I love numbers and spreadsheets, but maybe because I deal with them at work, I don't have any desire to use them in my home life. I have no desire to track wears or how many wardrobe items I have. I would probably enjoy reading the information if someone else did all the work for me.

FWIW, I follow recipes to a tee and enjoy baking. I'm annoyed if I have to make any substitutions to a recipe because I don't have what I need on hand.

Angie, you took the words right out of my mouth, right down to cooking vs. baking! I do almost everything by intuition, for good or ill. Yet I, too, enjoy reading the number of steps I have taken on my Fitbit. And perhaps that motivates me to take a few more if I am close to a goal. Although I can't say counting wears would make me wear my unloved items. If I don't love it or at least appreciate it, I don't want it anymore!

However, I did count wears for one season -- much as I counted calories for a brief two week period once in my life. Now, you have to understand: Calorie counting and portion control ordinarily make me shudder. Ugh!! But I did learn by tracking for a few weeks what my overall patterns were, what makes me feel satisfied/ happy and what makes me feel particularly deprived.

Counting wears for one long fall/winter season confirmed my sense of my workhorses, for sure -- but I didn't really need it for that as I already knew what I was wearing. What it also showed me, and more valuably, was the important, even critical role of lesser worn items that in my editing frenzy I might have been tempted to remove. I'm talking about those essentials that may not be among my "go to" pieces for a specific season and don't make a statement, but can pull an outfit together.

Counting wears also showed me how I have mini-seasons within my long seasons. Warm fall, cool fall, dry winter, wet/ snowy winter, etc. And I wear different items during these mini-seasons.

Counting also reminded me how dearly I love my new items. I will wear a new item more times in the first month or two of its life in my closet than I will for the rest of its life there altogether. That information might help me let go of items I'm not wearing much any more to make room for updates and refreshers.

I don't really calculate CPW but can guesstimate it and tracking helped me justify some purchases of higher ticket items.

Oh, and another point, tracking took some guilt away for me -- I had been worrying that the size of my wardrobe was getting "too big." But by tracking I learned that I was wearing every item, most very frequently, and I also discovered a few wardrobe holes.

Suz, what you wrote makes a lot of sense. You tracked your wears for while and the data was interesting and helpful. Now that you know the reasons behind the items in your wardrobe, you can move on, take the appropriate action, and there is no need to track them anymore. I also LOVE wearing my new stuff, and have never counted calories.

Maneera, your reasoning makes sense for this stage of your wardrobe and style life. By all means give this new way of approaching wardrobe management a go. It could really help. Unlike you though, I know exactly how much money we have at all times, and I do record my purchases on a spreadsheet because that's how I stick to my monthly budget. I also know approximately how many pieces I have (around 126 items) and want to keep my wardrobe to that size. I am very disciplined, but just not a numbers person.

Sterling, your wardrobe buying plan directly affects your style, don't you think?

I'm sure brain organization explains a lot of this. I like to do things my way, and I'm definitely a "mood dresser" (I rarely plan ahead what I'm going to wear, I just get up and see what I'm in the mood for -- with weather being a factor!), so in that sense I'm intuitive (as you are, Angie) -- but I also take pleasure in making charts and graphs, I have no time for superstitions and I like to have data to back up what I think I know. I did start out in science, after all.

ETA graphs make seemingly random data easier to understand. When I had my first baby, her sleep patterns seemed like they were all over the place, and I'm a control freak*, so I was feeling quite distressed -- until I recorded her sleep data for two weeks and graphed it. Then I saw the pattern, and was able to create a sleep schedule that worked for her (both of us!).

Another numbers junkie here! I started tracking wears b/c I feared I was churning my wardrobe more than I'd like, donating items after very little wear simply to make room for something shiny & new. Not only has tracking cut down on that, but it's helped me see more clearly where to direct my wardrobe $$$ and what items (and from which retailers) have the most staying power. Oldest item in my wardrobe right now is a simple black Esprit cami purchased for $10 in 2008, nearly 500 wears and still going strong!

