A behavioral guide to decluttering

Do as you do, not as you say.

Spring is upon us in the great Pacific Northwest, and it’s putting me in a decluttering mood. Then again, basically anything happening anytime puts me in a decluttering mood, but let’s not dwell on that.

One category I’ve seriously struggled to declutter is clothing. I do not buy many clothes, and yet I have gone through about 6 rounds of clothing edits in the past year alone, and I still have way more clothes than I actually wear.

It must be an emotional category for me — the memory of the person I was when I bought the thing (someone who left the house after dark, ever), the hopes I’d imbued in that garment (“maybe I’ll become artsy!”), the way I’d become used to seeing the same thing every time I opened the closet (“hello, jaunty peacock print dress!”), the pain of remembering how much I spent on something I never use (ouch!). Plus my body has morphed with childrearing, and I am never quite sure if it’s “done.” As though a body is ever done morphing. Maybe you relate.

Anyhow.

I finally got the kick in the butt I needed in an Apartment Therapy article featuring the “90/90 Method,” summed up as: Have you worn it in the past 90 days? Will you wear it in the next 90 days? If no and no, then it goes!

It’s hardcore and I love it.

The brilliance of 90/90 is it focuses on your behavior, not your feelings or your analysis about whether the item is worth keeping or not. Feelings and ideas are complex and ever changing. Behavior is black and white.

With this method my closet now looks like this: