207 | A Simple System for Finding What You Need to Get Ready FAST

Summary

Episode 207: A Simple System for Finding What You Need to Get Ready FAST

Release Date: January 2, 2025

In this episode of the HER Style Podcast, host Heather Riggs, a 17-year Certified Image Consultant and Color Specialist, delves into an effective system for organizing your wardrobe to streamline your morning routine. Addressing a listener named Krista's challenges, Heather provides actionable strategies to help listeners effortlessly find the right outfits and enhance their overall style confidence.

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Listener's Challenge: Organizing a Complex Wardrobe

Krista reached out with a common dilemma: “Every time I go to pick out an outfit, when I look at all the jeans in my closet, I can't remember which jeans are what are they? Bootleg, wide leg, skinny, straight, cropped flare, and which shoes go with each.” (00:00)

Her struggle highlights the confusion that can arise from having a diverse and possibly maximalist wardrobe, making daily outfit selection time-consuming and stressful.

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Heather's System for an Organized Closet

Heather introduces a simple yet effective system to categorize and organize clothing, focusing on sorting by type, length, and silhouette, ensuring that pieces are easily identifiable and accessible.

1. Sorting by Clothing Type and Length

• Categorize by Type: Begin by grouping similar items together, such as tops, dresses, skirts, and bottoms.

• Organize by Length: Within each category, arrange items by length. For example, hang camisoles, tank tops, short-sleeve shirts, long-sleeve blouses, and button-downs in order.

  “In my own wardrobe, I like to have all of my tops together and I will hang them up in my closet by sleeve length.” (01:49)

• Application to Jeans: For jeans, Heather suggests hanging them in order of length.

  “For you specifically, I would have all of your cropped jeans to the left and then your full-length jeans immediately following those to the right.” (04:00)

2. Sorting by Silhouette

• From Narrow to Wide: Arrange jeans and other bottoms from the most fitted (e.g., skinny) to the loosest silhouettes (e.g., wide-leg).

  “Instead of light to dark wash, you're going to hang them from narrow width to wide width.” (06:15)

3. Sorting by Color

• Color Coordination: Within each category and silhouette, sort items from light to dark or follow a rainbow order for aesthetic appeal.

  “I generally will go from light to dark in kind of rainbow order.” (03:30)

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Optimizing Shoe Organization

Heather emphasizes that shoes should be organized similarly to clothing to complement the overall system.

• Sort by Heel Height and Color: Arrange shoes first by heel height (e.g., sandals, flats, sneakers) and then by color within each category.

  “Arrange your shoes first by heel height... within each of those categories, you could also sort them by color.” (09:45)

• Storage Solutions: Utilize clear plastic shoe boxes or dedicated shoe racks to keep frequently worn pairs accessible.

  “I love storing most of my shoes in clear plastic shoe boxes... You could also keep your original shoe boxes if that works better for you.” (10:30)

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Maintaining the System

Heather advises that whether you choose to hang or fold your clothing, consistency is key to maintaining an organized closet.

• Hanging vs. Folding: While hanging allows for easier access and maintenance, folding can be effective if space is limited, provided you keep the system consistent.

  “I do think a hanging system is going to be a lot easier for you to maintain in the long run.” (07:50)

• Regular Updates: Regularly reassess and reorganize your wardrobe to accommodate new additions and remove items that no longer serve your style or needs.

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Benefits of an Organized Wardrobe

Implementing Heather's system offers several advantages:

• Time Efficiency: Drastically reduces the time spent choosing outfits each morning.

  “You'll be able to get dressed way faster in the morning.” (05:50)

• Enhanced Clarity: Provides a clear overview of your wardrobe, making it easier to identify gaps and plan future purchases.

  “You'll be able to see everything very clearly.” (05:10)

• Increased Confidence: Streamlines your style choices, allowing you to dress with confidence and express your personal style effortlessly.