Since I do all of the bookkeeping for home and office, I know what I'm spending, and I do enough spreadsheets at work that I don't want to create them at home. I can only take so many numbers. That said, if counting wears helps someone take stock of what they have and if they're getting their money's worth, then I think it's an excellent idea. I also see the wisdom in making sure you haven't purchased things that are not really your style and don't work with other things in your wardrobe.

Elisabeth, your science brain makes complete sense, and I can absolutely understand why you like and enjoy creating this type of data. (I'm a control freak too, so I guess I keep my freak jollies satisfied in other ways).

*OK, "control freak" might be a slight exaggeration, but I have a hard time with surprises and just "going with the flow" when it comes to other people's schedules. I wish I wasn't this way. I try to be flexible but I have a hard time when plans change at the last minute! And a baby is the ultimate test of flexibility, lol.

Elisabeth, we posted at the same time.

Angie, I don't think you're really a control freak either. You just like to be organized in very specific ways.

Partly right, Elisabeth. I do have a hard time allowing others or delegating others to do things because then I can't control the situation.

What Sterling said, with one exception. Counting wears has helped me sort out my style. It never occurred to me that I was happiest as a formula dresser. I crave variety, so I kept buying "different" just to have something different. But I kept wearing the items that fit into one of my favorite formulas (skinny jeans, semi-tucked knit top, wide belt / long over lean / boxy volume over slim, simple sheath dress). The blouses that looked best tucked, the billowy trousers, skinny belts, skirts, etc that constituted my "different" weren't getting worn at all. So all the "one and done", "don't split wears" advice offered on other sites was antithetical to the way I wanted to dress. Now my variety is found in different items that function the same way within a given formula. I hope that made sense.

I'm also an information junkie, so I just can't help but gather information, even if it's not entirely clear how I may use it;-)

Haha! High five, Angie, i feel the same way you do about this. I also have the "control freak" tendencies, and I am quite analytical by nature, but the idea of spending hobby time with a spreadsheet does not excite me, to put it mildly. I'm not bad with numbers at all, especially for an artist, but I don't care to look into them all that deeply. My husband knows that I glaze over when we get too deep in a numbers discussion.

I don't need to keep a written or electronic record to have a pretty good idea of how much I've worn something. I know, just pulling an item out of my closet, whether I'm getting wear out of it, even though I have a pretty sizable wardrobe. I have a good visual memory, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I've only started counting wears recently, but chalk me down as someone else for whom it adds to the joy of dressing. I love spreadsheets and had already tracked my entire wardrobe long ago, so adding a column for wears was easy. I don't know yet if it will prove to be that useful, but it's fun and kind of keeps me "accountable" for wearing statement pieces more frequently. I'm happier if I feel properly dressed but don't always feel motivated to do so in the morning.

I don't see counting wears as a tool for improving style (a helpless cause in my case anyway, lol), it's a wardrobe management tool, probably why you have no interest in it Angie.

I don't enjoy collecting the data, but it's very quick and easy. I did enjoy analysing the data at the end of the year and found the results really interesting and surprising.

It had an impact on my shopping plan this year, because it shifted my attention to the newly discovered workhorses.

No, I am the person who buys something new and wear it to death. LOL

I improvise like crazy in the kitchen, pay bills on time, have a lifestyle that I can manage and don't count either number of clothing items or cost per wear. I am fascinated by the discussions of generating data here to inform wardrobe decisions. I am learning how to manage my wardrobe needs and size intuitively; counting would take the fun out of this hobby for me.

I can make assessments that are accurate enough for my purposes if I keep my wardrobe size reasonable (which I now know means visible mostly all at once, with a bit of space around it). I have categorized my clothes in my closet, not on a spread sheet, but by using a couple of sets of these dividers from Amazon to identify areas in my closet:
Simple Division® Garment Organizers, 12 white Garment Organizers plus 60 Sorting Labels

They would make counting like items easier, but I can get a rough idea of ratios of items and gaps by looking at how much space each category takes up. I love the organization and allocate prime closet real estate to frequently worn items. If I find I never go to my newly created silk blouse category, then I will use that information to determine what not to keep or not to buy. So while there is a wish for control and not overload, I manage it both abstractly with emotional and intuitive preferences and concretely with a good storage set up. Tracking numbers aren't part of my system, though in application, having the right amount of stuff helps.

