Organizing expert Isabella Franke: Tips for a tidy wardrobe

Keeping your apartment tidy in the hectic pace of everyday life is not always easy. A particular problem area is the wardrobe. Items that have been worn often end up on the back of a chair, and it is difficult for many people to part with clothing. Organizing expert Isabella Franke reveals in an interview at a Roborock event how sorting and tidying up can still be achieved. She also explains why perfectionism has no place when it comes to order and which tip helped her the most.

Franke: First we have to clear out so that we know: What do we have, what do we want, what do we want to keep? Then we create a system that unfortunately you have to adhere to. This includes putting clean clothes away straight away. This is how you create order in the long term. Everyone probably knows that chair full of clothes: you can replace it with a small hook so that the pile doesn’t get out of hand. Another tip is to hang hangers with worn items upside down in the closet. After six months you check which ones are still hanging the right way. This is a good indication of which pieces you no longer like. You can then replace them or clear them out.

Franke: A clear distribution of roles is helpful. You can always set a good example yourself and I think that’s contagious. Especially if you’re very tidy and your partner sees: “Wow, that works, that’s fun, I like how that looks,” they often go along with it. But if you have a partner who doesn’t sort and put away their laundry, you should find a compromise and say, “Honey, listen, I’ll take care of putting away your clothes, but you’ll clean the kitchen after I’m done cooking .” It’s a nice compromise because sometimes you have a natural aversion to something. Here – as always in a relationship – communication is required.

Franke: The most important thing is clear categories. Depending on how many pieces you have, they are different. Let’s take the “Tops” category as an example. Someone who owns a lot of clothing has short-sleeved tops, T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, turtlenecks, regular sweaters and hoodies. I always think it’s nice to use clothes rail dividers. These are the round plastic rings that have the sizes written on them in stores. You can use something like this to visually show: “My t-shirts go up to here, my sweaters go up to here, my hoodies go up to here.” So you always know exactly where to hang it in your closet. In the categories you can then sort it by color, for example.

Franke: You should go from the big to the small. We always say: from macro organizing to micro organizing. For macro organizing, I would divide the closet into zones so I know where the pants, socks, and sweaters are. Then you can buy an organizer for your socks that has, for example, 15 compartments into which they can be sorted. In the next step you can label the sock drawer.

Franke: People always say that it cost money. My favorite answer is: The money is already gone. Just because I keep something doesn’t make me richer. If you keep this thought in mind, you are already a step further. You can sell the things and make money again. And when it comes to emotional objects: the memory lives in the heart, not in the object. That’s why you can take a photo of it instead. This saves a lot of space.

Franke: Many things are natural to me, for example that everything has to have a fixed place. But one thing that helped: I immediately put away everything I have in my hand. It helps if you catch yourself putting your shoes on the door instead of on the shoe rack or putting your key on the table instead of in the key bowl. Catching myself doing this was the biggest game changer for me. After trying it out, I’ve seen that putting things away immediately makes a big difference. Everyone should really take the test.

Whether I put the key in or next to the shell – the process is the same. This is the weaker inner self that you have to overcome every now and then. But you can train it. A little bastard is okay too, it’s completely human. You don’t have to be too perfectionistic. I always say: “Progress over perfection”. It is more important that we make a little progress than telling ourselves that everything has to be perfect. That would put too much pressure on ourselves and we don’t need it.