5 Minute Closet Update

Our closet, for the most part, is organized. We have divided racks and shelves that force organization, and we separate clothing in a fairly organized manner. However, sometimes I take a look inside and things seem a little chaotic.

This is my unorganized. Your unorganized may look very different but I'm sure we can all share in the feeling of looking at our closet and thinking "what in the world happened here?!" Of course if I could just pick up/put away as I go, it will never look like this. But who always has time for that? I try, but sometimes I'm just too tired/lazy/hurried/unmotivated, and I throw pieces of clothing and shoes wherever I feel. 

And that's when this shows up. Sweaters unfolded and ready to tumble from the top shelf, dry cleaning that should definitely come out if the bag, and clothes thrown everywhere. 

When the closet looks like this, I'll be honest, I'm in no mood to deal with it. I feel like it's going to take so much longer than it's worth for me to get it back to good, that I'm better off just not bothering. However, when my closet looks like this, I also get super stressed when I try to get ready for work, or dressed for anything, and that's just not worth it either. 

So after work one day this week, I got busy. I dedicated 5 minutes to making this closet more manageable. I took care of all those plastic dry cleaning bags. I left Brit's shirts on their wire hangers, although I seriously dislike them. However, he's going to wear them in the next week or two, then back to the cleaners, so I really can't justify spending time on switching out his hangers. 

With the dry cleaning bags taken care of, I next addressed the top shelf. This has been a big time problem for us because it's about 7 feet high and neither of us can really reach it {hence the tumbling sweater issue}. I purchased some shelf divider/organizer bins that were delivered last week, so what better time than now to put them to use. They not only make it so much easier to access our top shelf items, they also can keep clothes stacked nicely. I was actually able to take some sweatshirts out of hiding and place them up there as well.

They have little handles on the sides too, making them really easy to take down and put back up. Also, the labels. I mean, do I have to tell you that I like the labels? Look at the difference!

As I was hanging up or throwing clothing in the laundry bin, I decided to take a couple minutes to evaluate my clothes. I came up with two pairs of pants, two blazers, four tops, and four pairs of shoes that either don't fit, don't work, or don't need to be kept {for style reasons}. Although this is not an amount worthy of a trip to Good Will, I feel so refreshed just looking in my closet knowing that everything in there is something that fits and that I like wearing. 

So within just 5 minutes, the embarrassing mess got cleaned up and reorganized.

Of course it will not stay like this forever. I'm sure in the next couple of weeks I will need to dedicate another 5 minutes to manage the closet. But at least for the time being I feel less stressed and more organized when looking through the closet. 

Cost: Bins = $16 for two, on sale. 

Time: 5 minutes! The bins took a few minutes to assemble, but the overall organizing time was only 5 minutes. 

How do you maintain organization in your closet? Do you do small quick cleanups frequently, or big overall clean outs occasionally?

Thanks for visiting!