How much clothing should you have?
The first question most people ask when they want to declutter their wardrobe is: how much clothing should I have?
283 people from around the world completed my survey where they counted nearly every piece of clothing they owned - including things out of season, in the laundry, their gym clothes, pajamas - everything except for under garments! We’ll be using the results of that survey later as a benchmark to compare what you currently have and assess how much you need for your personal uniforms.
Step 1: Inventory your wardrobe
Set a timer for 30 minutes (to start) and try to complete this step before the alarm goes off.
Notes:
This step will likely take more than 30 minutes. I’ve found that working in 30 minute chunks is motivating and provides good stopping points, if needed.
For context, it took me about 45 minutes to complete this for around 180 items of my own wardrobe, 4 and a half hours to inventory someone else’s nearly 400 piece wardrobe, and about 2 and a half hours to inventory someone else’s 600+ piece wardrobe. The amount of time it will take will vary depending on how easy it is to access the clothing and how much detail you want to add in the inventory.
Inventory your entire wardrobe in a spreadsheet. Note: To use this spreadsheet, click the ‘Duplicate’ option in the upper right corner. This will likely take some time as you should include all clothing, including loungewear, gym clothes, pieces in the laundry or storage as well as shoes and accessories like bags. You don’t need to include underwear, bras, socks, lingerie or jewelry. Also if you already decided to donate/sell pieces, don’t include those.
You can either do this in one sitting if you’re ambitious or feel you already have a minimal wardrobe, or you can break it up into a few sessions.
I assembled all my clothing into a pile first. I moved each piece to another pile after I inventoried it. This made the process of inventorying efficient, but does make a big mess and will require time to put everything back.
If you feel your wardrobe is too large to inventory, I recommend breaking up the process by clothing storage location.
I’ve inventoried wardrobes as large as 600+ pieces spread across multiple rooms in an apartment. I like to focus on one room (and then one storage location such as a bin or drawer) at a time. This is the least messy way to complete the exercise and provides natural starting and stopping points, if needed.
If you want, you can submit your inventory to the survey submission form to be counted in a future data refresh.
Step 2: Associate pieces to uniforms
Assign uniform category badges to each of the items in your inventory. See the fourth column in the table below for an example.
This will make it easy to see:
Where and how your wardrobe can be worn today
Where there are gaps
The last column in my Wardrobe Inventory spreadsheet template allows you to add tags for which uniforms each piece can be worn with. For example, my pajamas can really only be worn around the house, so I have them only tagged with my personal lounge uniform. On the other hand, my white cargo pants can be worn around the house, while doing yoga (active), and with my personal everyday uniform. If you’re unfamiliar with personal uniforms, read my post here to get caught up.
Step 3: Identify your wardrobe size, based on benchmarks
Use your Wardrobe Inventory to understand how many of the below you have:
Pieces in your overall wardrobe today
Tops
Pants/shorts
Dress
Skirts
Outerwear
Shoes
Accessories
Filter out your accessories from your results (these are not included in the survey I conducted and the numbers below).
Identify what size of wardrobe you have today
Micro wardrobe: 6-20 pieces
Ultra-minimal wardrobe: 21-55 pieces
Minimal wardrobe: 56-99 pieces
Standard wardrobe: 100-200 pieces
Maximal wardrobe: 201-300 pieces
Ultra-maximal wardrobe: 301-500 pieces
Jumbo wardrobe: 501+ pieces
When I completed my inventory, I had logged almost 180 pieces and 144 pieces with accessories removed, so I would fall under a standard sized wardrobe.
Step 4: Determine how many pieces you realistically can store in your closets today
If you haven’t already, make sure you’ve assessed the current space you have to store your wardrobe today.
Reminder: There are hacks to cram more clothing and shoes into tight spaces, but I’ve found those strategies make it harder to see what you have and put items away. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to get what you need and put things away.
I have space for about 120 pieces with my current storage setup.
If you haven’t done this already, check out the Assess your space post to see how to complete this step and access this template.
Step 5: Determine how many pieces you actually need
List the pieces you documented in your personal uniform cheat sheet in a spreadsheet.
Make an informed assumption of how many pieces you would need for each uniform. For example, if you work in an office 5 days a week, you may want at least 5 shirts and 3 pants that can be worn every season.
Count the total pieces that ideally should be in your wardrobe.
Access the template I used above here.
Step 6: Determine your target wardrobe size and how many pieces need to be removed
Write down:
The number of pieces in your inventory from Step 1.
The number of pieces needed for your personal uniforms, using the cheat sheet from Step 5.
The number of pieces you can realistically store in the available space you have from Step 4.
Identify how many pieces you need to reduce to get within your target wardrobe size range.
Subtract your inventory (step 1) from your target wardrobe size
For example, my wardrobe was 179 pieces and my target wardrobe size is between 70 and 120 pieces. This means I should aim to retire between 59 and 109 pieces.
Coming up next:
Remove unwearable clothing
Unlock a clutter-free closet!
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