Declutter your wardrobe this Diwali with Karishma Khanna

A professional organizer, Karishma Khanna helps people overcome the clutter in their homes and offices and introduce systems that are easy to work with and maintain in the long run. With Sorted Homes, she wants to help start you off on your journey to an organized life, this Diwali!

'Diwali ki saaf safai' is more than just getting rid of dust bunnies! Cleaning our homes is as much about organizing and decluttering as it is about dusting and wiping and Karishma Khanna is here to make this process simpler for you. Here's what she has to say!

Start with your own stuff. Not the community spaces in your homes but your personal belongings like your wardrobe. That's pretty much the first thing you come in contact with from the time you wake up. If you've woken up earlier than usual on an important day because 'I don't know what to wear from this mess', then you know what I'm talking about!

Opening your wardrobe should feel like visiting your favorite store where you can't decide what to wear because you want to wear everything instead of the other way around. Or it should feel like entering a party with only your favorite people in the world. Let's get you closer to this vision with a step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Empty your cupboard and remove everything. This gives you a perspective of exactly how much you own. It also gives you a blank slate to start from. You may put certain things in a particular place out of habit. This helps you break it and reorganize.

Step 2: Categorize a dedicated corner to your tops, another for your dresses, pants, and so on. Leave no man out!

Step 3: Declutter. You don't want to spend time organizing what really needs to exit the wardrobe. This will take up most of your time but after this, it's like fitting pieces of a puzzle together.

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How to decide what stays and what goes, you ask?

While you're doing this activity, try and see your clothes as animate objects that have feelings and awareness. Now imagine what your life would be without a purpose. You'd be roaming around like a headless chicken. Similarly, Everything in your wardrobe or home for that matter has a purpose. A shirt is meant to be worn. It was made to be cherished and enjoyed by someone. If at any point you realize you're the one keeping that shirt from serving its life purpose, allow it to exit your home to find a new one. Where it will be enjoyed, loved, and cherished like it was made to be. With that thought in mind, ask yourself the following questions that should help with this process of making a decision. With some things, you just know. These should help you sail through the ones you're having trouble with

• Does it spark joy?
• If you lost it, would you buy it again?
• When was the last time you wore it? Was it in the last six months?
• s it comfortable? Does it make you feel like the best version of yourself? Does it make you feel confident to take on the world? If not, it's not worth it!
• Is it in a good condition? Is it torn? Do you love it enough to make the effort to get it fixed?
• In the case of no clear answer despite all these questions - get rid of it. If you really want to keep something the message is always clear. I'm not a fan of 'parking' stuff to revisit in 2-3 months either. Most often people never go back to it and it just lies there. So, life is too short to wear something you feel average in.
• Was the dress given by a partner when you were 2 sizes smaller? Well, your partner may or may not still be there but the dress is definitely lonely just hanging there. Your love for someone is not represented in an object, it's in the memory. And if you were to keep something you don't use but it makes you happy, place it where you can see it.

Step 4: Give everything a home. Once you've determined how much of what you actually have, it's easier to imagine what goes where. Place categories according to your frequency of wearing them. I would put my winter wear in a place that's not so easily accessible in my wardrobe since it's seasonal. If you look closely, clothes that need to be hung rather than folded will usually tell you themselves. Some clothes cringe at being folded and you can feel that cringe while you're trying to do it.

Step 5: Maintain it. Your cupboard looks like a dream and you want to probably live in it at this moment. However, it will remain that way by putting things back where they belong.

• We tend to demote old torn clothes to loungewear. You spend your best times when you're living the 'Netlfix and chill' life. Respect yourself and wear your most comfy and happy clothes, not torn and tattered that you'd want to hide from the world. But if torn and tattered makes you happy, go right ahead!

• Make it a rule that you will not put anything crumpled back into your wardrobe. Leave a basket in your room for when you don't have time to park things. When you do have the time it's easier to process "I need to clear this basket" rather than "I don't even know what is where in my wardrobe anymore." I call this the guilt-free dumping bag!

• Stop Online Shopping. I'm not trying to break your heart here but shopping cannot be your 'hobby' and if it is, there's probably something you're trying to bury under the endorphins that your body releases while shopping. When you feel the fabric and try on clothes physically you know exactly how they make you feel when you wear them and in most cases, you hold onto those a lot longer. Online shopping knows you'll get lazy to return or exchange things and just make them a part of your wardrobe over time without real love for the outfit. 

The best outfits in every wardrobe I've reorganized haven't been from a Zara or H&M. They've been from a tiny boutique on some street in some part of a country or they've been hand-me-downs!  I hope we can slow down in this fast paced world of fashion and take a moment to appreciate the shirts we have on our backs while there are tons of people without one. Let's be conscious. Let's donate. Let's reuse. Let's recycle.

Want to learn more about decluttering your homes? Follow Karishma on Instagram!

Also Read: Snacking our way into Diwali with these delicious recipes ft. Dhara Mehta