The afternoon rays hit your sensitive skin, and you realize you fell asleep watching Marie Kondo’s “The Magic of Tidying Up”. You’re filled with a renewed sense of purpose for finally going through and organizing your closet. You have hours at your disposal, and all that’s needed is the confidence provided by some more alcohol, but how much is needed to complete this project?
The type of alcohol you want to build yourself up with can depend on the mood you’re going for. If you want to feel the breeze and mellow out, wine is going to be your best friend. Beer and Malt Liquor are convenient and easily accessible. Rum and Gin will get you more stimulated and ready to get organizing. Stock up on whatever suits your mood, and prepare for a productive night in.
Don’t feel like you’re required to listen to the best of Marie Kondo in the background all night. While helpful and pleasant sounding, those words might be a little overwhelming if you’re nervous about the tidying up. It might suit you best to get a list of recommended suggestions from Marie Kondo and other tidying experts and listening to mindful or motivational music for the night. It’s hard to go wrong with Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” or anything else off of a “Rocky” Soundtrack.
The first thing you’re going to want to do, is build up some adrenaline by taking a shot. Be it tequila, gin, vodka, bourbon, or anything else that will make you feel like you can single handedly pick up a car. Once your alcohol of choice sets in, quickly remove all the clothes from your closet and other storage containers. Don’t get discouraged from the mess that’s been moved to your floor, and channel your anxieties into excitement.
Once you’ve reached a satisfactory level of inebriation, you may feel a renewed sense of confidence in yourself. Use this as an opportunity to give yourself a much-needed pep talk. You can do this; you can conquer your closet and the world! And if you start to feel uneasy throughout the process, don’t hesitate to take another drink.
Start by sorting your clothes into easy piles of dirty and clean. From there, try to set aside items like the skirt that’s two sizes too small, and the leggings that have more rips than fabric at this point. You’ve been letting clothes past their useful life take up prime real estate in your closet for far too long. Take another drink as needed. Marie Kondo recommends breaking down projects such as this into categories. You can sort your skinny jeans, crop tops, and long cardigans in their own piles for later organization.
As you’re going through your ginormous display of clothes, you may feel the urge to run out to Walmart and purchase a few dozen more hangers and storage boxes. Fight this urge. Fight this urge with a glass of wine or a rum mix drink. The solution to your clutter should not be through spending money to hide the mess elsewhere. That would only be a temporary solution, and you’re better than that.
If you have any recent or semi recent purchases with tags still on them, put them into their own pile. Ask yourself if there is a reason why you haven’t taken these items out yet. Are they gifts for someone else? Do you need a different size? Are you thinking of returning them? And if you have items laying around with tags that have been in your wardrobe for months, you should have a serious conversation with yourself about why that is. The place that you love items the most is most usually the store, and you might have left that love back in the checkout line.
Marie Kondo is famous for asking, “Does it spark joy?” Does that reflective sequin skirt you got from Target for six dollars spark joy, or was it just a deal you were overly excited for? When you’re drinking, you’ll find that it’s much easier to be honest with yourself and others. And when you’re going through your closet while drink, you’ll be able to admit that the zebra print leggings without pockets are just taking up space.
When you get to the sweater given to you by your Aunt’s second cousin’s hairdresser’s godmother because she saw it in a store and thought it was just so “you”, take a step back and get another drink. You’ve been holding onto this sweater for three years, and you’ve only worn it twice. Once when the temperature dipped into the teens and it was the only thing warm that wasn’t in the laundry, and again when you needed something to wear while making a trip to McDonald’s at 11:30 and didn’t want to be seen. It doesn’t spark joy because it’s two sizes too big and has grease stains.
Take another drink before settling on that gorgeous, yet very fragile dress you got on sale at Ann Taylor Loft last summer. It may be beautiful and help in catching countless compliments, but you’re too afraid to wear it most nice days because it needs to be hand washed. It may spark joy, but is that worth the extra care that it requires? Unless you’re going to step up and learn how to do hand washing soon, there really isn’t a use for you to keep this in your closet for decoration.
Once you work your way through the sea of statement pieces, you should get your buzz up and turn your attention to the ginormous pile of t shirts at your disposal. Ranging from middle school to the 5k you participated in last week, each of these shirts has a sense of sentimentality. Many have been taking up space for nearly a decade, are they still sparking joy like they used to? There are actually so many uses for old t shirts to consider, you may actually want to use the old ones for cleaning and crafting. When you’re sober, you can find ideas and inspiration all over Pinterest.
After sorting through all of your clothes, and making a few laundry trips, you should be ready with piles of organized clothes ready to be carefully placed. Before you begin putting things away, you should take another quick drink as you decide what should be folded in dressers, what should be hung up, what goes into storage bins, and what gets donated.
How ever you decide to organize is up to you, but many people prefer to hang up their nicer and most used pieces, fold their casual wear in dressers, and store away clothes that are waiting to be seasonally appropriate. With these, there are ways to get the most bang for your space.
Something popular across home organizing forums is the practice of placing hangers on top of each other. It will probably require getting more hangers in practice but planning your closet pattern ahead of time should give you some clarity for when you need to get more.
Marie Kondo has a special method for organizing clothes for dressers and bins, which has you using methods of origami for maximized efficiency. Once folded, you should put them in drawers standing up; which provides for more available space.
Once you’ve gotten this far, you deserve another drink! Or several more. Cleaning is never easy, but with some planning, helpful tips, and handy alcohol, you’ll have a beautifully organized closet that Marie Kondo will be proud of in no time. And you’ll be able to more effortlessly rock the fashion world with your show stopping pieces easily within reach.
How drunk do you gave to be to clean your closet? Enough so that you can do it like a pro!
DISCLAIMER: Her Campus does not promote unsafe drinking practices, or underage drinking. Please drink responsibly!