How to Organize Your Closet

There are certain things that make everyone feel more put together. One of those things for me is an organized closet. Now I will be the first to admit I’m not type A so everything isn’t perfect. But I do love to have a general organization system.  I’m sharing below the closet organization ideas I use to use my space in the best way.

First, you may want to go thru your clothes to see if you want to get rid of anything. I put together a post here about how I decide what clothing items to get rid of and what to keep. Once you do this you’ll know exactly what you have in your wardrobe and can utilize your space in the best way.

How to Organize Your Closet

I, like most people, do not have a giant closet or even a walk-in closet so making the best use of the space is my priority. My first storage solution to maximize my space is to store out-of-season items away. I’ll store shoes, sweaters, swimsuits, etc in air-tight plastic bins and vacuum-sealed bags. This creates so much extra space and then the only things in my closet are items I am wearing.

Categorizing Your Wardrobe

The first step is putting like items together, dresses with dresses, pants with pants etc. Next, you look for subcategories. This is where things get really personal and you have to think about how you put together outfits. Is it more useful for you to put items together by style? Or will by color make more sense? Or a combo approach. Personally, I like to put items by style. For example, I start by putting all my pants together. Then I put my dressy work pants together, then my casual pants like jeans and joggers together. The next category is lounge pants like sweat pants and leggings. If I have a lot of items within any of the subcategories I will then do them by color.

I’ve listed some subcategory ideas below as inspiration. You could get way more complex than this. But the best organization system is one you will keep up with, so be realistic! I only color-code my shirts and sweatshirts because I don’t keep up with color-coding other items. 

Dresses

• Casual
• Work
• Cocktail/Wedding

Pants

• Sweatpants
• Leggings
• Denim
• Slacks

Tops

• Tshirt
• Casual
• Work
• Dressy
• Sweatshirt
• Sweater
• Jackets
• Blazers

Organization Items

There are many closet systems out there and they provide a ton of storage solutions. Even if you can’t afford one of those systems or a professional organizer a few products can really help you organize your clothes and create the most storage space possible.

If you change one thing in your closet, make it changing your hangers to velvet ones.

It is my number one storage solution. These velvet hangers are seriously a lifesaver! They are very thin so they will give you extra space in your closet. The velvet material keeps everything in place. Thin straps and silky fabrics won’t fall off these hangers and litter the bottom of your closet.

I store out of season items in space bags.

Not only does it provide extra space but it will protect the clothes if you keep them in the attic or somewhere else.

If you have hanging rods with some room on it a hanging organizer can create more room for folded items.

Certain items like sweaters or other awkward to hang items are better off being folded as well. This will also keep items in your closet and not need a larger dresser.

If you have dress or long hanging space in your closet you probably have some dead space under your dresses.

To make the best use of that put clear plastic drawers on the floor. You can stack these and put as many as your space will allow. They can keep lots of things, especially smaller items, organized and out of the way.

These shoe organizers are ideal for all types of shoes.

You can stack them on each other to customize for your space. Another shoe organizer is these plastic ones. They allow you to stack the shoes on top of each and are a great use of vertical space and can create more storage space.

Keeping big drawers organized can be difficult.

I use these drawer dividers to separate my socks and undershirts in my drawers.

These clear acrylic stacking trays work great to organize jewelry or any other smaller items.

They come in lots of shapes and styles so you buy just the type you need and they stack or sit next to each other. I have mine in a shallow drawer in my dresser and use them for jewelry, sunglasses and masks.

For items that need to stand or stack another closet organization idea is to use shelf dividers.

They can create more storage space by helping you use the vertical space on a shelf when something has trouble stacking. These shelf dividers will help hold up a stack of shirts or sweaters and this purse shelf divider will help purses sit upright.

Disclosure: I may earn an affiliate commission on any purchases or clicks thru the links in this post. This is no cost to you and I only share things I love.