We all have those little black holes of time, whether it’s Facebook (for 45 minutes this morning!), Candy Crush, pointless TV or just extra dawdling in the morning and sometimes the closet is one of them. Here’s the top three ways to avoid having your closet time eat up your morning:
1. Decide ahead of time – even if you’re not one of those people who like to lay out their wardrobe the night before, spend a bit of time before you fall asleep thinking about what you’ll be doing tomorrow and planning out what clothing will be best to put on for all of the day’s activities. Will you need to change during the day, or will one outfit do? Is the weather going to be fine or not? How formal is your day going to be?
2. Get organized in the closet – some of my clients hang their outfits together in the closet (complete with accessories) for grab and go convenience, and some hang items of clothing together by type for easy mix and match. You can also organize by colour grouping (e.g. all blue/green/gray and all brown/coral/pink together), by level of formality (professional casual separate from professional wear) or by function (work clothes separate from casual clothes). Even employing just one of these options will help cut down on the confusion when trying to put new things together.
3. Try a challenge – One of my favourite challenges is ‘Wear Everything’. This is where you wear every item in your closet before you repeat an item. This challenge is great for figuring out your wardrobe gaps in a hurry if you’ve never done a closet audit and suddenly discover you’ve got a ton of tops, but not enough bottoms or too many jackets to work with your other pieces. Since you’ll need to plan a little ahead for this challenge, it also helps you get into the planning frame of mind as in step 1. Keep in mind if you’ve already done a closet audit you’ll have your 1,2,3 Wardrobe Planning System in operation, so you’ll have repetition of single items in a module, so the goal will become to never wear the same complete outfit twice before repeating. This kind of ‘Wear Everything’ challenge also makes you step outside your outfit ruts and try different pieces together that you might not usually mix and match and gives you more options in your closet.
Having trouble with the mix and match? Stay tuned for more tips this week!
Can’t wait for mt ‘closet visit’ to sort out the keepers in my wardrobe, the ‘thrashers’ and the items needed. Things are getting simpler already! I have a vision if the future!
Leslie