Organize Your Closet According to Your Type

After tackling the kitchen and the living room (which, let’s face it, weren’t very hard with the help of a little personality typing and storage suggestions) we’ve come to the behemoth of projects: THE CLOSET. Whether it’s a master bedroom walk-in or an apartment-sized rectangle, there are smart ways to organize your closet, and we are here to tell you all about them. We’ll give you a brief overview of general advice, followed by specifically tailored (no pun intended!) tips and tricks for each Pixie/Myers Briggs Type. The results, we assure you, will be FABULOUS.

General Rules When Organizing Your Closet

1. Purge your wardrobe: This means get rid of anything you haven’t worn in the past two years. Donate it. Hold a fun clothing swap with friends. Just get it out of your house, and out of your sight. This will certainly be challenging for some types, but in the end, completely worth it.
2. Use matching hangers: This allows for better visualization of what you have hanging up, and gives you a better sense of your inventory. We won’t get all ‘Mommy Dearest’ on you, but if you do happen to possess wire hangers, please, PLEASE get rid of them. They are terrible. There is nothing good about them.
3. Find hangers that allow for a double-hang: This was a mystery to us until we realized what an actual double hang was (hello, beautiful!).
4. Mount hooks on the back of your closet door(s): Don’t abuse the hooks, but use them for small bags and other items you’d use daily and need out, like a robe or a nightgown.
5. If you must keep your clothing in drawers (not a good idea for visual memory types) then by all means, fan fold: By fan fold, we mean instead of putting your clothes in folded vertical piles, fan them out vertically in a flat manner, so that all items can be seen. If you have long horizontal drawers, do this horizontally.
6. Store your shoes on shelves: If you have no space for shelving, buy shoe bins and use them to line the bottom of your closet. That way, you’ll be able to see each pair when you look down.

1. Make purging an annual experience.
2. Get a large, traditional box to store all of your jewelry.
3. Never mind about shoe storage: Any kind will work for you because you are the only type who will consistently put her/his shoes away after wearing them.
4. If you have a ton of clothes, shoes or accoutrements and not the same amount of storage, you’ll start stuffing things where they shouldn’t go just to hide the evidence of clutter. The solution? Either expand your storage or purge your items seasonally.

Rules for Funs (ESFP, ISFP, ESFJ, ISFJ)

1. Only purge when you’re inspired to, and have a friend on hand to help you out: preferably someone who is very decisive. Because when it comes to purging or decluttering, you are not.
2. Go with color coding everything: You are the only type for whom this system will work. Rock it!
3. Get some drawer dividers for underwear and socks. Fan the rest.
4. Contain your gems and jewels: Whether it be in a bowl or on a platter, keep your jewelry out and visible, just contain it with an open box or something similar.
5. You will know you’re done purging when you have extra space in your closet and drawers. If you cannot say goodbye to a certain item that simply isn’t wearable anymore, put it in a later box and shove it in the attic.
6. Get some big hampers so that laundry isn’t an everyday occurrence (wouldn’t THAT be a drag).

Rules for Organics (ENFP, INFP, ENFJ, INFJ)

1. Hang everything you can. (By this we mean, everything except socks, underwear and loungewear.) You won’t see things that are tucked away in drawers, and consequently, you’ll forget about them.
2. If you have to hold onto something for sentimental reasons, put it in a later box or in deep storage for safekeeping.
3. Put your shoes on shelves or on the closet floor.
4. Use Huggable Hangers that allow for more hanging space.

1. No closed jewelry boxes. Remember, you can’t tell what anything is unless you can see it and it’s out or contained in a transparent bin or inbox container.
2. No home office anywhere in the vicinity of the bedroom/closet. With your tendency to pile (and pile) the place would soon be overrun.
3. Have a donation bin in your car so that you can make repeated trips out there to purge. If you keep a bin in your house, you will probably end up keeping everything that goes into it and never get rid of anything.
4. Use as many hooks as possible. With your tendency to hang or drape clothing on chairs and other furniture, it’s helpful to have a bunch of hooks to hang those same clothes on. It’s still a one-step process, and it takes the same amount of time — it just looks a lot better.