Organizing kids’ closets can feel like trying to save a sinking ship! Kids are either wearing out or growing out of clothes. Add the challenge of getting kids to put their clothes away correctly, and it is the perfect disorganized storm!
Here are some tips to get those closets in order.
- Tackle one closet at a time. Don’t get sidetracked, starting a new closet before the old one is finished. Sidetracked, ADD organizing is the kiss of death for many organizing projects.
- Have some bins prepared for outgrown and off-season clothing. Perhaps you store hand-me-downs for younger siblings, or need to store coats and boots until next winter. Either way, have the appropriate bins ready. Stacking things in piles is just asking for trouble. Somehow those piles melt into each other, and if the kids enter the scene unexpectedly…#trouble.
- Have a garbage bag awaiting donations. (Face it – the stained t-shirt and the worn out tennis shoes aren’t going to get more mileage in your family. There is no sin in passing these items along and reclaiming your family space for things you really love and use!)
- Make a list of items to purchase. This prevents random purchases of incomplete outfits that ultimately never get worn – especially important at the beginning of a new clothing season. Plus, shopping with a list ensures no items are forgotten (like the shirt you never bought to go with the floral shorts you bought last season – and consequently never actually made it out of the closet.)
- Remember the 80/20 rule. Statistics tell us we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. Consider this when shopping for new clothes. A $50 shirt worn 50 times costs only $1 each time you wear it. Contrast that with the $20 shirt worn only twice. Numbers talk! Love what you buy…or don’t buy it. Less really is more.
- Make it easier next time. Depending on how hands on you want this to be for your kids, keep bins either under the bed (easier for kids to reach) or on a higher shelf (purposely out of children’s reach) in order to discard worn out and outgrown clothing on an ongoing basis. This makes the seasonal transition much quicker because much of the clothing has already been sorted.
- Open space. One of my organizing standards is to leave 25% room for growth in each space I organize. Keeping open space in a dresser drawer, for example, allows us to store a few pairs of shorts in the pants drawer for those warmer days. We can bounce between the random weather in spring and fall and our wardrobe can oblige.
- No storage room for off-season clothing? Use the front of the closet for this season, and the back of it for the off season. Remember prime real estate? It’s a real thing. It even exists within your closet
- And here’s a tip for YOUR closet: Buy yourself something new this season. Last year’s clothes are depressing! (Or is that just me?) Aside from the few we still like, most we’d rather not look at. Start a tradition of buying yourself at least one new thing to wear each season. It will do wonders for your mood, and help you look forward to getting ready every day.
And if messy drawers are a problem, check out THESE DRAWER DIVIDERS.
