We cleaned out our bedroom closet this weekend as whenever I walked in to it, I felt like all of the plastic bins and piles of miscellany were going to fall on my head. We did the method of my favorite shows “Clean Sweep” and “Life Laundry” where everything is pulled out, sorted (trash culled), re-organized and put back in. Needless to say, it was pretty impossible to navigate through our bedroom for a while.
I bit the bullet and pulled clothing that doesn’t fit at the moment and put it into a couple of plastic bins (I’m trying to limit myself to two bins). Although it was well organized (my hanging clothes are sorted by color) I have found it to be pretty demoralizing to realize on a daily basis, how I can’t wear several of my favorite outfits right now. It is said that we tend to wear only 10-20% of our clothing anyhow so removing what isn’t useful at this very moment should help – I’ll be able to wear anything I see and every morning won’t be a guessing game or a painful exercise in depression. There were several items we did set aside to donate to charity which was good too.
Our miscellaneous stuff was assigned new homes (e.g., Halloween costumes in the bin of seasonal decorations). We even found Randy’s West Virginia University memorabilia and put it up for the duration of football season.
I think the biggest mental adjustment I’ve made during our recent de-cluttering efforts has been getting over the guilt, whether it was money we spent on something we don’t use, or purging gifts from other people that we don’t use. We’re working on thinking about our purchases beforehand. As for the occasional gift we receive that isn’t a good fit, we appreciate the thought and effort which is the whole point of gift-giving.
Getting dressed this morning was a breeze. I just had to find out the weather for today (Charlottesville has been fluctuating a lot lately as we get close to changing seasons) and my few choices were right in front of me. Just this little bit of effort is going to change the quality of our morning routine.