It is Sunday afternoon and the weather is windy and grey. The day has started well with doing some laundry, a little lunch, a visit at the neighbours for some chit chat. Sundays can be rather difficult days, because I start to think of the Monday and there are already some emails dropping in – rather unfortunate.

Back in my apartment I set aside my phone to prevent me from checking anything that could distract me and make myself a nice cup of coffee, Sundays are a good time to browse a little bit through the internet, catch up on reading and deep diving in a few Pins on Pinterest I have saved. In the process of becoming a happier person, decluttering various areas of my apartment has become one of my little projects. And sometimes it’s easiest to start with the part that you’re dreading the most – the clothes.

Over the past years I have accumulated a lot of clothing and shoes, it has become my quick fix of happiness, although too often I had come to realize, that shortly after the purchase the initial glory was gone and it ended up to be simply one of the items I own.

There are many things I wanted to achieve by facing the challenge of my closet – one was to declutter and get rid of items,create space, whilst another was to create a neat system of continuous organization. But whilst reading about the magic of decluttering I also very much embraced the thought of giving new value to the clothes and deciding on new outfits I had abandoned thus far.

“the good ones go into the pot, the bad ones into the crop – or the good ones are going neatly folded into the closet, the unwanted but still good ones go to friends and/or shelters.”

It all starts with the right piece of inspiration – and my process initially began with a better system to arrange my clothes, which I found below.

http://www.redbookmag.com/home/g617/organizing-ideas/?slide=4

To compare and create a before and after piece to send to my mother this inspiration was followed by a decent look at my own drawer.

I sighed – grabbed it all and placed it onto the kitchen counter. In my apartment this is a very long wooden “bar” and is perfect for such endeavours. Of course this was not the only place where I hoarded all those tank tops, t-shirts, longsleeves and those sort, so I opened my shelve to tackle that in the same run.

And there was my hive of upper clothing ready to be trimmed…

In a fifteen minute research on the matter it was recommended to give every piece of clothing the attention it deserved – imagine a farewell and welcome party at the same time. Unfolding every piece and giving it a decent look and then divide into two piles – one that I defined as “definite keepers” and one rather vague as the “unsure-out of season-to bin-and-whatever-pile”.

After this I was surprised to find out how few tops I was actually attached to and really liked at a first glance.

Yep – the big pile is the latter, the clothes I am not sure I really want. The first thought I came to my mind was the truth around “I have nothing to wear”, it all of a sudden became a visible fact not just a feeling when being indecisive or uninspired or simply frustrated with the overall situation.

As a fan of analysing and making results visible I have also decided to put some real facts and perspective to it – visible in the first chart below.

What I’ve found important was to immediately take away the “definite keepers” and moved them onto my couch. They would get their time of being folded in a new and efficient system but I’ll get to that later.

Back again addressing the extensive remainder of potentially unwanted (ex)treasures. Looking at this stack thoughtfully I knew one thing for certain – it would be impossible to make a call just by unfolding them and giving it a decent look – so I’ve decided to try on each and every one of them. All of them? Yep – all of them.

(there were two that even still had a price tag on them – wow)

In this process I have then allowed myself to create four different piles.

1. the lucky charms making it back into the closet (“delayed keepers”)
2. the pieces that need a second opinion (“sanity checkers”)
3. the ones that had colors & fits I couldn’t get inspired by (“inspirational needers”)
4. that stuff I was just too disconnected (“farewell pancies”)

 

I lot more time had passed than initially intended, my mouth was a little dry and I was glad to allow myself to take a little break. In pride I sent a picture to my family (three generations on what’s app) letting them know I mean serious business. There is nothing wrong with sharing the progress – especially to the ones who never believed to see something like that.

“Share results and be proud… then crack on with your mission”

It was time to give way to another part of my mission, which wouldn’t involve any decision making or further research. How would I now arrange the “definite” and “delayed keepers” followed by whatever last minute joins from pile 2. and 3. on a later stage.

Thanks to Marie Kondo and Huffington post for this 30 second video on how to fold a T-Shirt. I remember trying to read her book and maybe it was too early for my mind to already resonate with her ideas of decluttering, but I never made it beyond 30 pages. What I appreciate the most around her way of folding is to give “positive energy” to the item. It somehow gives this little extra cherry on top of properly valuing what you have an appreciate, even more so after the process of cleaning it all out first and making some (tough) choices.

So I folded an folded and it made me Zen, it was nice and all towards the end I was just glad that I had managed to cut my possession of T-Shirts, Tanks and Longsleeves in nearly half…

Ultimately I managed to win on all fronts. I made a conscious decision to let go of some items which had no real value to me anymore I just wasn’t ready to admit it before, being drawn to the quantity accumulated over the years. I have created some space in my closet – in fact the whole shelf is free now and ready to be used for other things, rearranged clothes, whatever I’ll decide. I have reinforced the love & appreciation for those 68 items I decided to keep and 90% of the clothes i am giving away are still in very good shape, so after giving only a few pieces to my little sister i will give the others to a shelter, so they might make someone else happy.

And then there is the view of the result 🙂 and it makes me smile every time I’ve looked at it.