Originally appeared on: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/qdtarchive/organize-your-wardrobe/
April 26, 2011
Use attachable hangers to change your whole approach to clothes.
Ok, I’m so totally a guy, it hurts. My wardrobe is a total bottleneck. The clothes are jammed in so tightly I can’t really see them. Which is probably fine, since my taste sucks. I’ve never been able to mix and match colors, styles, or textures. I’m not even totally sure what a texture is. It sounds vaguely medical. “Hey, doc, when you take out these textures, will there be scarring?”
It takes me ten hours to pack for a two-day trip. Nine of those hours are spent trying to figure out which shirts and pants go together. A meterosexual, I’m not.
Make Space
But I just started a new job, yippee! And I’m so excited, I even decided to wear real clothes to the job. I’ve worked from home for ten years. My idea of dressing up was changing from pajamas into shorts … sometime around one o’clock. I had no choice, you see. It’s the 21st century, everyone’s fine coming out of the closet. You’d think that would leave extra room for clothes. Nope. My dress shirts were so packed together that the wrinkles had wrinkles. Pulling out one would cause several to fall on the floor. Then I’d have to clean. Ick. Way easier to wear T-shirts.
Then I discovered HOMZ “attachable hangers.” They’re normal hangers with an extra little hook. You put your shirt on a hanger, hang a second hanger on the front of that, and a third hanger on the front of that. Instead of side-by-side, the hangers hang down. They’re only as thick as as single hanger, so you have more room. Clothes hang down instead of wide.
Simplify Dressing
Now that I can reach my clothes, I’ve still got to mix and match. You know how the little voices make you line up your green beans and eat them from shortest to longest in order to prevent Armageddon? This time, they told me to sort my clothes by color and type. I hung all my blue T-shirts together in one vertical set of hangers. Then all my T-shirts with patterns. Then my blue dress shirts, my cream-colored dress shirts, and I was done. So far, no biggie. I’m just following orders.
The next day was the big revelation. I wanted a blue shirt to go with my khaki pants. Call me a fashion maverick. Now I’m not a super-model (despite what my Mom says—after all, she wore paisley, too), so I normally can’t judge color. But pulling out the hanger stack of blue shirts, all the shades were right there. In one glance, I could match them with my pants. For the first time ever, matching clothes was a cinch.
I ran right out and got attachable pants hangers and put all my pants together using the same system. Now, dressing is so easy it’s almost laughable. The little voices are very pleased. I just grab the hangers with the color palettes to combine and zip, zing, zappo, I can mix and match. Now it’s all clear: khaki #57/D goes beautifully with blue #13J, while it’s obvious to anyone that khaki 19B would never go with blue 16． I mean, c’mon.
Plan Ahead
Then inspiration hit: if clothes can be grouped by color, they can also be grouped by outfit. At the start of the week, my new super-clothes-matching-power can be used to put together five work outfits. With the attachable hangers, I hang each outfit’s pants on the hanger with the shirt, and daily can just grab the outfit for that day, all at once.
For the advanced course, I’m going to add seasons into the mix. I’ll put together outfits for special occasions in advance. Rainy and warm? Grab my cargo shorts and T-shirt ensemble. Chilly, and I’m off to a formal event? Grab the hanger with my cashmere paisley sweater and burnt-umber wool slacks. It’s like GrrAnimals on steroids. (Oohh. Scary thought.)
So run out today and grab some attachable hangers. First, hang vertically to clear out horizontal space so your clothes don’t get wrinkled. Then group related colors. In an instant, you can mix and match entire palettes. Then group related seasons so you can swap your winter wardrobe for summer in 30 seconds. Group combinations you want to remember. It’s never been this easy to be a fashion victim.
Now excuse me. I’ve been wearing these clothes for two hours and want to go change into a new outfit, just because I can. And besides, we have to keep the little voices happy.
Stay tuned! In future episodes, I’ll tackle getting rid of that clutter all over your desk and how to clean your entire apartment in a jiffy.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
Resources
HOMZ Attachable hangers HOMZ sku#5700
– HOMZ attachable pants hangers HOMZ sku #5704
– homzproducts
– Speed up Dressing – Picture of my hanger organization system
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the Get-it-Done Guy podcast, an iTunes top-10 business podcast, from 2007 to 2020. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a degree in Computer Science from MIT.
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