Closet Weight: Coats, Jackets and The Heavy Stuff

Mary Anne Ivison  0:00  
The declutter queen with Avery Cundill,

Avery Cundill  0:06  
today's episode is all about a surprisingly heavy category in most of our closets, coats and jackets. Outerwear is one of those things that feels essential, and don't get me wrong, it is, but somehow we end up with way more than we actually wear, puffy coats, pea coats, trench coats, denim jackets, windbreakers, ski jackets, that one random faux fur you wore to a New Year's Eve party. Once sound familiar, let's break down why we hold on to so many layers, how to declutter them without guilt, and what to do with these items that we're ready to pass on. Why do we have so much outerwear, let's be honest, coats and jackets are expensive, so once we make the purchase, we often think we must keep the items for life. This may be seen as the first barrier to getting rid of unwanted or unneeded items. Outerwear also tends to feel youthful, even when they're not we think it might snow. I'll wear this when I go hiking someday, or even this one, it's good to have options. Sure, some backup makes sense, but how many layers do you actually need for your real life? Another reason we may hold on to coats and jackets is that they can hold on to memories. For us, that college hoodie you never wear but can't quite toss recently, I went through my husband's coats and found many jackets from past jobs which definitely are not fitting him at this moment. So those things are no longer serving us. That jacket you wore on your first solo trip, nostalgia can live in fabric, but it doesn't need to live in your front hall,

the four step coat declutter method. All right, thanks for agreeing to do that voiceover, even though I cast your jacket. No problem. All right, let's walk through a clear, non overwhelming way to declutter your outerwear. And I won't announce it every show but a gentle reminder to have your garbage bags ready. Step one, gather all of your outerwear. And yes, sometimes I sound like a broken record on this, but the gather step is key, front closet, bedrooms, mud room, attic, car trunk, every jacket and coat is gathered into one place again. It helps you see what you really actually own. You may want to include hoodies, rain gear, snow suits. For those of us who live in colder weather climates, as I like to say, gather it all. I step two, sort by type and frequency. Lay everything you've gathered out by category. Everyday coats could be a category, dressy jackets, another active wear specialty items such as skiing or maybe heavy winter stuff, and then sentimental or rarely worn items. Now we move to the Ask with our piles in tow. Ask yourself, when was the last time I wore this item, does it still fit well and maybe look good? Would I buy this again today? If you're holding on to a coat just because it was expensive or used to look great, it may be time to let it go. If you don't like the extra work or categorizing your outerwear, you can skip that step and go right to the Ask the Ask step is really important. Hold an item, ask yourself the questions and then decide, keep, donate, keep. Or is it time for the trash?

Step three is limit by lifestyle. Okay, this is really key. Be honest about your actual life, and I'll give you some hints on how to do this. So if you live in a warm climate, you don't really need six heavy duty winter coats. Do you work from home, but have a rack of Office jackets that are collecting dust, and this one might sound familiar to many of us after covid, another question, are you still holding on to ski jackets, even though you haven't skied in seven years? Remember, keep what suits your lifestyle today, not a version of you from five or more years ago. Step four, donate, sell or store thoughtfully, so the first step in items that we no longer need. So you've asked the questions, you've made some hard decisions, or maybe not so hard decisions. Now what to do? So donate gently used coats to local shelters or other places that accept donated coats, especially before cold seasons. And you might even be seeing things on your social media feeds or in your neighborhood about places that are asking for coats and outerwear usually fall this happens they want to collect for people who are in need. Great place to take these coats. Another option for maybe your higher priced items are to sell them. You can find a quality online store. You can find one in your neighborhood. You can even go on to Facebook marketplace or other online sellers and try to get a few bucks for something that maybe has some value to you. Now, let's say there's some items that you're not necessarily ready to get rid of, but you don't want them cluttering up your upstairs closets or closets by the front door. If you need to keep some of this seasonal gear store it out of the way, find a place that it's not crowding your daily space. Mindset and maintenance, let's talk mindset decluttering. Outerwear can feel weirdly emotional. It's not just about the coats, but it's about shedding the weight of these coats, physical weight, emotional weight, and maybe even what you're aspiring to, what I'll call aspirational weight. Here's the truth, you don't need to keep something just because it used to be a part of your style. You've evolved. Your Closet can evolve too. So going forward, this isn't to suggest never buying another piece of outerwear, because that's not even realistic. But I'm going to give you a simple rule that can really help you to maintain a more streamlined outerwear closet. I call it the one in, one out rule. So you go out, you buy a new rain jacket. You go home, a rain jacket has to go buy a new hoodie on that great vacation you're on, that hoodie has to go right now. My husband and I are traveling in Spain, and he came with a very old and tattered fleece, and when we arrived, I immediately knew we needed to replace it. So what did we do? We found a new one, and we will not bring the old one home. We actually found a donation bin, put it in the bin, done. We applied the one in, one out rule, even while on vacation. And guess what? Our luggage will thank us. Keep things moving, keep space clear. So are you ready to lighten your coat closet? I'm going to give you a small challenge to try before you dive into this maybe bigger project. Pull out three coats or jackets today that you haven't worn in over a year, try them on, and then ask yourself, Is this still me? If not let it go, someone else might really need it.

