How to go minimalist? Or close?

[ElizabethCourt]

I have to drastically downsize my clothes. I love collections in different styles and textures in blue, beige, navy and black with winter accents in mulberry and chocolate brown. Love them all but how to reduce quantity? Gentle psychological and practical advice please! From your own experience ideally. (Have read Marie Kondo.)

Why?
I'm in the process myself mainly because I live with a hoarder. My stuff gets swallowed, so I'm minamilising because I will find the courage to leave one day and I will do so with all my belongings in one bag. First I donated any clothes that didnt fit/didn't like that much. Then any duplicates. Underwear no more than 7 pairs.
You cabn find lots iof tips on youtube.

Yes I'm planning to move somewhere smaller for financial reasons. Can't possibly take so much stuff, much as I love it! I know I just need to begin, a category at a time, a day at a time. I don't have a deadline at the moment. Perhaps I need to make one like 3 months?

Try to work out roughly how much storage space you will have for clothes when you move. For example are you going from 3 wardrobes and 2 chest of drawers to one of each?

After that if say you have 2 drawers of socks and pants you will need to get them down to one drawer. Put the ones you actually use and fit in that one drawer. If you still have more than you can store do another pass and just pick your favourites of each kind.

Do the same with all your other clothes. If you still have some clothes that you have storage for, but don't actually wear regularly pick your absolute favourite and provided it fits, it can go into the keep wardrobe. Carry on until you are done.

Be realistic about what your life will be like in future. Are you going to be going more sporty, more glamorous, more volunteering in scruffy places?

Whatever you get rid of you'll end up getting rid of more.

We sold our house in May, I'd gotten rid of so much stuff previously. We put everything in storage and moved in with my parents.

Eventually moved into our new much smaller house beginning of August and we're still getting rid of stuff.

I find decluttering clothes very hard, so completely understand why you are struggling with it.

What helped me declutter, is working to my strengths, what motivates me (and what doesn’t). At work I was very goal orientated, loved “To-do” lists but I am not particularly creative (although I loved working with people that are), so I treated this like a work task. You know you, what works well for you, so use this to your advantage.

1. Overall Goal - I wanted to reduce the amount of clothes I have by 50%. You say you need to drastically reduce the number of clothes you have - but for me it helped to have an overall number I was working towards and a timeframe.
2. I set a particular time slot for carrying out this activity (Wednesday morning between 10 and 12 for the next eight weeks, as I work best in the morning mornings, would have more clarity and I would be willing to be more ruthless). However, I have a friend who would hate this.
3. I then took a category, like summer dresses, got every summer dress I owned out and then sorted it into three piles, things I want to keep, things for a clothes bank, things I could sell, making sure I would only keep 50%.

Now in theory this worked…. In practice it didn’t.

My downfalls were:

1. Some categories I find easy (for example Skirts - I now only own one skirt, Coats - really difficult, I still have far too many coats and they are bulky items.
2. Selling clothes, I used both Vintage and eBay. I sold loads….BUT I also bought loads too! I am now decluttering again but I am taking things to a charity shop.
3. Keeping things for sentimental reasons, for example I kept the dress I wore on my first date with my husband, my wedding dress, dresses that I wore on my Honeymoon, bridesmaids dresses, various fancy dress outfits, etc. Of these I now only have my wedding dress.
4. Thinking that decluttering was a one-off process, it isn’t I was not ruthless enough the first time and I am now doing it again and I bet in six months time I will need to do it again.

Good Luck