Cleaning Out The Closet

Hello all!

Thanks to a sudden lull in the deadlines for work, I found myself with some time on my hands during the long weekend. Of course, I jumped at the chance to check off one of the things on my never-ending to-do list, which is to clean out the closet.

A few weeks ago, my loving husband C sent me a gentle reminder of this task when he pushbullet-ted (yes, pushbullet is now a verb for me, just the way google is) me an infographic on how to, pardon the term, unf**k your closet. Now, I just want to clarify, that this is actually the name of the infographic, and not some profane term I made up, although it is very appropriate. Anyway, here's the infographic.

C got this from Life Hacker, but the credits on the photo say bobella.tumblr.com

And here are the before pictures of my closet and dresser drawer.

This is my dresser drawer, which contains mostly shirts and shorts.

And this is my closet, where I keep dresses and all the things that need hanging.

One of the main reasons why I kept putting off this task was because it seemed like such a gargantuan thing, you know, where I expected that half the day wouldn't even be enough to get things done. But surprisingly, with the help of the infographic, I was done in a little over an hour. Unless your closet is the size of a movie star's, I'm guessing it will take you right about the same time to check this task off your list.

So here's what I came up with.

The "donate it" pile

The rest of the "donate it" pile

The maternity pile

The first thing I did was to take everything out of the closet. Then, as advised on the infographic, I made piles for each category. The infographic identified three categories: hang it, toss it, and donate it. But in my case, I added one more pile, which is maternity. See, because I was pregnant or nursing for what felt like four straight years, I had accumulated quite a stash of maternity/nursing friendly clothes. I was actually proud of the fact that some of the clothes I had were so basic that I was able to wear it through three pregnancies. I have to admit though, by the time I stopped expressing milk for KK, I was dying to get a whole new wardrobe because I realized that I'd been wearing the same set of clothes for almost four years! But anyway, I digress. Once I finished, I realized most of my stuff was in pretty good condition, so there was nothing in the "toss it" pile. Almost all of the clothes were in the donate it pile.

Another tip to make the task faster. Don't remove it from the hangers, just in case it goes in the "hang it" pile. I only removed it from the hanger when I decided to toss or donate something.

The finished product? Voila! I managed to free up around 25% of my closet so, yay for me! As for the dresser drawer, those are the clothes that I wear on a daily basis, when I take the kids to school or run casual errands, so most of those clothes are in the keep pile.

My clean closet!

My dresser drawer.

Side note. I couldn't find the infographic anymore, so I had to google it to give credit where credit is due, and I stumbled across this wonderful tumblr account called Unf*ck Your Habitat. It's a tumblr account that shows you before and after pictures of people who applied the same method shown in the infographic to declutter their homes, and I have to say, I was inspired. Once I get this post out, I will be working on the black holes that are also known as my desk drawers. I'll take pictures and let you know how that works out.

Till the next!