No matter what you might be thinking at this moment, there’s a pretty good chance you don’t need as many clothes as you currently have hanging up in your closet or sitting in your drawers.
There is always room for consolidating your current wardrobe, not just to make room for new clothes, but to reduce the space those clothes occupy and ultimately give you a better feeling of how you approach your outfits on a daily basis.
6 Tips for Getting Rid of Clothes
1. Ask yourself: When was the last time you actually wore that item of clothing?
This is the easiest step to determining whether or not to get rid of certain clothes. When was the last time you actually wore that shirt, anyway? Here’s a quick way to make a decision: If it’s been more than a year, it’s safe to say you’re not going to miss whatever it is after it’s been donated.
2. Get rid of anything that doesn’t currently fit
This is one of the easiest ways to shed some of the backlog of clothing you have. If it doesn’t fit right now, at this exact moment, there’s no reason to keep it. Clothes might not fit great for a wide variety of reasons, but you’re not going to want to wear ill-fitting clothes, so the decision is easy: Get rid of them.
3. Don’t hang on to clothes just because they have sentimental value
An old, tattered T-shirt, or maybe something you wore on a memorable first date. There are plenty of reasons why an article of clothing might have sentimental value, but that doesn’t mean you should hang on to it if you’re not actively wearing it. It’s okay – the old T-shirt currently hanging on by a thread won’t mind. We as humans have tremendous sentimentality, but it often gets us into trouble when it comes to collecting items over time. Let your memories serve you well and use this as a moment to detach from some physical possessions.
4. Consider consolidating items that are extremely similar
You might love that blue button-down shirt, but is there really a reason to have five of them in the same type of style? Cataloging everything by style and color might open your eyes to a shopping habit you weren’t even aware you gravitated towards, and getting rid of similar clothes might even give you the space to try out some new looks over time.
5. Start utilizing the hangar trick
Each time you wear something and hang it back up in your closet, have the hangar facing in a particular direction. Over time, you’ll discover the clothes you never wear, hanging in the opposite direction. It’s a simple but effective way of really getting a visual sense of just how much we don’t wear. This will make clothes consolidation easier over time, too.
6. Take it one item of clothing at a time
None of this is to say you need to perform some sort of wholesale cleansing of your closet immediately. Donating or selling even just one shirt is a rewarding experience, a step in the direction towards a more manageable, minimalistic, and enjoyable relationship with your clothes. The process will look different for everybody, but the goal here is to continually make progress towards your ultimate goal, which is to live as simply as possible.