What’s in your closet?

So I don’t know about you all, but I’m on the struggle bus when it comes to staying motivated during this shelter-in-place thing.  I look out my backyard over the canyon to the golf course I live behind and watch the grass grow in all the emptiness.  There’s no one to be seen, only the occasional golf course maintenance person…very depressing indeed. (As I post this, we have just today lifted restrictions on golfing, yay!).

While there is a light at the end of the tunnel with the pandemic, you still have time to get your golf closet in order, but don’t delay.

WHERE TO START

It can be a little daunting if you just try to dive in there and you may end up with a bigger mess than when you started.  I have a few suggestions that may ease the pain a bit so you can get this task going.  Consider these thoughts when evaluating your items:

1.  The first and most important consideration is how long has it been since I’ve worn this item/outfit?
2. If I’ve worn it within the last year (some say two), does the item still fit me well?
3. How does the item make me feel when I wear it?  If the item makes you feel good about yourself, by all means, keep it.  If it makes you feel frumpy, dump it!
4. What kind of condition is the item in?  Can I get a few more wears out of it before it starts looking faded and worn or are the arm holes in that white shirt pitted out?
5. Does this item add variety to my wardrobe?  Do I feel that it differentiates me to others?
6. What happens to my energy when I wear it?  At the least, do I feel energized and ‘up’ when I wear it, or do I feel enervated and ‘down’ when I wear it?  Have I won a tournament or played really well when when I’ve worn this item/outfit?
7. BOTTOM LINE:  What’s my gut instinct when looking at this item – let it go, or keep it?

DO NOT use the following as consideration to keep items:

1. Did I spend a lot of money on this item and feel I should keep it because I did?  Was it so cheap it feels easy to dispose of and holds no value to me?
2. Was this item given to me and do I feel obligated to keep it? (and is this a good enough reason to keep it)?  I say probably not.

ONE FINAL THOUGHT…

I am an outfit-type of person, meaning I like to have a top and coordinating bottom.  Very rarely will you see me wear something that isn’t the same brand for both top and bottom.  There are several reasons for this, but primarily since I had the clothing company, I was obsessed with creating items that could be mixed and matched from the same brand.  I learned early on that just because something is black, it isn’t necessary the same black in another fabric.

I also create outfits because I don’t like to have to think too hard about what top I’m putting with what skort and so on.  When I purchase, I usually purchase several items, a top and bottom, from the same manufacturer so I don’t have a bunch of random shirts that don’t go with anything in my closet or vice versa.  I know, I know, I’m a little OCD.

Here’s the trick.  I’ve done this now for the last year and a half — I see how long I can go without wearing the same outfit twice.  Once the outfit is worn and cleaned, I hang it to one end of my closet and that’s where all the clean, worn outfits are put until I reach the end of my wardrobe cycle.

I’m embarrassed to say that my golf wardrobe can last quite a while without repeating.  BUT what this process tells me as I start to get to the end of my golfing wardrobe, is that if I haven’t picked certain outfits to wear, they probably shouldn’t be hanging in my closet.  The fact that I’m waiting til the end, til I have nothing else to wear and I really don’t want to wear it, tells me that its probably time to move these items out once and for all.