Tuesday, November 5, 2013

A Year-Long Clothes Donation Plan- Update

At the beginning of 2013, I stuck little post-it flags on the hangers in my closet to symbolize that I had not yet worn any of the items. As I wore each item, I took that little flag off and threw it away. I figured it would be a great way to keep track of what clothing I've been wearing, and anything that still had a tag on it at the end of the year would be donated, tossed or sold.

Throughout the year, if I come across an item that I know I won't wear again, I take it out and deal with it right then rather then leave it for the end of the year. Last week I did just that, went through the closet to see what still hadn't been worn...


My closet is organized as follows: coats, sweatshirts, sweaters, long-sleeves, short-sleeves, nicer shirts, work shirts, tank tops, dresses. Then on the far right side are special items such as my prom dresses that I don't necessarily wear but I am not ready to part with just yet.

In the above picture you can see I have a tag on only two jackets, a couple sweatshirts, a few sweaters, and some long sleeved shirts.


Just a closer look...


There are a few more flags on t-shirts and nicer shirts.


And quite a few tags on tanktops and dresses.

I'm not going to be super hard on myself if I haven't worn some of the dresses by the end of the year since I don't dress up very often. If I want to keep a few of those dresses I will let myself, because I may just not have had the opportunity to wear them. A girl has to have her dress up outfits =)

So after doing a little sorting here is what the flags looked like...



I ended up parting with eight flagged items, and a few items that weren't flagged as well.


They changed the dress code at my work and (thank god) I no longer have to wear purple, I now have to wear black instead. I don't want to keep the purple items if I'm not going to be wearing them anymore. I also found a few tanktops that I never wore and don't plan on wearing again. I also managed to part with a t-shirt and a sweatshirt.



You can see in the above picture that I have four categories I sorted these items into. The bottom text is cut off but it said "bring to work" which is what I will do with the purple work clothes, since the gymnastics coaches still wear that color. I have two items to donate because they won't be worth trying to sell on ebay. I have five tanktops that I will try to sell on ebay. I also have a t-shirt from work that I will toss since it is a personal t-shirt and no one else would really want it!

Not bad for a quick organization project! I will be revisiting this in December after Christmas to get rid of any other items I haven't worn yet....

How do you get rid of clothing? Do you have a system similar to this or do you just sort through your clothing on a regular basis?

3 comments:

  1. Hey Melissa,

    I love this idea! It's perfect for me because my hangers are only able to hang one way in my closet so I will probably be utilizing it soon :)
    ps
    you read my blog awhile ago... it was called simply small project. I have now moved to themintflower.blogspot.com

    lyndsey

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! It has worked really well for me this year, although I definitely wanted to do a massive overhaul at the end of the year I can't help but pull out a few items that I know I won't be wearing!

    So glad to see you're back in blog-land! I will head over to your blog now!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I find it cute to see those notes on your hangers! It’s a good idea actually, since it helps you segregate your clothes; see which ones you need to toss out of your closet to donate and those that are still worth keeping.

    Alison Perris

    ReplyDelete