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Springtime is upon us and there is no better time to clean out your closet than while transitioning from cool to warm weather clothes. As college students, most of us don’t have much storage space, and it can be tricky to fit all your clothes into a tiny closet. If you feel like you’re getting a workout every time you try to push over your clothes to make room for more hangers, it is time to admit you have a problem and get clean. Here are some simple solutions to problems we all face when cleaning out our closets.
Leave the Past Behind
The Situation: Remember your absolute favorite shirt from high school? The one you wore three years and ten pounds ago when the guy you were totally in love with said you looked “pretty cute.” We all have a shirt like that. It sits in the closet, too dated or tight to be worn. And yet we keep it there, a reminder of homeroom and lockers.
The Solution: Put it on and have a friend look at it. Even if you think that it is still cute or something you can salvage, your friend won’t be looking through the same rose-colored glasses as you. Maybe you really did have impeccable taste back in high school and the shirt totally still works. Great! But a good friend will tell you when it’s time to toss the old stuff.
Forget About the Price Tag
The Situation: It happens to all of us — we splurge on a dress that we’re not exactly sure about but our friends are telling us how adorable it is or how it is more flattering than we think. We get home, wondering if our friends were right, and we yank off the price tag. Mistake. We wear the dress once, tugging on it uncomfortably all night. The next morning, defeated (and probably hung over), we hang it in our closet, still hopeful that somehow it will come in handy.
The Solution: Forget about how much it cost, and get rid of it. Chances are you can get a decent price (and by decent I mean slightly less disappointing than normal) for it at a place like Plato’s Closet. Even though getting $5 back for a $50 dress will make you want to cry, don’t sweat it. The damage has already been done. You paid that for that dress so long ago that it basically never happened, right? Consider it a lesson. Next time you’re shopping and unsure about a piece of clothing, don’t buy it. If you’re still thinking about that skirt or those shoes a few days later, then you can go back and claim it.
Keep Things Clean
The Situation: So you follow this advice and purge your closet, yet somehow it is still pretty full. You thought you’d gotten rid of a lot, but you still can’t seem to make enough room for some new clothes you bought. Time for the long-term solution.
The Solution: Organize your closet in the way that makes most sense to you: by sleeve length, color, or some combination of both. Try to leave some space on either side or on a bottom bar if you have one. Every time you wear a shirt and then wash it, put it on the designated side or bottom bar. After a month or two, you will see which shirts are not heavy hitters and which ones are constantly being moved around the bottom shelf. Of course, some shirts may stay up there because they are your emergency interview shirt or something of that nature. Most of them, however, will end up being the shirts you almost got rid of but then convinced yourself to hang onto. Give it up. Sometimes it’s hard to let go, but it is also necessary.
*Images from Flickr Creative Commons