Declutter Your Closet With The Hanger Trick
Closet organizing can be tricky. Clothing can be hard to part with.
As a professional home organizer I found clothing to be the hardest thing for my clients to purge. I also found that closets where the most likely space in the home to be overstuffed. In a recent study, 7% of the participants acknowledged they buy clothing at least once a week and 45% buy once a month. That's a lot of clothing we are bringing into our homes and closets.
No closet can handle such relentless additions without busting at the seams, unless you are willing to part with items. That is easier said than done. So what is my advice?
Do multiple rounds of purging.
In this first round gather anything that's a no brainer and that you can easily donate without a second thought. Clothing with rips or stains or clothes you just don't like. After this round of purging, if your closet is well organized, everything has a place and is easily accessible, then congrats! No need to read further. But I doubt that will be the case for most people.
If you have completed the first round of purging but still need more room in your closet and can't easily let go of more items, you should implement the following trick:
Turn everything in your closet backwards.
Turn all of your hangers backwards (that's why it's called the hanger trick). Then go a step further. Place everything folded on a shelf backwards.
You now have 1 year from the moment you are done turning everything around until your next purge.
During this year when you wear something you will put it away correctly. You will place the hanger facing forward and your folded items will be put away facing forward. At the end of the year whatever is still backwards should be donated. Most people only wear 20% of their clothes. So be ready for a majority of your closet items to still be facing backwards.
If you have not worn it in a year the chances of you ever wearing it again are slim to none. So pack it all up and drop it off at your local donation spot.
Although purging can be difficult, once your break things into small, simple steps the organizing process becomes much simpler. You can even skip the first round of purging and go straight to turning everything backwards. Whichever path you choose you are taking steps to get organized and that's what counts.
If you're ready to get your closet organized check out Oba closet organizing packs and our closet organizing video tutorial. Happy organizing!
