#closetanxiety is real. 

I know because I experienced it every morning when looking for what to wear.

Instead of addressing the issues with my closet, I would pick whichever items were closest to me and got the heck out of there. 

Scrolling through Pinterest and Instagram and admiring beautiful closets that I knew I could never get mine to look like got pretty depressing. 

One day, bored out of my mind, I decided to try to recreate a few of the closet ideas I had seen on Pinterest, with a few modifications of course. 

The result?

This post.

If you’re following The How to Shop Your Closet Master Guide, then you’ve already done the prep work and are ready to jump into these next steps (if you haven’t read post one you can do so here). 

Where You Should Be At This Stage

Just to recap, you should have two main piles for each of your sections: the ‘keep’ and ‘repurpose’ pile. 

We’ll get to the ‘repurpose’ pile in a later post so just keep it to the side for now. 

In the keep pile, any items that need to be tailored or have issues ie. a stain or hole, that haven’t been addressed yet should be separated from the items that are ready to be put into your closet. 

Just make sure to get those items taken care of quickly. 

Talking from experience if you don’t do it now, they’ll never be wear-ready. 

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get started with the fun part of this process!

How to Organize Your Closet

1. Clean Your Wardrobe

So I lied. 

You’ll need to ensure your closet is clean and dust free before you hang up your clothes. 

Be sure to dust any shelves, vacuum, mop or sweep the floor and wipe any glass inserts. 

Okay, now for the fun part (for real this time). 

2. Functionality is Most Important

It should be noted that as this post focuses on how to organize your closet, we won’t be bringing in any new items. 

We’re just using what we have. 

Since we’re using what we already have, think about how you can improve the functionality of your closet. 

Your most worn items should be front and center and easy to access, whereas your least worn items are best placed at the back. 

Having a plan of where to put things beforehand will make the process go by much faster. 

Some Things to Consider

Organize Seasonally: This will greatly reduce the volume of clothes that are in your closet, allowing you more freedom to add decorative elements.

Place any out of season clothing in a storage bin and utilize hard to reach areas such as the top shelf of your closet for these bins. 

Note: this doesn’t apply to summer items such as tank tops or t-shirts as those can be used for layering in the winter. 

Take note of your favourite accessories: Any accessories that you get a lot of wear out of, should be in a location that is easy to access and see. 

Consider putting in a hanging shoe organizer on your door for any shoes you don’t wear a lot.

Any hats that you don’t want to be nicely displayed, can be stacked and put on a top shelf. 

For purses that don’t need to be displayed, consider using a purse hanger which can be hung at the back of your closet. 

Closet Aesthetics

Put your most commonly used accessories in the middle of your closet or whichever area is easiest to access.

This is where you can get creative. 

Position these accessories in a stylized manner.

To make my closet somewhat resemble a boutique, I played around with the position of my shoes, pointing some to the right, left and front. 

In areas where I only had shoes, I altered the direction of each shoe to display the front and back of a pair. 

Colour Coordinate

To make picking out an outfit easier in the morning coordinate with like colours.

One of the easiest ways to make an outfit look cohesive is to match shoes with other accessories like bags or hats. 

Having these items (ie. a pair of shoes and matching purse) already grouped means you can just grab both accessories in a rush and know that your outfit will look put together. 

The same can be done for your most worn clothing items. 

Some of these items such as sweaters and blouses are also in the middle section accompanied by their matching purses or shoes.

Just be careful not to overwhelm this area with too much clothing, which can happen if you stack too many tops.

A rule of thumb is to limit the number of thick sweaters or tops that are being stacked in this section to three.

Okay so you’ve stylized your favorite accessories and most worn clothing items in the easiest to access area of your closet. 

What’s next? 

3. Tops and Bottoms

Now you’re ready to add tops and bottoms back in. 

For this step, you’ll want to refer to the sections outlined in post one. 

Starting with Tops

Separate these items into t-shirts, blouses, tank tops, cardigans, exercise tops, etc.

Any delicate tops or blouses should be hung up. 

Again, for a more aesthetic look, limit the amount of clothing that is displayed.

If you have any cabinets or drawers, this is where you can put any of your items less likely to wrinkle easily.

For items both on hangers and in drawers, organize by colour. 

This will help you find items more easily in the morning. 

Looking for a yellow top to go with those pants?

You know where to look. 

For added organization, further divide items by type. 

For example, all of your blue delicate tops hung up can be ordered first by tank top, t-shirt, long sleeve, blouse, cardigan, etc.

Move Onto Bottoms

Bottoms follow the same order as tops.

You want to put your dressy pants and skirts on hangers and put the rest in a drawer if you have one.

Again, you want to order first by main category (jeans, linen pants, shorts, etc.), then by color in each category.

4. Dresses, Jackets, Swimwear, Miscellaneous Items

Follow the same rules for the remaining sections. 

What to Do With Formal Wear

Formal wear should be placed in a category of it’s own. 

I like to put all items in this section, on the other side of my closet that I can’t easily access. 

Why? 

This leaves more space for items that I get the most use from. 

5. Marie Kondo It

For any items that go in drawers, under any category, follow the Marie Kondo method (it’s genius). 

This totally transformed my closet and was the biggest game changer when it comes to organization. 

Start by creating a square or rectangle with the garment.

For t-shirts, for example this means folding in the sides so they are inline with the shoulder seams.

For pants, fold one leg over the other so it forms a rectangle.

Then fold over by thirds or halves depending on the item until it forms a neat square.

This way all the folded items in your drawers are uniform in length.

It also means you’ll be able to see every single piece you have at a quick glance whilst preventing wrinkles.

I told you it was genius.

6. Undergarments

All undergarments go in a separate drawer from everything else. 

You can follow the Marie Kondo method for organizing, socks, panties, shapewear and pantyhose. 

For bras, line them up, one on top of the other, which allows them to maintain their shape. 

7. Maintenance

Now that you’ve got the main structure of your closet established, feel free to swap out items or move things around as you see fit. 

You might realize in a week or so that you don’t get a lot of wear out of a top as you thought you did, so something else might need to go in its place. 

Feel free to experiment with different placements and look on Pinterest for more closet inspo. 

This is your closet so it should always make you feel inspired and excited to wear your clothes. 

If it’s not doing that, it’s time for a refresh. 

I like to note down any functionality issues and when it comes time to swapping out seasonal items, I make those changes then.

Next Steps

Enjoy your closet, you didn’t put in all this work for nothing!

And guess what? 

With a closet as beautiful as yours you won’t have to worry about #closetanxiety anymore!

Now that you have the proper system in place, you can successfully shop your own closet.