If this episode helped you, and you're thinking, wow. I have a friend who really, really needs this advice, share it, or, even better, find a friend and do a coat swap. It's a fun way to refresh without adding clutter. Also. Full disclosure, I recently underwent a move, and a move is eye opening in that you are faced with packing and seeing just how much stuff outerwear included, you actually have. And guess what? I had a lot when we were unloading our stuff into our new house, our coats and jackets and outerwear were all housed in those fancy moving wardrobe boxes that they often will put our outerwear in. Didn't know where to put them, and I asked the movers just to take all of these wardrobes into the basement. We took out what we thought we would need for the foreseeable future, and the rest went down into the basement. My husband and I made a pact, if we don't look for or access something from these wardrobes, within a year, we're getting rid of it, because, literally, we're not wearing it. So why are we keeping it? Coats and jackets are very helpful donation items, because they can be the essentials of life for some people, especially in colder climates. I plan to keep you posted on how many items we get rid of in a year, and with that,

Unknown Speaker  11:38  
and now with the Declutter. Queen.

Avery Cundill  11:45  
Sangeet Bhatia, thank you. Sangeet is a recently retired Deloitte partner, and currently she's serving on a number of boards and is an executive advisor to Deloitte. Great to be here. Avery full disclosure. Sangee is a very good friend of mine as well. Can you just basically let us know what was the task that you worked in and then maybe just share some of the steps that you went through to accomplish some decluttering?

Speaker 1  12:15  
So decided to do pictures and children's mementos since they've been young. I mean, my kids are grown up. They're full adults, so I don't know if we really need everything. Since junior kindergarten, exactly, started off by doing two things. One was bought some boxes that accommodate pictures, specifically, like photographs, and then also bought a box for each of them that would hold sort of bigger items, such as their mementos, awards and those type of things, certificates. So I thought one box per person. I bought a few extra, but one box per one of each per child. I thought was going to be perfect. Then I had collected their pictures. I had them. Primarily, I was lucky in two spots. So I brought them together, you know, paintings from when they were kids, and artwork and all that kind of stuff. So I brought it all together in one room, in my family room. And so I started with the pictures, thinking, Oh, that'll be really easy. And I started putting piles, you know, one for one son, one for the other son. And quickly it became apparent to me that I had more than two piles. I had a pile of pictures I had since I was articling days, which was unbelievable. And then I had family pictures and pictures that I think my ex husband would have really treasured if he could have them. So then I created multiple piles, and the most important pile was the one I had to get rid of, because there was so many duplicates, pictures that never really came out, that I kept, and I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time. And so I made sure that I had all those together, sorted them through. And that did take a while. I have to be honest, it took a lot longer than I thought. For a couple of reasons. I was shocked at the volume I had I thought I had put it together and fairly well, but clearly I didn't. And the other part was, you know, as you go through pictures, you can't help but look at them and remember. So you spent a little bit of time going down

Avery Cundill  14:13  
memory lane, just so, you know, everybody's kind of following along with the journey. So you originally started with the purchase of the photo box and then the memorabilia boxes, and you got one set for each child, but then you found you had other photos and random things, so you might have increased the number. And then you had garbage,

Speaker 1  14:36  
yes, and I made sure, as I was going through I put the garbage away right away, so that I didn't, you know, keep it for again, just for later on, right? For sure. The other thing that did surprise me is that the pictures have taken longer. I've done quite a bit, but I have a bit more to go. But what did surprise me is when I went to do the memorabilia, how fast that went. And that's because when I open that container, I call it my pen. Laura's box, there was just papers and papers of from your kids doing finger painting to how many hands they had done every year they were in school, you name it. Interestingly enough, I got through everything very quickly, because it was very clear that none of this would really make sense to keep other than one or two items. So literally, when I was done, after going through probably 1000 pieces of paper, I kept five. Literally, five. I put it in a

