7 Signs You Need to Do a Closet Purge

It’s mid-year audit time. You can do a check-in on your vision board, intention letter, side-business, family goals, and yes, your closet. The closet gets cluttered fast. You probably have way more than you actually wear, some of it you don’t like at all.

Here are 7 Signs You Need to Do a Closet Purge:

1. You never wear it.
   
   Women hang on to clothing for an average of seven years. Some of us go even longer. We keep them around for many reasons. Maybe nostalgia, hope that we’ll have an occasion to wear it again, thinking we’ll be that size again soon.
   
   Turn your hangers around so you have to lift and pull the garment underneath the closet rod to retrieve it. When you put them back, the hangers go the normal way. After six months, all the pieces that still face the wrong way are things you haven’t worn. This is an excellent place to start your donate pile.
   
   
2. It’s threadbare, pilled, or faded.
   
   This one should be obvious, but we all have something in the closet that has seen better days. This is the opportunity to celebrate all the great times you had in that amazing sweater and toss it in the Donates.
   
   
3. It’s lost its shape.
   
   Stretched wool is never coming back. Donates.
   
   
4. It’s the wrong size.
   
   If you are hanging on to an article of clothing that is too small, every time you see it in the back of your wardrobe you’re feeling emotions that color the rest of your day: guilt, sadness, regret, listlessness.
   
   If you have something in your closet that is too large, what are you doing? This is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the making. The idea that you’ll have it in case you put on some extra weight (unless there is a legitimate medical reason why that would happen) also sends you down a restrictive and lack-minded path.Too big or too small… Donates.
   
   
   

   

   
   
   
5. It’s out of date.
   
   I’m a little bit nostalgic, I’ll admit. I have a dress that I’ve worn to balls with my hubby, to a Broadway show in New York. But I make sure that I do not fill my closet with memorabilia. For one thing… who has the space? For another, you’ll find yourself living for the past instead of embracing today and all that is possible now and in the future.This is less about being styling and more about being future-focused, optimistic, and expansive.
   
   
6. It needs tailoring that you’ll never do.
   
   *Raises hand* This is me, too, ladies! I have definitely been guilty of this one. I buy something because I really really love it, promising myself that I’ll get it hemmed this time. But inevitably, it sits in the wrapping in my closet until the sparkle has faded.

Being honest with yourself here, fighting that emotional attachment you have to it, are you ever going to darn it or get it altered? Do you love it enough to invest the money? If the answer is yes, call your tailor and make an appointment (you’re less likely to flake). If the answer is no, kiss it goodbye. It goes to Donates.

It brings up negative emotion.We already touched on this in No. 4 Wrong Size. Emotions of a bittersweet experience, a sad occasion, or any other negative energy can reside in the very fabric of clothing. When we look at it, it brings back harmful emotions that knock us of course. It doesn’t have to be the wrong size to do this; it can simply be that you received bad news in that jean jacket. Now every time you see it, you remember that news.This one is difficult, but I am telling you that you will feel like a weight is lifted off your shoulders once the items are gone.

Donates.