With tons of inspiration from YLF-ers, I have tackled my first-ever big closet edit, focusing on fall/winter/spring clothes. I'll deal with summer clothes later after summer is over. I only did a partial edit of outerwear.

I'm quite pleased with the results so far, although it is a LOT of work!

Step 1 was to identify everything that could go, and put it all into a donate pile in a holding area. I took a very liberal approach, including anything even vaguely dissatisfying. I reviewed each item, trying many of them on. I catalogued my decisions as I went through them.

Step two will be to put together capsules and outfits from the things I'm keeping, dipping into the donate pile if need be. I also need to review how many are "casual" vs "smart casual". My goal is to get to mostly smart casual but I suspect I have mostly casual.

Step 3 will be a trip to Goodwill

Step 4 will be shopping to fill in holes.

I'm finished with step 1. Unless I pull them back when I do step 2, I will get rid of 41 items, and keep 136. I give the detail below, but the bigger picture was far more revealing: I seem to have three behaviors with regard to my wardrobe.

1. The biggest category, 50% of them, were never quite right. They are the result of random and unfocused shopping and poor choices. I was a little surprised that most of them were ok quality, I expected to find more poor quality items. I wore most a few times, never loved them (in some cases never even liked them very much) and some never fit very well. I've been donating over the years and then doing more shopping. A vicious cycle.

2. 25% of them were kept too long after I no longer intended to wear them. (This does not include long term keepers like cashmere sweaters or wool overcoats). These are items that no longer fit, or I no longer like, very old styles, etc. Many of them I have tried too hard to like, and wasted a lot of time in that trying. Some were extremely old, like 10 years or even longer. There is some sort of emotional attachment thing going on here.

You might wonder why this is a problem if I had space to store them, which I did. The problem is that they became "clutter" that was a time waster every time I looked into the closets where they were stored. As you may be aware, "clutter" takes your time and energy away from the stuff you want to focus on, in lots of little time bytes that really add up. For some of them I tried Marie Condo's system of touching the garment, figuring out what purpose it had in my life, thanking it, and saying goodbye. It sounds corny and silly but it really worked!

3. The third category, another 25%, is things I like or love, good choices I've made and worn for a reasonable amount of time, that I'm now ready to part with.

Behavior Conclusions
#3 is good, I need to keep doing it :-). I need to address #1 and #2. I'm already well on the path of moving away from #1 since I joined YLF and am learning to be a more focused shopper and wardrobe-builder. For #2, this big edit I'm doing will take care of it for now, and then I need to do an annual edit to keep it under control. That seems easy enough.

Total Amounts
My donate pile of 41 contains 12 jeans/pants/trousers/shorts, 6 toppers, 8 tops, 4 sweaters, 7 skirts/dresses, 2 outerwear, 2 shoes, and 1 workout item.

Also...

A few months ago I pulled out about 35 items and got rid of them, as yet another iteration of the viscous cycle. I kept a list, and analyzed them after the fact. 50% Never quite right, 35% kept too long, 15% good. Pretty close to the percentages I counted in the "big edit". This is good, it confirms that I have identified the behavior patterns correctly.