10 Easy Steps to Organize Your Closet Like a Pro [In One Afternoon]

Been thinking about how to organize your closet? Take a moment to think about what your closet currently looks like. 

Is it over-packed with sweaters, jeans, scarves, and handbags? Are there piles of shoes and clothes stacked up on the floor? 

It may even be filled with items that don’t belong, like books, DVDs or old toys for your childhood!

Next, think about how long it takes you to pick out an outfit each day. Is it difficult to find the things you want to wear? Do you find yourself getting frustrated trying to decide what looks good and what doesn’t? 

As an affiliate partner of various brands and sponsored content, we may earn commission on qualifying purchases. Disclaimer | Advertise With Us

Maybe you’re even late to work because you spent too much time picking out the perfect outfit.

Now, imagine opening up your closet and having everything neatly stored and organized, ready for use. 

The amount of time it takes for you to pick out an outfit each morning drastically reduced, no more stress at picking out the perfect outfit and you can actually see every single thing you own! 

An organized closet is incredible, both for your productivity and mental health. As someone with ADHD – I find organizing my closet super therapeutic.

I use this free Capsule Wardrobe planning book, which showed me how to declutter my closet and curate my clothes to suit my style for every season.

In this post, I’m sharing what I’ve learned, and some ways to organize your closet so you can learn how to organize your closet like a pro and start reaping those benefits.

How to Organize a Closet

Ready to learn the easy ways to organize your closet?

Before we dive in, make sure you get your free copy of the Capsule Wardrobe book!

Step One: Empty out your closet

The first step to organizing your closet like a pro is to start with a clean slate by emptying out the entire closet. 

Once everything is removed from your closet, it’s easier to dust, vacuum, and paint. Not to mention, a clean palette makes it easier to sort and organize everything. 

Although your bedroom may look like a department store exploded inside it once everything is removed from your closet you can go through each item individually.

There’s no point in organizing something you’re just going to end up getting rid of after all.

Step Two: Paint your closet

Next, it’s time to give the walls of your closet a makeover. Grab some crisp white paint and coat the walls. 

If you live in an apartment complex or a rental where you’re not allowed to paint, chances are your closet walls are already white or a light neutral color, so don’t sweat it! 

You’re probably wondering what painting your closet walls has to do with organizing your closet? 

The idea behind this is that you most likely have a lot of different colors and patterns in your wardrobe.

Having a white closet as opposed to a bold color allows your eyes to rest and makes all of the colors and patterns of your clothing inside pop when you’re trying to piece together an outfit.

Step Three: Declutter your wardrobe

Before you begin putting stuff back inside your closet, you need to declutter your wardrobe. 

Separate your clothing into categories with piles for each type of item; such as pants, dresses, blouses, shirts, and shoes. 

Go through each item and be really honest with yourself. If you haven’t worn a particular piece of clothing in a year or if it doesn’t fit, get rid of it.

This includes shoes and accessories that are out of style or that you just aren’t in love with anymore.

For items that you’re purging, ask yourself, “Could someone else use this?” If so, consider donating the items to a local charity or thrift store. ThredUP, the largest online consignment and thrift store accepts clothing from over 35,000 brands. If you donate your gently used clothing to ThredUP, they’ll donate $5 to the charity of your choice. 

For clothing that is too worn to give away, add it to the trash pile.

Step Four: How to properly store seasonal items in your closet

A great way to free up some space in your closet and keep it organized is to store away seasonal pieces that won’t be making an appearance for months. 

Where you store them depends on your space situation, get some storage boxes – these storage boxes are a great option. 

Not only are they clear which allows you to easily see what’s inside, but they also fit perfectly under your bed. Depending on your bed frame you may even be able to stack a few on top of each other for more storage! 

If you don’t want to completely store away your seasonal clothing, try organizing your clothes in your closet by season with the current season items closest to the front for easy access.

Then at the start of each new season, you can easily switch out your blouses and bottoms according to the time of year.

Step Five: Use matching hangers

Hangers are one of the most overlooked, yet important aspects of closet organization. 

Most of us just buy whatever hangers are the cheapest. However, there are actually many benefits to spending the extra money on high-quality matching hangers. Not only will this create a clean and cohesive look in your closet, but they’re also better for your clothing. 

You’ll no longer have to worry about garments getting snagged on random hangers, which can cause your clothing to lose shape or even get damaged.

Using matching hangers also helps keep everything more efficient. Since all of your hangers will be the same height, size, and thickness, all of your clothing will be hung at the same height and width. 

This not only allows you to easily find items but also saves space by eliminating bulky and inefficient hangers. When your closet is full of random hangers, garments tend to get lost behind others. 

Velvet hangers are great for organizing your closet like a pro because they are skinny and don’t take up much space. The velvet material also keeps your clothing from falling off the hangers. 