  “I want you to feel confident and effortlessly stylish in the year ahead.” (12:00)

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Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Heather wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to embrace their unique style and maintain an organized wardrobe to enhance daily life and personal confidence.

“2025 is finally here, friend. And I know you don't want to spend one more year struggling over what to buy, what to wear and how to put it all together.” (08:20)

She emphasizes that with a structured approach, anyone can transform their wardrobe into a functional and stylish asset that simplifies the dressing process.

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Conclusion

Episode 207 of the HER Style Podcast offers a practical roadmap for women struggling with wardrobe organization. By categorizing clothes by type, length, and color, and extending this system to accessories like shoes, Heather Riggs provides listeners with the tools to create a streamlined and efficient closet. This not only saves time but also boosts confidence, enabling women to start each day with style and assurance.

Transcript

[Heather Riggs]

Happy New Year, my friend. I love when I have the opportunity to connect with you personally, whether in my Instagram DMs or over an email exchange, or through an event like my upcoming Wardrobe Revamp Bootcamp which starts on Monday. You can still sign up for this free four day event at herstylellc.com bootcamp but as I was saying, it's amazing to get to know you, to hear about where you are on your style journey, and to find out how I can best support you. I'm passionate about providing personalized advice as often as I can, and so one of goals for 2025 is to connect with you even more personally. Recently I was able to do this with our friend Krista. She submitted a question for Q and A Thursday not too long ago and after a little back and forth in my inbox she gave me one more topic. I think you'll enjoy unpacking with us too. In today's episode, I'm addressing Christa's questions around finding what you need to get ready fast. If you find yourself wasting time trying to distinguish your skinny jeans from your straight leg jeans or full length to cropped flares and don't even get me started about shoes, go with what then. This conversation is for you, my friend. I'm excited to reveal a simple system that I swear by to help you know exactly what's what and where to find it in your closet. Let's make it easier to get dressed and feel your best in the year ahead, shall we? It's about time.

[Krista]

Welcome to her Style podcast where we're all about empowering you to show up and get dressed every day with confidence. I'm your host Heather Riggs, a 15 year and counting certified image consultant and color specialist ready to build a wardrobe and a personal style you love. Let's get started.

[Heather Riggs]

