Maybe cleaning out your closet isn’t your favorite day of the year, but it’s definitely mine. I mean, I do it throughout the year, but I have a once-yearly Big Purge that is pretty great. And pretty strict.
The key to my Big Purge is that I give myself the rule that if I haven’t worn it in the year since the last Big Purge, then it has to go. How do I keep track? By turning my hangers around at the end of the process.
Anyway, I’ve been thoroughly looking forward to August 1 for weeks. In anticipation of the day, I’ve been really lazy about putting up my clean laundry. That way, the closet isn’t already packed to the gills when I start the process. Here’s my closet before I started cleaning.
It’s not terrible or anything, but those racks were getting crowded. And remember, this is without my last two weeks of laundry put up. Because this was a year after the last purge, my hangers were facing two different directions.
See the hangers that are clearly backwards? Those are holding clothes that haven’t been worn in a whole year. So the first step of this process is to take all of those hangers out of the closet. Next, I also removed clothes that have been worn in a year but that I want to get rid of for some reason (looking dingy, not fitting right, just not that flattering).
Damn. That’s a lot of clothes! Next, I go through these clothes to make the final decision. In previous years, the decision has been pretty darn easy because I got rid of everything. This year was a little more difficult. I’ve lost a substantial amount of weight so I needed to try stuff on. It seemed like a lot of the clothes that I hadn’t worn now fit and the clothes I had worn were giant on me. So I ended up with a separate stack of “take to the seamstress.”
After going through everything, it’s time to turn around the hangers!
I feel like the change is not that noticeable with a wide shot like this, but I got rid of three of the huge blue Ikea bags full of clothes. So I assure you, it’s an improvement!
