Declutter Your Bedroom
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It’s ideal when your bedroom can be a sanctuary from the world—a calm, beautiful and restful place to relax and recharge. But often, the bedroom can be a bit of a dumping ground for the piles you don’t want to face in the living room, a place where books, laundry and other bits and pieces end up, a place where clutter collects.
It’s also a place where we collect. Clothes, shoes, and accessories accumulate as each new season, sale, and special occasion compels us to need something new. And so we add more and more until our wardrobe is overflowing.
Let’s work step by step through decluttering our bedrooms.
Begin by taking everything that doesn’t belong in your bedroom back to its place.
If you haven’t already, make the bed. Make it easy on yourself by having a doona or bedspread that is easy to manage and limit the number of throw cushions you have to arrange.
Clear off all horizontal surfaces. Put as much as you can away out of sight and keep just a few beautiful pieces to decorate your space.
Identify the problem areas. Do you have a chair that collects dirty clothes, a shelf that collects books or a corner where you dump laundry baskets? Identify the problems and think creatively to come up with a solution that will work. It may be as simple as a commitment to put the books you’ve read each week back on the bookshelf every Saturday morning.
bedside table
Having a tidy bedside table makes your bedroom feel like a luxury hotel. Take everything you can off the top. Only leave the essentials—such as a clock, a lamp, something beautiful like a favourite photo, a bunch of flowers or a scented candle you love. Try to find storage out of sight for the extra bits and pieces you need to have close by.
Take everything out of your bedside table. Put anything that isn’t supposed to be there away. Tidy up everything that is left and put it away neatly.
tallboy
Go through each draw one at a time and empty it.
Focus on choosing what to keep. What are your favourite underwear and workout wear? Which do you reach for first every time they are clean and ready to wear? Keep what is comfortable, look great and fit well.
Let go of anything that doesn’t fit well or is worn out. Let go of anything that isn’t comfortable. Donate what is in good condition and throw the rest (there are places you can donate old clothing for recycling).
Eliminate the excess. If your underwear drawer is overflowing, it’s time to consider paring back. How many pairs do you need? How many bras do you need? It is easier when you have less. Just keep your favourites and let the excess go.
I love folding my clothes and underwear the Mare Kondo way, so everything is easy to see and take without disturbing the remainder.
wardrobe
There are several approaches to decluttering clothes. There is no right or wrong way. I’ll outline a few here. Choose the one that suits you or use a combination of ideas.
Uniform
The first approach is to create a uniform. This involves identifying the outfit you love to wear and multiplying it. This may be a dress suit, jeans and a button-up shirt, or shorts and a t-shirt. Whatever works for your situation. Many of us do this without calling it a uniform.
Celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg have taken this to the extreme, owning several of the same t-shirt and jeans and wearing it every day.
2. Top Ten
Lay ten outfits on your bed. Include shoes and accessories. These outfits are the ones that fit well, are comfortable to wear and look and feel great. Often these are the outfits that attract ‘You look nice today’ comments. Pack the excess clothes away.
Choose a new ten outfits every few months.
Donate any clothes you don’t use at the end of the year.
3. Capsule Wardrobe
If you google Capsule Wardrobe, you can go down a long and winding rabbit hole. A Capsule Wardrobe is a limited number of high-quality foundational pieces that mix and match and all fit together.
Depending on what is already in your wardrobe it can be tempting to build your capsule wardrobe by going shopping rather than decluttering. If this is the direction you want to take, build towards it over time rather than jumping in all in one go. When your current pieces wear out, replace them with good quality versatile pieces rather than cheaper fast fashion options.
4. The 40 Hanger Closet
I did this for a long time, and it worked well for me. I had 40 hangers for my regular hanging clothes and an extra ten for winter coats and special occasion dresses I wanted to keep.
I started by buying 50 good quality coat hangers (I like these). They weren’t expensive, but they were all the same. I then put together my wardrobe of my favourite 40 pieces. I eliminated duplicates, keeping just my favourite pair of black pants, my best white button-up shirt and a black t-shirt. I made sure most of my tops matched with most of my bottoms to give me lots of mix and match options.
When I was browsing the shops, I knew I would have to let something else go if I bought anything new. I only bought new clothes I loved more than the favourites I already had.
5. Project 333
This approach is more extreme but works well if you are looking for a circuit breaker to a clothes shopping addiction. I built my caravan wardrobe off the concept.
The idea is you have 33 pieces of clothing for three months. This includes tops, bottoms, dresses, shoes and accessories. It is pretty limiting but is an ideal way to discover just how little we need. When you have 33 pieces that fit well and look great, you can build multiple outfits and always feel fantastic. And at the end of the three months, you get to make changes to suit the new season, keeping excess clothing in storage.
6. Backwards Coat Hangers
If it all seems a bit too much, this may be the strategy for you. You go through your wardrobe and turn all of the coat hangers around the wrong way, pulling the hook towards you on the rail. Set a reminder on your phone or calendar for the end of the season.
When you wear clothes and hang them back up, hang them the correct way, with the hook of the coat hanger facing the back of the wardrobe. Be sure to wear the clothes you love to wear. Don’t choose clothes based on the way the hanger is facing.
At the end of the season, donate the clothes you haven’t worn.
7. The Simple Declutter
Get a donation bag and pick out the following:
Clothes that don’t fit. Own the size you are. If you lose weight, you deserve some new clothes, but you don’t need to be reminded every time you open the wardrobe.
Duplicates. Few people need five pairs of black pants, but many of us have them.
Clothes that aren’t comfortable. Life is too short to be sucking in our belly or adjusting straps all day.
Clothes we bought on sale but don’t really like.
Clothes that are suited to a different stage of life. Our life changes and our wardrobe needs to as well.
8. Shop Your Own Clothes
This strategy is one of the most drastic, but if you are struggling with deciding what you want to keep, this may be the best way forward for you.
Find an alternative space for your ‘shop’. It can be in your garage, in a guest room or the basement. You need a space that is accessible, but completely separate from your bedroom and wardrobe.
Empty out your wardrobe. Put everything in your ‘shop’ in another room.
Over the next month, ‘shop’ for the clothes you want to wear. Once worn, return that outfit to your wardrobe.
At the end of a month you will probably have everything you love to wear out of storage and in your wardrobe.
Sell or donate the clothes left in storage (in that season).
If you follow this list, you should be left with only the clothes that fit well, look good and are comfortable to wear.
When your bedroom is clear of everything that isn’t supposed to be there, and your wardrobe is full of just the clothing you love, it becomes a sanctuary—a place of peace and calm.