Avery Cundill  15:29  
folder, music to my ears. Sangeet music to my ears. I love that. Yeah, and I'm not

Speaker 1  15:35  
a mean mother. By throwing it out, what I did is I kept What was special. You know, we had one item that was already framed and put on a wall. So we would keep that one for, obviously, forever. So, you know, you'd think that would take a lot longer, but actually, that went very quick, like I did that in a quick afternoon, and I was done. So that was very good. So we're just now finishing putting in, like, certificates, awards and things like that into the box. So that's that shouldn't really take me that long and large pictures that don't fit into typical

Avery Cundill  16:04  
photograph boxes overflow. So you're using the memorabilia boxes for overflow, which is wonderful, absolutely what there should be there for.

Unknown Speaker  16:12  
Yeah, so, you know, I would say that that was

Avery Cundill  16:14  
great, and tell me so there's obviously, it's an imperfect science. You know, you'd like to slot everything where they are, but you were saying that you had some extra photo boxes to, you know, maybe one for other family members, one for yourself, one for your ex husband. So how did you manage the photos? Or are you still managing them? And then what's your plan to do with once you create these other boxes?

Speaker 1  16:39  
So what I'm doing right now is the other ones are almost in piles, like they're almost in their perfect piles where they belong. The first pile I actually did put in a box of my ex husband's, and so that will go to his house, and it'll be look through them, the family, ones that are his family will also take over there to see if there's any ones he wants to keep, and ones that he thinks that, you know, we'll just give to the boys, so we'll do that. So that'll get even further reduced. And for my pictures and my family, my family ones, I've already sort of narrowed down, so I've put them more or less away. And then it's really my pictures I have to go through, because you can only imagine, since my articling days. But I think a lot of them will be, you know, thrown out, and then that'll be fine, and especially when we look at pictures, you know, doesn't matter whose they are. If you don't remember the people in the picture, and you like, you don't even remember the moment, chances are it's a good time to get rid of them, because there are some where I went. You have no idea where this happened and what it was. I looked on the back, of course, I didn't write on the picture. And so I thought, well, you know, those

Avery Cundill  17:44  
are good ones to go, you know? And one of the things too, I know that we had been discussing too, is that, especially with photos and children's memorabilia, there's this temptation to really hold on to these things, because we almost feel guilty to get rid of it. It's our child's artwork. Oh, it was a moment in time. But, you know, when I went through this project, I had found about 22 finger paintings from one of my kids, and it was essentially the same picture, many, many times. But I guess I had just, you know, I had the space, and I wasn't mad, you know, worrying about throwing things out, and I'm like, when I finally went to declutter, I was like, maybe I don't need 20 of this. What? Maybe I needed zero of that. You know, maybe that wasn't the ideal artwork to save. So you and I had talked about the emotions and how you can get caught up in those emotions when we're dealing with artwork or photographs or whatever. And how did you sort of manage that, you know, did you did you feel those emotions, or did were you able to say, probably, this is something I don't have to keep I found

Speaker 1  18:53  
the photographs far more emotional when you look at them. You You remember for the most part, for example, the ones I didn't know, the people I remembered where my kids were at the time. So those ones were a bit more emotional to get through. So I made it easy by saying anything duplicate, because back then, we would duplicate everything, so just got rid of anything duplicated, like I don't need two of everything. So that really reduced the load a lot, and just kept the ones that I thought would be important to them. When it came to the artwork, surprisingly in those type of things, what I did is I put myself in my children's shoes, because one day they're going to have to go through this. And I was saying, Would they actually keep this? Because I'm keeping it for them. And so the question was, would they even want to keep this? And I just knew, as I was going through it, especially my oldest is very good at getting word of stuff I keep I would just put it in the garbage. I keep going. Why would you keep this? You know? So I also thought about them, yeah, what they would want to keep and not keep, and they don't want, you know, boxes and boxes of stuff going to their house. So I thought about that as well as I was going through it, like, what would they really want to keep and what would they not really

Avery Cundill  19:59  
want to keep? They. That's key, because essentially, you will be passing these things on, actually, and you don't need to have things that, you know, mass piles of stuff. You know, everybody wants to sort of streamline. Plus, you know, our children are not living in giant homes, most likely, and they're going to have limited space. So we wanted them to have manageable amounts of things that we eventually give them. So I love that. And tell me, are you almost done? How's your how's it going? I thought