Speaking of wearing something to death, several years ago I bought a top that I just loved and wore every chance I got. I didn't realize, until my DDs pointed it out to me, that I was wearing that top for my driver's license photo, for my passport photo, and for my new driver's license when we moved from one state to another. It was then that I decided that maybe I needed to retire it, lol.

I don't count wears. I can barely keep track of my kids, much less my wardrobe!

I've scanned only a few of the above responses (I will return later), but there is a part of me that just likes keeping lists. I respond to my clothes emotionally, and I wear what I *feel* like wearing (not what a spreadsheet would tell me to wear)--but by keeping track, I am able to let my intellect join in the fun too.

I like being able to look at my spreadsheet to see what the numbers tell me about how much use I've gotten out of something. I find it interesting to see how the numbers compare with what I'm feeling. It also helps me make better purchases, because I can see from the numbers that a top that I didn't particularly care for got a lot of wear simply because it went with lots and lots of items. So that way I learn that I don't have to *love* something to buy it, as long as it's going to fill a practical spot in my closet. I also learn about how many wears I can expect to get out of an item before it starts to look worn. I also learn about how much money I am willing to spend on a particular item to get my money's worth out of it before I tire of it.

When I look at the numbers, there are often some surprises, and that tickles my fancy.

I don't ever use my spreadsheet to "force" myself to wear things just to get so many wears out of them. But tracking things is an easy way for me to see my wardrobe at a glance and see that I'm not wearing item X, and then I can ask myself why that is. If I still love the item, then I find out what I need to make it work. If I don't love the item, I start deciding what to do (consign, etc.).

I've also found the spreadsheet very helpful when online shopping and trying to determine whether to buy a particular item. Sometimes I wonder whether I will have any items in my wardrobe that will go well with the new item. Rather than get up and paw through my wardrobe, which can be exhausting, I can just pull up my spreadsheet and look through it for ideas.

Oh, and I'm in agreement with those who say it helps them sort out their style. I used to be a big skirt wearer, and then I bought some pants and started wearing those. I enjoyed the pants but still wore plenty of skirts. I was quite surprised after tracking a year's worth of wears that I was actually wearing the pants quite a bit *more* than I was wearing skirts! So I learned that pants are actually a very important part of my style and that I don't have to worry about getting too many of them.

I am weak. I can't do better than 'not wearing that much' and 'wear this a lot,' lol. I can barely get my inbox emptied every month, if that. Lol.

I sort of track wears... I track what I wear in stylebook, and it tracks it, but not in the easiest way work with. I'm not quite sure what I'd do with the info, if I decide to "use" it, so I'm also following with interest.

I'm not even sure how to use CPW... if an item is new and loved, it's CPW is likely to not be as good as older and worn somewhat frequently. I guess it's really cost per wear per season. But even that is misleading... our springs can be only a few weeks long, but you need 3/4 sleeve cotton sweaters, and light jackets, then it's over. A CPW of 3 times might be almost living in something. But a CPW of 3 in winter is pretty much an orphan.

Mo got me interested in wardrobe analysis. I'm pretty much an information junkie so it is interesting to me. I use pen and paper. It has helped me to narrow down my wardrobe size, currently 170. It gives me the history of my wardrobe. It helped me to stop saving for good, when I see that something isn't getting wears, I figure out why.When I started tracking, I had a shirt that I felt I was wearing all the time, but at the end of the season I'd only worn it a few times. I've eliminated a couple brands that didn't hold up. I like to calculate CPW, but I'm more into the idea that something got a lot of wears over a $ amount per wear. It feels more representative of joy per wear Shirts get the lowest amount of wears for me. I was a big fan of cotton, but I'm starting to branch out into other materials. Everything else gets a reasonably high amount of wears.

