I’m not a disorganised person, but there’s always more you can do to make things a bit easier to use or to find. Some years ago I realised the value of being more more organised with my clothes. I’d always separated types of clothes and kept similar things together, but I was finding that I couldn’t find the top that I wanted when I was going out. It had happened enough times to be annoying, so I decided to colour code my stuff.
I started with my tops. One weekend I got everything out, had a bit of a sort out and then put it back in colour coded order. Of course there’s always some cross over and some tops went on the edge of a colour because they were blending into the next colour, so it went from dark green, to lime green and then to yellow for instance. There were some trickier decisions, but it was usually easy to make a judgement call. I had a lot of prints in my wardrobe, but there was usually a dominant colour. On the odd occasion when there wasn’t, there was usually a dominant tone. It made such a difference. I almost never lost stuff after that.
Recently I decided to organise my underwear and hosiery along similar lines and it’s been a great help. So often I’ve been trying to work out if tights are navy blue or black in artificial light and it’s been next to impossible. Now all the colours are separate so I won’t get caught out again. Also, it helps focus the mind a bit on what you have and don’t have. I wasn’t surprised that the dominate colour for my underwear was white or cream, but it was a bit of a revelation that the next most numerous colour was pink (especially given I don’t have many pink outer clothes and I’m not a big fan of pink)O.
The other issue with finding things can be around having too many things to look through or not having the room to store things in a way in which you can easily find them. So I’ve been looking at ways of storing my winter things in summer or vice versa. That way I can actually see what I have to wear in the right season.
As part of my current organisation drive I was sent some vacuum storage bags by Packmate to review. It’s a great way to store bedding and clothes that doesn’t suit the current season, or even stuff you just don’t use all the time like spare bed bedding or the Christmas table cloth. Once you have the items in the bag, you seal it up. Next you suck out the air with the vacuum cleaner and just pack the reduced pack away. They have some helpful videos on their website to show you how it works.
At the moment I’ve put some of the items I couldn’t quite get rid of in a storage bag and I’ve put the date on it. If a year goes by and I haven’t had cause to use the items, I think I’ll have no excuse but to actually get rid of some stuff. I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder, but sometimes I need a helping hand to nudge me into action.
Every time I organise a new aspect of my wardrobe it makes my life easier. It’s well worth doing a bit of organisation and seeing if it has a similar effect for you.
Disclosure: I was sent the Packmate bags free of charge for the purposes of this review.
I love a bit of organisation!