Last Updated on November 23, 2017

Get ready. I am going to teach you how to organize your closet in less than 2 hours! Why? Because if you want to save your sanity, you need a well-organized closet. A well-organized closet will save you significant time and money. How? Well, when you can find what you are looking for quickly and easily, you save time. And you save money because when you can see all of the clothes that you have, and you get rid of everything you don't wear, you stop feeling like you “don't have anything to wear.” Hence, you will spend less money on clothes. AND, when you take the time to hang neatly and fold your clothes in an organized closet, your clothes will last longer (translation, save even more money)!

Organizing a closet is really easy, you just need to set aside the time to do it! This step-by-step guide for how to organize your closet will take you a couple of hours to complete, but will save you LOADS of time in the long run…pinky promise!

This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

Before you get started, I HIGHLY recommend that you purchase matching wood hangers for your closet. We purchased all of ours at Ikea several years ago. Ikea sells great quality wood hangers at a fantastic price (trust me, I searched high and low for the best deal and Ikea had it)! If you don't have an Ikea near you, there are lots of affordable wood hangers on Amazon as well.

Okay, before I teach you how to organize your closet, let me show you what our closet looked like BEFORE we got started. Yikes.

How To Organize Your Closet

1) REMOVE EVERY SINGLE ITEM FROM YOUR CLOSET–clothes, shoes, hangers, boxes. Everything. This step is crucial. Choose an areas to place all of the contents of your closet. It could be your floor or your bed or both! As it happens, we used our bed and nearly the entire floor of our bedroom :)

2) Return anything that doesn't belong in your closet to its proper home. There is no reason to have old electronics boxes in your closet (not that I am speaking from experience or anything).

3) Now it's time to decide what to get rid of and what to keep. Your goal should be to reduce the number of items in your closet. Take a quick look at all of your items first. During this first pass, quickly decide what to get rid of or keep. You don't need anything fancy for this step–piles on the floor or bed will work just fine! Either toss or donate ALL items that you will not be keeping. It can be HARD to get rid of clothes, especially if you spent a significant amount of money on them. But the bottom line is that hanging on to excess stuff induces stress and is senseless! You should LOVE everything in your closet, even if that means you only have 30 pieces of clothing. So, follow these purging guidelines as you go through your items:

1. Identify items with holes, missing buttons or other damage. Quickly decide quickly if those items are worth repairing. If it is, repair it or have it repaired within the week. Otherwise, get rid of it.
2. If you haven't worn the item in the past year, get rid of it. Period.
3. If it does not fit and has not fit in the past year, donate it or sell it. If you plan to lose weight to fit into items that are too small (haven't we all said that at least once), only hang on to them if you are within a month or so of that goal. If you still have 30 pounds to go, just accept the fact that you may have to invest in some new clothes when you reach your goal. Chances are the styles will have changed and you will want to reward yourself with a few new pieces of clothing.
4. If you have multiple items that are VERY similar, such as 6 gray sweaters, choose your top one or two favorites and donate or sell the rest.

4) Once you have decided what to keep, return them to your closet in an organized fashion. Group like items together. If you are feeling like an organizing ninja, you can organize by color within those groups. If you have a tiny closet (like we've had in every single home before our current home), consider purchasing a portable closet to store out of season clothing OR store out of season clothing under your bed using under-the-bed rolling bins.

5) Consider adding some baskets, bins or even an extra rod to your closet to maximize your storage.

6) Finally, develop a system for keeping your closet clean and organized! Commit to folding and re-hanging your clothes every single day. And when you buy something new, take the time to evaluate whether there is something you can get rid of before placing the new item in your closet. The one-in-one-out rule is a great one to follow!

This is how our closet turned out after less than 2 hours. Best investment of time EVER! In the end we donated several large bags of clothes, which always feels nice. And it feels amazing to walk into a perfectly organized closet every morning :)

What are you waiting for? Go organize your closet! And if you have a closet organizing tip that I should add to the list, let me know!

Other posts you may enjoy:

• All Closet Posts
• Our 7 Closet Makeovers & the DIY Closet Systems We Have Used
• 7 Simple Tips for a Pretty and Functional Linen Closet + Inspiring Linen Closets
• Coat Closet Organization for Under $100
• How to Add a Closet to Any Room

And if you want to refer back to this post later, be sure to pin it!

Wondering how I approach transforming rooms and spaces in our home? Check out Designer in a Binder®.

And if you want exclusive content and behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, be sure to subscribe before you head out!