How I Finally Organized My Closet With a Digital Inventory System

I'm about to recommend something that sounds like a lot of work. In fairness, it is a lot of work, but I want you to hear me out: You should make an actual inventory of your closet. There are a lot of great techniques out there for organizing a closet (or cabinet, drawer, room, or any other space), but they almost all rely on a few principles that can make finding your stuff in your newly arranged storage space a little tricky.

Typically, when you organize, you have to use containers to keep similar items together and make sure they all have a designated space. But what happens when you can't remember which container something is in? You tear through them all, making a mess.

So, make an inventory. Yes, it'll take a while. But it's really helpful. I did it with my clothes and accessories a few weeks ago and it's been surprisingly useful.

How to make your inventory

All I used was the Notes app on my phone, since it has a built-in search function. You could make a whole spreadsheet on Excel or Google Sheets, but a note does the same thing here.

I did this over time, pulling out sections of clothes and accessories and using decluttering methods to pare down what I had. The project was doubly useful to me, then, because it gave me an excuse to sit down and go through my stuff, getting rid of things that no longer fit, weren't in style, or weren't of interest to me. I already had an organizational structure in place, using tiered hangers and cube shelving units to sort my clothes into very specific categories, so I just went category by category. If you don't have a similar system in place, set one up first. The goal is to be as specific as possible. Tank tops, shirts, leggings, and joggers can (and should) each have their own designated space.

Once I had decluttered a bit, I put the categorized items back in their designated spaces, but I took extra time to add details into the note on my phone. I listed each item, along with its location and some searchable words. Here's how one section of the note looks. These are all items of clothing that are similar, but stored very differently according to my organization system.

Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

What I learned making the inventory

This is much more useful for the things I keep stored in containers or bags than it is for things that are easily visible on a shelf, although it's still useful for those, too. Obviously, I can glance at a shelf and determine if something I want is on it, but many of the cube shelves I use have little boxes in them to keep them from looking too cluttered from the outside. Using a system where I searched for specific keywords, figured out which box or drawer something was in, and didn't have to open and rifle through a bunch of other things was helpful. It was also convenient to be able to search keywords, like "gym," and get an outline of everything I needed and where it was.

The past month was just a test run for me. Since I decided I like this system, I'm going to get more granular. Instead of just "spaghetti strap tank tops — camisole undershirt summer hot layer — left pink shelving unit, top shelf, far left," I'm going to start adding the articles individually. The white Skims tank top I pull out when I'm trying for a "clean girl" aesthetic is stored in a different area of that shelf than the Champion tank tops I run errands in, so they should be listed more specifically to avoid tearing apart a pile of clothes in vain.

I also plan to start doing this for every container in my home. I have no less than 20 drawers in my tiny apartment and I'll be honest: I don't always know which one contains which thing, from my spare bottle opener to the molds I use when I get the annual urge to make my own gummy bears. The upside of using containers to store everything is it all looks polished from the outside. The downside is that what goes on within them is sometimes far from polished. Anything you store away but don't use often, like tools or specialty charging cables, runs the risk of being forgotten. When you need it, no matter how sporadically that is, it's not easy to remember which little container it's in. Making an inventory takes some time, but eliminates hassles later on.