My clothes aren’t hanging in rainbow order all the time.
Nope, that’s way too much work. I need organizing systems that don’t make me think too hard or get emotionally panicked about basic stuff like T-shirts and sweaters.
You’ve probably heard the trick about turning your hangers backwards to painlessly weed out clothes you think you are wearing but actually aren’t. Turn all the hangers backwards at the start if the year and then as you wash and rehang what you wear, place the hangers the normal direction. Sounds great, but I’ve only ever really seen a couple of people do this. I mean, that’s a lot of work to walk over to the closet right now and turn All. Those. Hangers. Around. Right?
Let’s find something even easier to help you organize your closets. Energy-saving closet organization hacks are fine by me!
The middle way
Most people place the laundered clothes somewhere in the middle of the closet hanging bar for a reach-in closet. For a walk-in closet, usually fresh clothes all get shoved into the very front, nearest the door. In either case, all the unworn and rarely worn clothes kind of sift to the left and right, or the back of the closet.
But here’s my simple closet organization hack. After washing, all of my clean clothes get hung on the left side of my closet, so the unworn clothes kind of sift to the middle of my closet. My blazers hang on the right, and those don’t get worn or cleaned as much, so the middle of the closet, the part that I see most clearly, is where I want the clothes to feed into.
I constantly try my best to wear things from the middle, rather than unconsciously wearing my favorites over and over.
If something sits in the middle of the closet for too long without moving, it gets on my nerves and kind of retires itself. I don’t have to decide whether I like it or not … clearly I don’t like it or it wouldn’t be marooned in the middle.
Easy peasy.
If your closet rod is one of those inexpensive shelves that doesn’t allow you to slide the hangers without hitting a little bar or separator. Grrrrr. It takes a teensy bit more effort, but it still works.
Just get in the habit of shifting a handful of laundry to the middle when you bring in the clean batch to feed in from the side. It takes 5 seconds, and you’ll never have to spend a day purging your closet again!
I know, so simple, right? Pin this for later, to remind you how to save time and never have the need to organize the back of your closet again!
Darla DeMorrow is a Certified Professional Organizer from Wayne, PA, who also blogs at Heartworkorg.com, where this post originally appeared.
