Almost 10 years have passed since I wrote about closet organization. Really, I looked it up on my computer. And now that we’re all “coming” out of the closet, I mean home, these days and coming out of our sweatpants and video calls, I thought our closets might need some pruning. So I am here as your professional organizer to remind you that no matter what we organize, the methodology is the same. SSPOE is the name of the game.

Sort – Take everything (or do one wall at a time if the whole closet is too much in one organizing session) out of the closet and ORDER your items into categories that make sense to you:

• Dress pants

• I years

• Dresses

• Skirts

• Elegant long sleeve

• Casual long sleeve

• Short sleeve casual

• Elegant short sleeve

• Layers of parts

• Folded dresses and skirts

• Scarves and coats

• Casual jackets

• Elegant jackets

• Pocket books

Select – Now that the room you are organizing is full of clothes / stacks of categories, SELECT from each category what you love to wear and what you want to keep. This is the time to make decisions. This is the time to try on your clothes and look in the mirror. Do you like what you see and feel? If not, it becomes a non-guardian. Track Track.

Pimpulse – Now that you’ve gone through each neat pile and decided what stays and what doesn’t, what would you like to do with the items you don’t want to put back in your closet? Will those items be considered a donation, a sale, a launch, a donation to someone you know at that size? PURGE is about letting go. Please get those items out of the room right now and put in place an action plan to get them out of the house. Don’t have a charity where you live? Go to the Internet and type in “Nearby Charities.” Do the same with the sale, “How do I sell my clothes online?”

ORrganize / Containerize / & Sometimes Labelize – This is where we really ORGANIZE and store your garments. We look at the whole closet and think: “Where will the short pendants, the long pendants, the in-between items, the categories I like to fold, dry cleaning go into, an organization product on the door or on the pole, sloped top shelf, etc. The “where” we put our clothing and accessories “home” is critical to convenient retrieval and display Sometimes placing certain categories in clear labeled containers or baskets is very helpful.

mequalify / Eliminate / Enlist and enjoy: this is the last step of our SSPOE methodology and, also, a very important one. Many people forget that they are not done with their organizing journey after putting their closet back together. BUT, if we don’t put a plan in place to keep the closet items in place, guess what? Things will get out of place! So think about what you will do to equalize (keep) the new clothing system you work exceptionally hard on following the SSPOE model.

Perhaps you follow the motto “Under two years, please” and every night you put all the clothes in their “homes” or in the laundry basket. Maybe you will remove seasonally clothes that you did not wear throughout the winter or summer. (I love having a donation container on hand in the laundry room or closet, putting items that come back from the wash that don’t fit me or I don’t like anymore.) Maybe you will get your spouse who shares this closet with you to do their part to keep the closet in order. If we do all these E’s correctly; equalize, eliminate and enlist, we get to to enjoy our cabinets!