This piece on the clothes closet can be applicable to men as well as women, but I do think it is women who fret about their closet disorganization more than men and I would be willing to bet that, in general, women have more clothes than men.

There are a number of ways to effectively organize a closet and there can even be overlapping methods from the categories I will describe. The point to all the organization is not just to have a nice looking closet when you open up the doors. The point is to save you time, money and stress in dealing with your wardrobe.

Firstly, depending on where you live and how much space you have for your clothes, you may decide to rotate your clothes according to the seasons. If you live in an area that really has the four seasons, then you may want to pack away the fall/winter clothes when it is spring/summer and vice-versa.

I have lived in Southern California for most of my life, where it is usually spring time most of the time and then “summer” for a couple weeks and “winter” for a couple weeks. Our version of winter is when it gets into the 40’s and rains. But, as the years progress, we have been having hotter weather all year round, where it felt like spring/summer most of 2014 with almost no rain at all. Here in Southern California we get all excited on a day when we can pull out a turtle neck sweater and scarf and then the next day it could be 80 degrees out.
But back to organizing according to season: This can be very practical for many people short on space. You can pack away the out-of-season clothes and put them on a really high shelf or in another room’s closet because you really won’t be wearing those items for half the year. When you rotate the clothes, it becomes an opportunity to review what you have and what you want to keep or get rid of.

Another way to organize your clothes is according to their use: work clothes, festive clothes (like for going out on a Saturday night) and “play” clothes. What’s funny about these categories is that depending on what you do for a living, your work clothes and weekend clothes could be radically different.

An attorney might where business suits and formal clothes throughout the week, but then dress very casual on the weekends. In contrast, a nurse might where scrubs during the work week, but really wear some fancy clothes on the weekend to go clubbing. My “play clothes” are the jeans and t-shirts I put on after I take off my “business casual” clothes. If I am going to run errands, go grocery shopping, cook dinner or play with my pets, I want to wear clothing that is both comfortable and also not something I will fret about if I get beet juice on it or if my cat’s nail snags on the shirt.

At this point, you can place the seasonal clothes in the closet closest to wear you really get dressed (bedroom/bathroom) and then sub-divide them according to work-play-party. You can do this with your shoes as well and women can also organize their purses or other accessories into these “functions” or occasions. Fancy purses go in one area and casual back pack purses in another.

I also got in the habit of hanging the necklaces I would most likely wear with certain tops and blouses right on the hanger with the blouse instead of in a drawer with other jewelry. This just takes some of the stress out of having to make a decision about what goes with what.

Even though we may also buy certain pieces of clothing that could go with a variety of other items, chances are you wear the same ensemble (skirt and blouse, etc) over and over, precisely because you like the combination.
So while some women like to separate their pants and skirts from their tops, an alternative way to organize your closet is into complete ensembles. This won’t prevent you from switching things around. But it does help save time and stress when you just don’t have to think about it.

I also like to color coordinate my closet. If it is a given that I will predictably be wearing certain colors together, then why not place them together? This also helps me see how much I have of certain colors and I would then tend to not over-buy in a certain color. I think this is one of the best ways to keep tabs on what you have and/or need.

Black, gray and white clothes all go in the same area of my closet. Black shoes and black purses may also be in the same area.I put blue and purple clothes together and then green colored tops in their own area too.

I also have red, orange and yellow colored tops together and these would most likely go with the various shades of brown pants and skirts I have.

If you are on a very restricted clothes budget and really want to make the most of what you have, I do suggest getting solid colored pants/skirts and tops. If you have a solid red top for example: it can go with black, gray, brown or blue pants. But if that red top had a brown stripe through the middle, then it probably would only look good with the brown pants. With solid colored tops you can always make them present differently with different necklaces, sweaters or scarves.

Once you organize your clothes closet into colors and/or complete outfits, you will have a better handle on what clothing you may want to part with. Let’s say you have a brown top with pink polka dots and you realize that the top only went with the exact shade of brown in the top and you don’t even have those brown matching pants anymore! There is a reason then that you never wear the top anymore as it doesn’t go with anything.

Another practice which women are notorious for doing is keeping clothing which no longer fits. If you have room elsewhere in your house to store the nice clothes that don’t fit, you could do that and keep them for a couple years. Packing them away, out of sight, might make it easier to eventually unload them. And, if keeping clothing that no longer fits was the key to losing weight, then it would be a mute point and you would not be hanging onto clothes that don’t fit for years. So, this idea of having the clothes “in case” you lose weight, is really not practical. Besides, when a woman loses weight, one of the ways she likes to reward herself is with shopping for the smaller clothes.

For very fashion-conscious women, hanging onto certain clothes for many years makes it even less likely you would where something that was not in style anymore, even if you could fit into clothes you stored for your thinner days. I hung onto a fairly short skirt for many years, one that I wore in my early thirties.

Finally, in my early fifties I had to confess that even if the skirt fit me one day, I would look a little ridiculous wearing such a short skirt as a middle-aged woman. That skirt was also from a time when I was wearing high heels and now with my periodic plantar facsitis, I don’t wear the high heels anymore and some of the outfits would look silly with my “sensible shoes.”

If you don’t seem to have enough space in your main closet or the only closet for all your clothes, then at least remove the jackets and coats and place them in another part of the house or the hall closet or entry closet. If you have miscellaneous things in the closet like shoe boxes or shopping bags, get rid of them unless they are functioning as an efficient way to store things. Better than shoe boxes are clear plastic boxes if you want to stack and store shoes you don’t wear often. You can see through the clear plastic where they are and not collect dust.If you have belts, you could hang them on the side wall in a closet, all together, or you could hang them right on the dresses or with the pants you are most likely to wear them with.

Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions (R) Since 1992
From the Tao of Organizing Blog Series