Good habits compound. I noticed it was easy to do yoga every weekday directly after my early morning workout, so I used habit stacking to create a magic morning routine. After I started having fun getting dressed, I wanted to keep the area around my full-length mirror clean for ‘fit pics. In that same vein, when the year of dressing for fun began, I started with cleaning out my closet so I could expedite and enjoy the process of getting dressed.

To succeed in a new habit, make it easy.

It wouldn’t have been very fun to get dressed if I was having a hard time locating an article of clothing. It also isn’t so fun picking outfits in a closet that looks like a shed.

A new habit is easier to pursue if you feel good.

How can you feel confident in the way you present yourself if you’re grabbing your clothes from a space that looks like it should store a lawn mower?

Environment is important.

Change the environment, change behavior. Change behavior, change habits. Change habits and change your life.

With some leftover paint from previous owners of our home, leftover wallpaper from our dining room, and some tips from Brenda Cooper’s book, The Silhouette Solution, I did just that.

It’s not too fancy. I know the internet is teeming with custom closet organization inspiration from the ultra wealthy. I don’t aspire to that level of consumerism, and this suits me.

The work I did in here was shotty. Below my usual standards. The leftover paint was running low & I didn’t want to purchase more. The messy caulk job everywhere was hard to paint over and even harder to wallpaper over. But back when I used to use Instagram, there was a [then-] local blogger who always wrote about how her goal in DIY was “better than before.”

My favorite thing about home decor is making something better than before. Not perfect. But making simple changes that completely transform the feel of a space.

Brooke Christen

I love this mode of thinking, because creative people often have better taste than their skill level can achieve. Those perfectionist tendencies make so many talented people too ashamed to even try. Better than before is a good ol’ Goldilocks aspiration: not so lofty it causes you to freeze, but you’re still progressing the space, your knowledge, problem solving, and skills along the way.

The BEST way to organize your closet

Believe it or not, my closet was organized before the makeover.

I had organized it by clothing item and color. How could it get more organized than that? The skirts were together, the dresses, the workout clothes, the pants, sweaters…okay so that top shelf wasn’t utilized well and the floor was cluttered, but there wasn’t a better way to organize the clothes, was there?

There was.

Now my clothes are organized by color and item type. The bottoms are in the front of a given color, tops to sweaters in the back.

Even though the items were in color order in the previous version, the item groupings were smaller and it caused for it to be visually more cluttered.

Even the stuff on the floor is color coordinated.

How to organize accessories in your closet for FREE

Don’t rush to your nearest homegoods or fill up your Amazon cart full of plastic doohickies. This has been the most effective way for me to organize accessories like belts, hosiery, small bags, scarves and hats. In front of the given color, have a designated hanger for those types of items.

Just drape them, hook them, wrap them around. No, it’s not fancy. But it works. You’re more apt to see the accessories as you peruse the section that matches said accessories, so you’re more likely to actually wear it. It’s not hidden away, it’s right there right when you want it, likely before you knew you wanted it. Easy.

Other closet decorations

The evil eyes I also already had, I was going to use them as a part of the favor bags for my son’s birthday party in 2020…I thought they would look cool with the wallpaper and some weird behavior was going on that made me deem them a worthy addition to the decor.

The Shirley Temple doll was my Granny’s. The story was that my Pappy was visiting a friend’s house, she had just lost her husband. The woman had kids and he knew she was hard up for money. He wanted to offer her help without her pride being collateral damage, so he made a big show about being surprised she had this doll, how much my Granny wanted one, and he offered her $500 on the spot for it.

I don’t know what that is in today’s money, but I know it’s a damn good lesson in giving kindness with stealth.