Exactly how to clear out your wardrobe – ten tips by Annmarie O’Connor

Annmarie O’Connor is a fashion editor, stylist, wardrobe wellness coach and bestselling author of The Happy Closet – a self-help guide to balancing well-being and being well dressed. Here she breaks down the practical and emotional hacks that guarantee a successful and stress-free closet clear-out.

Your closet is more than just a collection of clothes. It’s a deeply vulnerable space containing layers of old energy which, if not recognised, can create sartorial chaos. This explains why something as seemingly simple as a decluttering sesh can trigger some extreme emotions – fear, loss, shame, guilt. It can also make you feel like a rockstar bad-ass superhero capable of taking on the world and its mother. That bit generally comes at the end. The beginning and middle are often more complex. Here’s how to swap procrastination for motivation and take the war out of your weeding your wardrobe.

1. Break it down

Have more than three wardrobes? Stuff stashed in the attic? What about the garden shed? Calculate your estimated closet inventory by the amount of time needed to clear it. For example; four hours per wardrobe x three wardrobe = 12 hours, plus breaks. That’s an entire weekend or one wardrobe per night for three allocated nights of the week or month. I advocate the latter. Here’s why: the willpower required to tackle a project as emotionally-loaded as closet decluttering is enough to have you give up mid-way and commit to a life of chaos. Small and consistent increments (like starting with your underwear drawer) are key to easing anxiety, building personal agency and kicking procrastination in the goolies.

2. Bring in the recruits

This is not a job to be tackled alone. Grab an objective third party, or what I like to call your ‘Frank Friend with No Filter’; someone with no hand in the game who’ll tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Treat your FFNF like a pair of training wheels on a bike: the support helps you stop from wobbling and falling off (do you really need that threadbare mini-skirt?) but once you achieve a certain rhythm and confidence, you’ll be able to steer your course alone. Plus, they won’t be shopping from your closet. Result!

3. Ditch distractions

Clear your diary. Feed and water all dependants then deposit them with whomever or whatever will look after them for the course of a day – childminder, pet sitter, football match. Turn off the TV, radio, laptop and your smartphone. Better yet, give your phone to a friend, partner or sibling who’ll do PA duties for the day. You will only wind up stalking Ryan Gosling’s Snapchat in a moment of weakness.

4. Fight brain drain

Keep snacks, water and juice to hand and refuel at regular two-hour intervals. Be sure to stop for a decent lunch break too. The trick to sustaining and completing a task as emotionally-charged as weeding one’s wardrobe boils down to something quite simple – blood sugar. Without regularly replenishing glucose levels, willpower will dry up like a pre-packaged boyband after three songs. Suddenly, deciding whether to bin that shirt with the cigarette burns is a cognitive feat too far. Decision fatigue sets in and the whole process grinds to an unceremonious halt. And to think, all you needed was a biscuit.

5. Take a break

Starting to flag? Take two minutes to stretch your legs, throw water on your face, cry – whatever you need to do. Just give yourself a time frame and get back to business. Although distractions can be detrimental, small breaks are known to improve decision-making and performance. They also work with the brain’s natural inclinations (pleasure over pain). Studies show that the unconscious mind continues to actively work out problems even while the conscious mind is engaged in a different activity (those ah-ha moments generally come when the mind and body are taking five).

6. No alcohol

Leave the glass of vino until the project has been completed. As tempting as it may be to lift one’s spirit with a tipple of Tempranillo, this is not the time to soften one’s mental guard. Alcohol reduces our glucose levels, which in turn affects our willpower and self-control. Before you know it, you’ll be on a mercy mission to save that Carmen Miranda ra-ra skirt from uncertain death. Don’t do it. Just don’t.

7. Forgive yourself

Hoarding is often linked to a sense of vulnerability and, to a certain degree, self-blame. So, you haven’t done a proper clear-out since 1998. And what if you spent a small mortgage on shoes that still have the swinging tags intact? Will the world come to an end because of it? Nah. According to Dr Kelly McGonigal, health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University and author of Maximum Willpower, forgiveness increases accountability, takes away the shame and pain of the past and makes us less likely to continue the pattern of procrastination. Clear-out the self-criticism before clearing out your closet.

8. Keep present

Unless you are already taking steps to diet into those size 10 jeans, keeping them is preventing you from engaging with the now. By focusing on what doesn’t fit, you avoid having to deal with what’s real. Appearance-based habits only motivate us once they are in operation (think of how hard it is to get to the gym but how pumped you feel once you’ve finished your workout). Otherwise, they act as a Mean Girl in your closet – a mockery of who you are today.

9. If it doesn’t work now; it won’t work later

When something is right – be it a relationship or a pair of jeans – it just fits. There’s an ease about it. You don’t need to create clauses and conditions to justify its presence. Phrases like ‘I might get wear out of it yet’ need to go. If you haven’t been motivated to wear it (which is kind of the point in having bought it) then it is simply taking up space – mental and physical. This assumes added gravitas when coupled with the phrase ‘I used to wear that’ which loosely translates as ‘and I haven’t put it next or near my body since 2001.’

10. Futureproof the now

Anxiety is a fear-based response to a future possibility. And as horoscope-reading, Dow Index-following, weather-predicting folk, we’re partial to a bit of risk management. Nothing wrong with that. When caution turns into cold sweats over parting with a bag of mildewed sweatpants, then we’ve got a problem. The key to managing one’s state is futureproofing the now. Every time you start to feel your footing slide at the very mention of change, it’s time to take a deep belly breath and get back to the present. So, you need to throw a few things out? Focus on small bags; not the big picture. Get to grips with why you are decluttering and remind yourself of its life-affirming benefits: space, flow, calm. The minute your ego asks you what you’ll do in the unlikely event of renewing your jaded gym membership, tell it to jog on.

Find more tips on wardrobe clearouts, personal style and more in Annmarie’s bestselling book The Happy Closet (Gill Books, €14.99) and on her website annmarieoconnor.me.