Follow these simple steps to organize your wardrobe

The transition from winter to spring often brings with it two major events: warmer weather (coupled with a few snowstorms here in Utah just to mess with your head) and spring cleaning.

That combination makes early spring the perfect time to reorganize your wardrobe.

Noelle Wong is an image consultant and owner of iN-Image! Inc., a personal image consulting company based in Toronto.

She suggested a four-step process for reorganizing your wardrobe:

1. Clean your winter clothing. If necessary, dry clean items. Take special care in cleaning your wool suits, winter coats and wool sweaters.

2. If your closet isn't big enough to hold all your clothing, store your winter clothes in boxes after they've been cleaned. You can also store them in garment bags under your bed.

3. Say goodbye to things that a) do not fit you, b) you do you not like, c) are too worn and old, d) are out of date and e) you do not look absolutely wonderful in. (Wong said that sometimes saying goodbye to clothing is the hardest part for people when they reorganize. "It is easier to let in the new if you get rid of old things that no longer fit you perfectly," she said.)

4. Assess the clothing you have left. Identify if there is anything missing that you need to replace. Make sure you can put everything together into workable outfits.

When you have a hard time deciding what to keep and what to give away, organization expert Deniece Schofield said a good rule to go by is "if you haven't worn it in a year, get rid of it."

And by "get rid of it," she means donate.

"I think it's so selfish to hang on to clothes you're not using," she said. "So many people need them."

A former Bountiful resident, Schofield now lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She has written four books about organization and has traveled around the country and parts of Canada for 24 years giving "Get Organized" seminars.

She will present seminars in Orem on Thursday and Friday.

Both Schofield and Zach Taylor, the owner of a Draper franchise of home and office organization company California Closets, suggested a very visual way for people to figure out exactly which clothes in their closet they are wearing: Hang up all of your clothing backwards, so the hook of the hanger is facing you. Once you remove and wear an item of clothing, hang it back up correctly.

"After a season, if you haven't turned the hanger around, you should probably get rid of it," Taylor said.

To help children keep their closets organized, Schofield suggested making closet rod markers that set aside specific space for shirts, pants, dresses, etc. She made some out of plastic shortening lids for her children when they were young.

"It's a very visual reminder of where to put things," she said.

To maximize your closet space after you reorganize your wardrobe, Schofield suggested hanging clothing by size so that the space underneath the shorter items can remain open for shelves or a second closet rod.

After all the hard work of reorganizing your wardrobe is done, don't let it go to waste. Wong said the best way to maintain an organized closet is to reorganize your wardrobe twice a year -- once in spring and once in autumn.

And more than just your closet will benefit, she said.

"Reorganizing the wardrobe is a way to not only unclutter the closet but also the mind," Wong said.

Taylor's advice for keeping your closet organized once your spring cleaning is done is to remember that, anytime you buy something new, get rid of something old.

"Don't just buy more hangers," he said.

This will help you keep your closet more organized throughout the year, and the relationship with your clothes more distant, so that your next spring cleaning doesn't feel so much like amputating one of your own limbs.

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Deniece Schofield wasn't born organized. In fact, she said she was "horrible as a kid" and she got messier every year.

It was when Schofield had three children under the age of four that she "hit bottom," and she realized that she couldn't get away with her bad habits any more.

"That's when I decided I had to do something," she said.

So she made a list of everything that needed help and then chose one thing to work on at a time until she got it under control. Schofield said it took her about six months to get her life and home organized, and she said it didn't go smoothly.

"I had to keep starting over when I kept messing up," she said. "Still, to this day, I wake up every morning with the same bad habits."

Schofield has since toured the country and parts of Canada, sharing her secrets at "Get Organized" seminars. She gives about 150 seminars a year.

When she first started to get more organized, Schofield's husband, Jim, encouraged her to write a book about all she had learned. This was back in the early 1980s, she said, when there were no other books or shows on television about such topics.

"He kept nagging me to write a book, so I wrote one just to show him I couldn't," she said.

Her husband self-published the book, and it had already sold 5,000 copies in six weeks when it caught the attention of a national publisher. After some additional editing, "Confessions of an Organized Homemaker" was published in 1982, the first year she started giving seminars.

She has also written three more books on the subject: "Confessions of a Happily Organized Family," "Kitchen Organization Tips," which includes tips for meal planning, and "Springing the Time Trap," which focuses on time management.

During her two-hour "Get Organized" seminars, Schofield said she focuses the first 30 minutes on how to find more space without having to throw everything away. She then shows slides of simple, inexpensive examples of organization methods, in a way that people can hopefully tailor to their needs.

The last half of the seminar is dedicated to time management and all the "floating pieces of paper" that surface around the house -- what seems to be an endless epidemic, Schofield said.

"Everybody in the house generates paper. Even the computer generates paper. And you can't say 'I'm done' after one cleaning because it'll all start again the next day," she said.

Schofield, the mother of five children and grandmother of 10, said she thought she had it made, getting organized when her children were so young.

"My tremendous advantage, I thought, was that when I got organized, our oldest child was 4," she said, mentioning that she didn't think they'd remember what it was like to live in a disorganized home.

But her two oldest sons left home "as tremendous slobs." They have now mended their ways, she said, but she still wants to offer hope to young mothers.

"Don't give up. You may not see the fruits of your labors, but they all get it ... eventually."

After 24 years of giving seminars about something she just "stumbled into," traveling two weeks out of every month, Schofield said she does it because she found that being organized can relieve so much stress.

"I learned that it's freeing. It gives you time and energy to do the things you want to do" because the disorder in your house isn't constantly nagging at you, she said.

Schofield said she also continues teaching because she enjoys talking to people who share her same objective.

"My goal is to make home a place people want to be. It's fun to talk to people ... who have their priorities in order. They also want to make their homes a better place," she said.

If you go

What: "Get Organized: New Ideas for Saving Time and Space," a seminar featuring Deniece Schofield

When: 7-9 p.m. Thursday, April 20 or 10 a.m.-noon Friday, April 21

Where: Hampton Inn & Suites, 851 W. 1250 South, Orem

Cost: $25 at the door

Info: (800) 835-TIME

Etc.: No reservations required. The same material will be presented at both seminars. Handouts included.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B1.