I bake and cook, but I enjoy cooking more.

I wrote on another thread today--Maneera's?--that I like keeping an up to date inventory of my closet, including when everything was purchased and for how much, and I make an effort to rotate through much of it somewhat evenly. But I wouldn't want to keep written records of number of wears per item. As long as I stay within my budget and wear everything I buy, I'm happy!

I do not count or keep track of wears of items in my closet. I find it a bit depressing and not fun. I think I can make some close guesses and leave it at that. A year ago I was trying to keep track but only found that I wore everything more than I thought I did because of often changing clothes during the day. I would rather spend the time making capsules and outfits. Now to go read the other replies.

I was thinking about this question today, and my number one reason for tracking is that I think I have a great memory, but the data says differently .

Memory is fallible. Basically, like shedev said, what I think I wore, isn't what I really wore. It's like tracking what you eat or when you go to the gym, the act of paying attention makes me more mindful, and accurate. Yes, I know what my workhorses are, and I know when I haven't worn something in a while, but results wouldn't be 'surprising' for so many posters if we all had infallible memory. For example I'll remember trying something on, but that doesn't mean I wore the outfit that day.

Sterling summarized a lot of my reasons, but in general for me:

-it guides future purchases both in terms of the amount to spend per category and in identifying needs for my real life

-it provides hard data that makes it easier to cull items that aren't getting worn and I don't love

-I track outfit happiness so I log outfits (it helps to know what to repeat), and it's just as easy to track wears while I'm at it.

-wardrobe management helps me enjoy the clothes I have without buying more. For me it doesn't suck joy, it's a daily 2 minute thing when I go online to check email. Setting up my spreadsheet took a few hours, but after that, it's fast.

-it lets me know the true seasonal windows for wear and spurs me to wear items I love during those windows. In general it helps me to wear 'special' items more.

-it's helped me develop my style by guiding it closer to my real life needs and my yearly preferences (based on wear patterns I can see when I'm not into skirts as much but loving jeans, as another poster mentioned.)

-like Suz says it shows me that I get the most wear out of an item while it's new, so I should go with that, and wear (and repeat) new items a lot.

-it guides me towards the wardrobe size I should aim for. This is a little tricky as my wear patterns change a bit year to year, but I know in general which areas to edit, and which could use more variety. I'm not exactly one in, one (or more) out yet, but that's a goal.

-it gives me data about how long certain items are going to last before wearing out.

-cobalt said: I started tracking wears b/c I feared I was churning my wardrobe more than I'd like, donating items after very little wear simply to make room for something shiny & new. This, it helps me be more mindful. Having a limit on the number of items I could purchase per year/season would do this too -- I need to think about that.

I can definitely see why tracking might not be something I was interested in if I had a small wardrobe, and I felt completely comfortable with editing it without needing to justify to myself each decision. Also if I didn't enjoy shopping and purchased relatively few items per year.

I'm an emotional shopper too, and very intuitive. My work is very intuitive/creative. But I do have an analytical side and do the taxes, investing, and budgeting/shopping for our household. I don't bake and my cooking is mostly salads

Angie wrote:

Sterling, your wardrobe buying plan directly affects your style, don't you think?

Rabbit wrote:

Counting helped me develop my style by guiding it closer to my real life needs and my yearly preferences.

I personally never felt that my spreadsheets dictated my style. I always thought it dictated my buying plan and then YLF focused my style within that buying plan.

For example, I might decide that I need a pair of casual bottoms based on my spreadsheet. I use YLF to decide to purchase white jeans or cropped pants. Then based on the purchase of the white jeans or cropped pants, I buy coordinating shoes.

Rabbit's post was wonderfully written. I agree with everything she said. I think at one time, I worried about wardrobe churning too. I don't think that is a factor today.

I do a ton of planning but don't track wears. I'm somewhere in the middle of being creative and analytical.

My well-thought out purchases are always my best ones, so I do feel like I have some common ground with the counting YLFers.