I already mentioned in the intro that I had a really lovely back and forth conversation via email with our friend and fellow podcast listener Krista over the last couple of months. And in her most recent communication with me, she asked another really fantastic question for the podcast. And I think even if you don't share her exact challenge, you will be able to walk away with a really helpful system at the end of this episode to better organize your closet and find exactly what you need when you go to get dressed. So in Krista's last email she said, I'm in the position where every time I go to pick out an outfit, when I look at all the jeans in my closet, I can't remember which jeans are what are they? Bootleg, wide leg, skinny, straight, cropped flare, and which shoes go with each. The Pinterest library doesn't really help me with that because I need something where I look at my closet, live and know what's what. Maybe I simply need to print out an inventory sheet in the order in which my jeans appear and hang it in my closet. I'm also thinking of printing out a cheat sheet that tells me which shoes look best with each cut. The struggle is real. Heather. Maybe I've given you another Q and A topic. Thanks for everything, Krista. And so I can definitely understand this frustration, especially if you are someone who is a little bit more maximalist in your wardrobe, or if you just like to have a lot of options and you have pieces, whether they're things that you're still trying to sort through and figure out what to keep, toss, replace, let go of, or if they're all things that you really love and genuinely enjoy wearing on a consistent basis. Either way, whatever camp you're in, I know it can be really difficult to keep everything organized, maintain a nicely appointed closet, and quickly find what you need when you go to get dressed. So I want to reveal my exact super simple system that allows me to know and quickly find what's in my wardrobe. It's so easy. And not only will you be able to get dressed way faster in the morning, you'll also be really clear when you are ready to go do some shopping about what you need to fill in the gaps. You're going to be able to see everything very clearly. You'll be able to tell which colors you have too many of or maybe not enough of what duplicates are existing in your wardrobe. All of those kinds of things will be very quickly revealed to you when you organize your closet in the way I'm about to describe. So the first thing that I highly encourage you to do to keep your closet in order is to sort your pieces by clothing type or category and then by length. So for example, in my own wardrobe I like to have all of my tops together and I will hang them up in my closet by sleeve length. Same goes for my dresses, I hang them up by sleeve length. For my bottoms, I like to sort them by skirts and pants and I like to also hang those by length. Let's translate this to your jeans, Krista, because that's what you expressed specifically having some challenges around. So here's what I would do to organize your closet if I were you. If you have this space, have you considered hanging your jeans up you could get hangers with clips and then hang them long from the waistband. Or if that would only work if your shelf is high enough that you could do that without them dragging on the floor. Or if not, you could also get pant hangers and then fold the jeans over. Either way, I think it would help you so much if you could see them more clearly then you can by keeping them in folded piles. So in this case, what I would do is hang all of your cropped length jeans to the left. With everything in my closet, I go from shortest to longest, left to right by category. So I already mentioned for tops it would look like camisoles, then tank tops, then short sleeve shirts, then long sleeve blouses, then all of my button down. So again, they're kind of by category and then also sleeve length. This also looks really nice when you go to view your closet and you can see everything hanging up in this order. It's very aesthetically appealing as well. So again, Krista, for you specifically, I would have all of your cropped jeans to the left and then your full length jeans immediately following those to the right. The second thing that you can do with this simple system is to sort your pieces by color. For me, I generally will go from light to dark in kind of rainbow order. So again, within each category, or sleeve length, or pant length or skirt length of my clothes, I like to sort them by color. So for example, again, with my camisoles I have my ivory camisoles are the farthest thing to the left in my closet, followed by beige camisoles, Pink, green, blue, etc. And then as I said, I kind of go in rainbow order, starting from white and ending with black. Now you could do this with your jeans if you want. You could start from your lightest washes within the cropped and full length pants, and then you could move into your darker wash jeans. This would probably look the most aesthetically pleasing. Again. However, to find what you need fast in the morning, I would actually recommend arranging them by length and then by silhouette. So instead of light to dark wash, you're going to hang them from narrow width to wide width. So it might look something like skinny jeans, then straight leg jeans, boot cut jeans, flare wide leg, etc. So going from the most fitted and tight silhouette pants to the loosest and most wide silhouette. And I think this will really help you if you're having trouble figuring out not only the right length of each type of jean that you have, but the style of them as well. 2025 is finally here, friend. And I know you don't want to spend one more year struggling over what to buy, what to wear and how to put it all together. This is the time to break out of the same T shirt and jeans you default to every day. You're ready to uplevel your style, streamline your wardrobe and find exactly what you want and need when you go shopping so you can step out with confidence and put your outfits together quickly and stylishly every single day. And I want to help you make this happen. Because, friend, it is so much easier than you think. That's why I've decided to host my first ever Wardrobe Revamp Boot Camp from January 6th through the 9th so we can dial in your signature style, audit your closet and take a deep dive