Your Closet Storage Is Actually Too Organized: Here's How To Fix It

Having a level of organization is a good thing, but it's possible to take it too far. While this can occur in any area of your home, it's especially apparent in closets. That's because it is somewhere you enter or search through daily, if not multiple times a day. Olivia Parks, the owner and lead organizer of Professional Organizers Baton Rouge, spoke exclusively with House Digest to explain how something arranged too well can end up more stressful than helpful. The solution is to declutter first, and only then can you determine the best way to organize your closet.

It sounds silly to think you could be too organized, but it's entirely possible. Putting everything away in a box sounds great, until you realize how much you have to move around just to get to a particular item. "Someone can over-organize their closet by using too many organizing products, creating overly specific categories, or having systems that are overcomplicated and take too many steps to complete," Olivia says. "All of these can make it harder to see what you have, take items out, or put things away, and can even make the closet feel more crowded and cluttered instead of more functional."

Unfortunately, there is no quick and easy solution to organize your closet the 'right way.' The answer looks different for everyone based on their tastes, space, and lifestyle. However, there is one point to keep in mind when deciding how to organize. Olivia Parks, during her exclusive interview with House Digest, summarized it well. "At the end of the day, the right amount of organization is a system that feels simple and easy to maintain. Its one that supports your daily routine instead of slowing you down."

There are steps you can take to get started, though. For one, consider decluttering before organizing. Storing your clothes in nice, tidy boxes doesn't matter much if you are just taking up space with items you are never using. It makes it harder to get to the ones you do need. There are plenty of tips for decluttering your closet like a pro across the internet, thankfully, which can help make the process easier. 

Once you have decluttered, you can look at organizing your closet. Even after you remove some items, you will still have to decide how to put everything else away. Take time to look up ideas to organize a small closet and see which methods may work best for you and your habits. 

Of course, even after decluttering, it's possible to make mistakes in your closet. During her exclusive interview with House Digest, Olivia Parks also explained that there were two common ways people messed up their organization. The first was, "setting up your closet around how it looks instead of how you actually live." She mentioned that it's easy to watch a few videos and feel inspired to copy an organizational method, without first considering if it matches your lifestyle. Having one of those perfectly organized closets like you see on social media may sound lovely, but they can be a lot of work to manage. 

"A closet that's too organized often becomes frustrating and exhausting to maintain and keep up, instead of being helpful. When the system is overly complicated, people stop using it as intended, and before long, it becomes messy again, with things slowly piling up and becoming stressful."

The other major mistake was "buying organizing products before decluttering." Purchasing bins without doing any purging first is only going to lead you to spending money on storage solutions you might not need. Wait to buy any organizers until you know what you are keeping and have at least a rough idea of how you want to organize your closet.