Speaker 1  20:27  
I had it much more sized down than I thought I did. I'm probably three quarters of the way through. So, you know, one set is kind of done, a couple of sets are actually done. So I just, I think by the end of next week or so, my target is to have it done, put away in the boxes, and put into an area that's small. And when they want to look at it, they will. My son, who doesn't live at home, is coming home because he lives away. So I want to have these all ready for them, so that they could see it and actually get them to go through and also say, Well, you know what? We don't necessarily need these. And maybe they'll even call it more, which would be great a

Avery Cundill  21:04  
double cull. I'm so excited about a double cull. I want to go double cull. But you know, one of the things too, I know you had mentioned was, you know, we always think, oh, it's going to take an hour. It's going to take three hours maximum. But when you're coming to these valuable mementos. It is important to touch and feel and look and see, because you don't want to throw things out that are meaningful. And so, you know, I know you were saying how, oh, you originally thought it was going to take such and such amount of time, but it took much more, and that might actually be really good that it took you longer because you did a thorough investigation of everything? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1  21:42  
And in fact, what I did do because I thought, wow, if I'm already forgetting now. So I did put a little bit of notes on the back, where I had a bit of time to do that, so that they would, you know, remember, like, who are the people? Like, if it wasn't obvious to them, but, you know, it was maybe a couple of previous generations ago where they may not remember them. So I made sure I put some notes on the back. So that's what took a little bit of time too, is to make some notes on the back so that they would have that for them.

Avery Cundill  22:08  
Wonderful. Can you give me an idea of how much garbage you made? Because that always excites me. How much garbage did you make?

Speaker 1  22:17  
So on the art stuff, I think I had five bags that I filled and throughout, like I'm telling you, I'm left with one little file, folder of five pictures, and I started with a box that was probably what, five feet long, eight inches deep and two feet wide. So can you imagine, just tons and tons, and I just absolutely got rid of all of the Bye.

Avery Cundill  22:45  
Did you feel lighter? Did you feel this like? So everybody always asked me, yeah, there's a thrilling. There's almost an exhilaration that happens. I can't explain. It's not like you're going on a trip, but there's something that lightens. You know, it's like, oh, I Why do I feel good now, why do I feel slightly more elevated? And there is something to this decluttering journey that getting rid of stuff that no longer serves you is really kind of invigorating. I totally agree.

Speaker 1  23:15  
In fact, you know, I had these boxes and like, I had in two spots, but one of the spots was actually taking up quite a bit of space. So every time I walked in there, all I could think goes, Oh, I have to go through it one day. So that one day came, I've done it. And so not only did I feel great, I emptied them out. And yeah, is, you know, you know, sometimes you find you buy more stuff to put stuff in. Well, I'm not going to be buying more stuff to put stuff in, right? I'm just not going to do it. This is done, and we're done.

Avery Cundill  23:44  
I can sense in your tone and your excitement that you've got the bug. So Sangeet, just before we close, tell me what is your next tackle?

Speaker 1  23:53  
So my next tackle, there's a couple of them. One of them is going to be my office. I have been in my house for over 20 years, you know, you accumulate a lot. And given my background as an accountant, you can only imagine, just like paper and paper and paper. So that's one area, and then the next one will be covered. So the one good thing about the pictures is one of them, some of them are stored in the cupboard. So that's the other thing that took me so long, is when I opened it, I decided, okay, I'll clean out the cupboards, so I'll just sort of do one project at a time, but the office is the next big one, because, like I said, the house is just a Pandora's box. I know people say always get houses with lots of storage. Don't get a house with no storage. That's the best thing to do. Store it. You just sort of forget about it. You put it away. You say you'll get to it, and you really don't. And then 23 later, years later, you open up every box and you every sorry closet or in every cupboard, and you go, are you kidding me? So that's essentially what I'm going to be doing, is my office, and then each cupboard, each closet, and

Avery Cundill  24:53  
never to go back to the old systems. Once you do it now you won't allow yourself, no. Well, I'm excited. You. And you know, I'm always here for you. I'm a phone call away to help in all of the projects. And I really appreciate you coming on the show, and we're going to check in with you on your journeys

Speaker 1  25:11  
as we go. We'd love to and thank you very much. Appreciated all the great advice you gave. You know, between what kind of boxes to get and all of that, it was amazing. So I really appreciate that. So thank you.

Mary Anne Ivison  25:22  
Thanks for listening to the declutter queen with Avery Cundill for more decluttering tips and tricks, go to the declutter queen.ca produced and distributed by the sound off media company you.