how to organize, declutter and minimize >> PART II – get rid of it

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 READ PART ONE HERE.

Back then, in London at the beginning of 2013, I was faced with my worst nightmare. Moving. Over the years living in this gorgeous city, I had accumulated tons and tons of things. Most of the furniture belonged to the landlord so it was even more frustrating to see how many boxes I could fill with clothes. And shoes. And bags.

There was a time when I would open my closet and look at the stuff that I have acquired during the past and it felt like everything that I owned was weighing me down. If I could return all the purchases and get the money back, I would do it in a heart beat. But that’s to late now. So I had to do what had to be done!

Here is 5 easy steps to downsize your stuff and some helpful tips on how to let go:

1. Take everything out. EVERYTHING. Don’t do this all at once but at a certain place or you will be overwhelmed and not get anything done. For example start with bottoms – trousers, skirts, shorts. Once that is sorted move to the next. If you haven’t even organized it by item yet do it by compartment; for example one shelf/drawer/hanger at a time.
2. Make decisions. Pile everything you have into four stacks:
   1. Number One I – Keep. Those are the things you love, the things you wear a lot and keep coming back to.
   2. Number II – Donate. These are things that you can easily let go of, they are  either worn, out of style, broken (in this case toss) or don’t fit but won’t sell.
   3. Number III – Sell. Stuff that still has the tags on it? Sell! Doesn’t fit your style? Sell! You will easily get almost all the money back for it if it is still in style or from a good brand. Anything that still looks good and is in top condition can be sold.
   4. Number IV – Hide. These are items you can’t decide about yet. Usually you haven’t worn them in a while but still like them a lot. Something that helped me a lot when it comes to these things is putting them away for a while, out of sight. A couple of months later you take them out of their storage. Chances are you completely forgot about them! The items that you feel happy about rediscovering can go back in your closet. Anything else goes. This method creates an emotional distance to the item and the decision to let things go will become a lot easier!
3. For everything you buy, something else has to go. Easy. New brown belt? The old one has to go. New black boots? Throw another pair out.
4. If it doesn’t fit, it needs to go. This is part of 2 but I want to emphasize that keeping that false hope of fitting in that skinny jeans is idealistic and stupid. If you do actually lose weight you can much better reward yourself with a nice new thing that you will really love and appreciate. The odds that the thing you wanted to fit in is out of style by the time you made it are much higher. If you MUST, keep at most ONE item as motivation.
5. Unmatched items. That one thing you love but can’t combine. This leads back to Part I, finding your style. If you have too many different style items in your closet you will have a hard time combining them together. Make an effort to match items into outfits. If you fail to combine an item, let it go.

I hope this was helpful and that some of you will be able to tackle the masses that have accumulated in your closets! If you have any other useful tips, please share and comment below! I’d love to hear your opinion!

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