If you have a smaller closet or find that you still don’t have enough room for everything that needs to be hung up, consider using “huggable” or stacking hangers.

Step Six: Make optimal use of your space

If you have a small closet, space savers will be your best friend. 

There are so many different options for making optimal use of your space such as shelves, cubbies, and hanging racks because when it comes to organizing your closet like a pro, it’s all about getting creative and using wasted space. 

Find the options that work best for you and your closet. However, don’t buy any space savers or organizers until you’ve first cleaned your closet.

Over-the-door shoe hangers are a great way to maximize your space and are perfect for small closets. You can easily store several pairs of shoes in an easily accessible way. 

Another great option is to move your rods up higher. Oftentimes, especially in smaller closets, the space under your hanging clothes is wasted.

However, if you move your rod up higher, you could easily fit more stuff under your hanging clothes including shelving, additional storage, and even an additional rod to hang more clothes on!

Step Seven: Find a new home for items that don’t belong

Oftentimes our closets become somewhat of a storage space for trinkets, paperwork, and other items that simply don’t belong in our closets. 

Your closet is prime real estate, not a space to keep things that you have no other place for. Go through these items and find a new space for them, or get rid of them if you don’t need them. 

This may even be the perfect opportunity to declutter your home as well! 

Anything other than clothing, shoes, or accessories that you don’t use on a weekly basis should not be in your closet. Find a new spot in your home or apartment to store away your holiday decorations and other out of place items. 

Step Eight: Utilize drawer space

To hang or to fold? 

We’ve all asked ourselves this question at least once, especially when it comes to items like jeans, knits, and tees. 

The worst one for me is skirts, should skirts be hung or folded?!?

You should always hang delicate items like silk, rayon, satin, or velvet blouses. 

When hanging button-down tops, be sure to secure the top button to prevent the collar from creasing. 

You should also always hang trousers and dress pants. Fold them along the crease and drape over the bar of the hanger to keep them in top shape. 

Dresses and dress skirts should always be hung as well. Unless your dresses or jumpsuits are heavily embellished, always hang them vertically on hangers. Dress skirts should be hung at the waist with clipped hangers.

 Folding and using drawers comes in handy for sweaters, casual skirts, heavy pants, and t-shirts. 

Before loading your dresser up with clothes, designate a specific drawer for each category. This will make it easier for you to find things. 

Both short-sleeve and long-sleeve casual t-shirts should always be folded. 

Sweaters, regardless of their material, should always be folded as they will stretch when hung. 

Depending on how much space you have casual, denim, and thick-knit skirts can be folded or draped over a hanger’s bar. Heavy pants like jeans, leggings, and cargos can all be folded since their material is thick enough that folding them won’t cause them to wrinkle. 

If you run out of drawer space, you can also place folded items like jeans on the top shelf of your closet. 

Step Nine: How to organize your clothes and arrange your wardrobe neatly

Now the moment we’ve all been waiting for. 

How should you actually arrange your clothing in your closet? By color? Length? Style? The answer is all of the above. 

The best way to maintain a clean and organized closet is to organize it so things are easily accessible… 

Start by organizing all of your clothing by category. Separate your short sleeve blouses from the long sleeve and your long sleeve blouses from your sweaters. Then within each category, organize by color. This allows you to easily see what you actually have in your wardrobe. 

When you arrange your clothes randomly or just by color without sorting, you’re not able to see what you have. 

Then, when you can’t find clothes, you tend to go out and buy more, which will just add to the clutter. Not to mention, it’s not good for your bank account! 

Step Ten: Organize shoes and accessories

If you don’t love the idea of the over-the-door shoe hangers mentioned above, there are many other great alternatives depending on how much space you have and your closet setup. 

Anything that makes sense to store in a container, do it. 

If you don’t have a standing rack or shelf for shoes, then use clear containers to stack on the ground underneath your hanging clothes. 

You can also stack them on the top shelf of your closet as well!

Another great option is to store your boxes or containers of shoes on a rolling cart. 

This allows you to easily pull them out and look through them, rather than making a mess out of your closet by digging through them. 

If you use a shelf to store your shoes in, place your shoes in the opposite direction. You’d be surprised at how much space you can save just by placing one shoe facing forward and the matching shoe facing backward! 

Shelves are also a great option for storing and showcasing handbags, hats, and accessories.

Well done! By now you should have successfully organized your closet!

It’s such an amazing feeling opening the doors and easily being able to find anything you want.

Let me know what surprised you most about organizing your wardrobe in the comments below, and don’t forget to pin this post if you found it useful so others can also find it! 🙂

Related Posts:

• How To Declutter Your Home (And Transform Your Life)
• How To Build An Easy and Realistic Capsule Wardrobe For Stress-Free Mornings
• Why Your Wardrobe Is Wearing You Down (Is it time to declutter your clothes?)