fabric logjam?
Start thinking of your closet as a service rather than a collection and make a habit of staying on the right service plan with only the features you need. Here’s a tip I’ve heard many times, from organizer Peter Walsh and others, and have used with great success on my own closets: Twice a year, turn around all the hangers so the hooks are pointing toward you. When you wear something, put it back with the hook the normal way. Put a reminder in your calendar for six months later to get rid of the things that are still wrong-way-round. The shoe equivalent of turning around your hangers is to put a penny in the toe. In six months, give away the shoes that still have their pennies.
Throughout the year, as you handle all your clothes keep an eye out for anything that is so worn or stained that you wouldn’t want to be seen in it and toss it. Take anything that is two sizes or more too small or too large and put it in your charity box. If something fills you with negative emotions as soon as you see it, get it out of your life.
Whenever you put something on and it doesn’t quite fit, but you look at it and like it enough that you’d buy it again now if it did fit, put it at the back of your closet to revisit in six months. I put the top of the hanger through a square of colored paper to easily spot these “Don’t bother trying me on right now” things and avoid them when getting dressed. If they still don’t fit in six months, pick a few favorites and shop for replacement versions in your size. Repeat the process until you’ve let go of everything that isn’t great for you now.
Build your discarding muscles
Writer and cartoonist Chris Onstad, through the voice of his character Cornelius Bear, wisely the closet as an ideal place to build the habit of cutting the crap from your life: “Go into your closet, find a shirt you haven't worn in fifteen years … and drop it straight into the kitchen trash. There. How did that feel? A little snag of remorse as it hit bottom? That feeling is your salvation. Come to know it, and embrace it, and recognize that it, like a burning muscle the day after a good run, is actually the feeling of healing.”
Seasonal culls
The change of the seasons into summer and winter is a good time to revisit things in your closet. It gives you a chance to look again at clothes you haven’t worn since last year and decide if you love them enough to renew their contract as players on your team. When the chill grows in the air, go through all those coats, sweaters, scarves, mittens, and boots, and decide