In a conversation earlier today about closet organizing, someone asked “Sometimes I see pictures of closets where everything is organized by color. I don’t understand;  Why is that a good thing?”

Clothes closets can really be such a source of aggravation for most people. So many of the complaints are heard in bedrooms around the country:

“This closet is so full, but I still feel like I have nothing to wear.”

“I can’t find what I’m looking for.”

“I just wear the same things over and over again.”

“Ugh. I just can’t stand this closet.”

Sure, some of those people are complaining because they just have too much in there.  That’s always going to be something we wrestle with, and I’ll talk more about closet/clothes editing in a future post.  Today, I just want to assume that the things that are in your closet SHOULD be, and you just want to be able to use the closet the best way possible, and end the aggravation.

FIRST, Group clothing by type:  Pants, Suits, Dresses, Skirts, Tops, Ties, etc.    If you have the space, and it’s of value to you, you can do a “Winter” section and a “Summer” section, but we don’t all have that kind of space.  You might also be interested in separating “Work” and “Casual” clothes, too, if you’ve got that kind of variety in things like your shirts and pants.

SECOND, Sort by color within section. Probably the easiest way is the ROY G. BIV order.   (Remember ROY G. BIV?  Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet) Of course, if you’re like me, the rainbow has a few extra bands: W, C, G, B:  White, Cream, Brown, Gray and Black.  A lot of Black.

Sure, great.  It’s pretty. But, as the woman asked, “So what?”

Here are the two main reasons (not including “pretty to look at!”) that sorting your closet this way ends up being a tool for you:

1) Our multiples stare us in the face. Honestly, we like, what we like, right? We migrate towards the same things when we shop. Sometimes we forget we own something very similar (or, um, exactly the same) already.  When we group things together this way, we get to see our multiples, and we get to expose whether one is really much more of a “go to” option than the other.  Four red casual shirts?  I bet not only is one a favorite, and another hasn’t been worn in ages (and maybe you can part with it?), but now that you know what you really have, maybe it will remind you the next time you see a red shirt that you don’t really need to buy it after all?  (WHOA!  You mean an organized closet can help save you money??  Bonus!)

2)  Because “Stuff Management” = “Time Management”, and Time Management is a good thing.  When you know what you want to wear, and it is RIGHT where you thought you should find it, you save time and you save aggravation.  Imagine if getting dressed in the morning was way less stressful than it usually is because you could find exactly what you were looking for?  What if that reduced stress carried through to the rest of the morning?  You notice when you have a bad morning; maybe you’ll start noticing when you have a good one!

How do you make sure that the beauty of your closet when you’re done with this project remains, day after day? A closet system is a *system*, and like any system, it requires some maintenance.  The best way to be sure something is going to be there when you want it is to make sure you put it back there when you’re done with it.  Make sure you make this process as easy for yourself as possible, so you don’t have any excuse not to keep up with it, and have a closet that truly works for you.