into wardrobe planning and shopping strategically together. And the best news is that this live four day training event is completely free. Yes, I said free. There are no strings attached. Just come hang out with me, get the chance to win some incredible prizes, have your questions answered and walk away with brand new style tips and advice I've never shared before. If you've been loving what you're learning here on the podcast, you do not want to miss this. If you want to revamp your wardrobe and take your style to the next level in 2025, head to Herstyle LLC.com Bootcamp and register for this free four day training event today. I'll see you inside now. If you don't have a lot of hanging space in your closet and it's easier to keep your denim in piles, then I would follow the exact same system. I would create one pile or however many you need of your cropped jeans and then a separate pile or two or three or however many you need for these of your full length jeans. So sort them by cropped and full length and then within each pile. Instead of sorting them by style from left to right, you can sort them from top to down. I would go from narrowest at the top to widest at the bottom. So I would start with skinny jeans and then end with your wide leg pants. Or if you have more than one pile, you could do skinny and straight and then a pile of flare jeans and wide leg jeans. However you want to divvy this up, you're going to want to follow a similar system but folded vertically rather than hanging horizontally. I do think a hanging system is going to be a lot easier for you to maintain in the long run because the problem with having lots of piles of your clothing is that you can't as easily just pop your jeans right back in place after you wash them. If you're using a folded system, you're going to have to take the extra step to bring the pile down. Put the jeans in the right order in that pile every single time, and it's going to take a little bit more focus and investment on the front end, but it will save you a lot of headaches in the morning when you're trying to sort through your stash to quickly find what you need. Now what's really cool is that you can apply this system to everything in your wardrobe, including your shoes. If you have space elsewhere in your home, you might want to move out any seasonally irrelevant shoes and store them elsewhere. Again, only if you have the space to do that. But either way, I would also arrange your shoes first by heel height so it might look something like sandals, ballet flats, sneakers, loafers, kitten heels, et cetera, et cetera, ending with your ankle boots and then knee high boots and so on. And within each of those categories, you could also sort them by color I love storing most of my shoes in clear plastic shoe boxes that I picked up from the Container Store. The shoes that I wear most frequently actually go on a shoe rack in our garage so I can just pop them right on my feet and run out the door. But you could also keep your original shoe boxes if that works better for you. I do this for all of my knee length boots so that they can stay clean and well preserved. You could also take a picture of each one and have them print it out and then just staple it to the box. You can see what's inside without having to open it. Whatever makes it easiest for you to quickly see and find what's what. But I do recommend that you follow this basic system of sorting by length and then by color for all the categories of your clothes and accessories. And lastly, Krista, you also mentioned creating a guide to help you know which shoes look best with each cut, and this is something that has been coming up over and over lately in my community as a whole, and so I am working on something to address this question more fully. But just a couple points I want to mention on that note is first, don't put too many restrictions or rules on your pieces. I know it's easier for us to have some simple outfit formulas to follow so we can eliminate the guesswork and decision fatigue when we're getting ready in the morning, but I encourage you to keep an open mind and be willing to experiment every once in a while with different and fresh combinations of your pieces. I think this will really help to keep you from falling into a style rut or into a lot of outfit repetition. That said, secondly, there are a few parameters that I use and teach my clients to pick the perfect shoes for each outfit and I wanna make sure that you are my free VIP email community because I'm going to be sending out some tips and visual examples this weekend to help you with this exact challenge. The best way to sign up to get on my email list right now is by joining the [e-mail] bootcamp. Then you'll be in the know about all the things happening here at Her Style and there is a lot of free support and fun events coming your way this month. So go ahead and get your name on the list for this free four day live event next week and then keep your eyes peeled over the weekend for tips on how to pick the right shoes for every outfit. Krista, I hope this gave you some great ideas to create your own simple system for finding what you need without having to make complicated inventories or cheat sheets. My goal is always to make getting dressed easier and more enjoyable. I want you to feel confident and effortlessly stylish in the year ahead. So let's team up and make this happen for you. Join me next week for the Wardrobe Revamp Boot Camp by signing up. It's a completely free four day event. I will show you the exact steps to start buying less, shopping smarter, and building a wardrobe you love in 2025. Let's go friend.

[Krista]

Thank you for listening to today's episode.

[Heather Riggs]

If you want to stop copying everyone.

[Krista]

Else'S style and start dialing in your own swoon worthy signature look, head over to take my free 5 minute personal style quiz which you can find at.

[Heather Riggs]

The link in the show notes.

[Krista]

If you've enjoyed our time together, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe to Her Style podcast so you never miss an episode. Finally, I invite you to make this.

[Heather Riggs]

A two way conversation and send me.

[Krista]

A DM over on Instagram eatherigstyle to let me know how I can best support you on your style journey. I'm always here for you in style and service. Until next time.