Hannah Montana and "new" Sex in the City-star Miley Cyrus and her bff Mandy Jiroux filmed a very revealing video in Miley's closet. The video is part of the Miley and Mandy Show, a series of youtube videos that have gained an impressive, loyal following.
So while the video shot in her Los Angeles-area home is highly entertaining, it's much more interesting to watch the girls go through 16-year old Miley's closet and to downsize her extensive collection of tank tops (stripes, sequins, animal prints, dogs,bubbles, screen prints, zebra, Aztec, tie-die, beetle juice, jailhouse rock, little bo-peep, stars and the shirt she wore when she first met actor Johnny Depp).
Here's the video. If you're reading our blog on rss or feedblitz, click here to actually see the video:
As Miley continued to toss, stack and pile her shirts and unwanted clothes into a mountain, we got to thinking, is she really going through her closet the right way? Here's a few thoughts on what you can learn from watching Miley and Mandy:
It's like a tank top:
Much of the video centers around the fact that Miley's clothes all seem to look like a tank top; they're hard to describe much less organize. Instead of driving yourself crazy organizing all these crazy pieces, we suggest she simply create a category in her closet called "knits" and put the tank tops in that category. If you're lucky enough to have space, hang your knits on huggable hangers so they don't slip off.
Use a Professional Organizer; get focused and save time:
Miley is doing a great job letting go of unwanted clothes by herself. However, she could possibly have been more efficient if she used a professional organizer (specializing in closets) to help her gain focus. Miley moves through her closet from shirts to tank tops to purses and seems to skip over things. Like most, she gets distracted, and doesn't seem to do a very thorough review job of going through everything. An organizer can help her maintain the tasks and save time.
Don't make big pile of clothes, you'll be sorry:
Once Miley and Mandy are finished, they're going to be left with a mountain of clothes to process. It would have been much more efficient for them to get some boxes, bags or laundry hampers ahead of time, place some simple paper labels on the containers and toss the unwanted clothes into the appropriate location. Now, she has to go through her clothes a second time to pull out donations, trash, give-aways to friends and resale. We bet she's going to go through the piles again, second guess herself, and decide to put things back for keeping. There's nothing wrong with that behavior, but if you're really determined to get rid of unworn clothes, out of sight means out of mind. Touch the items only once and get them out of sight and out of the house as soon as possible.
Make it fun:
We love that Miley and Mandy are making the clutter clearing more fun by doing it together. We also took note that Miley let go of items that she had outworn long ago, like the outfit she wore when she first met Johnny Depp. Sentimentalism is a number one clutter creator. Bravo!
Images above courtesy g.n.o32 on flickr.
If Miley and Mandy were reading this blog post, what closet organizing techniques would you share with her?
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To my fellow professional organizers out there,
If you wonder why you're suddenly getting getting calls for closet organizing today or you're seeing a spike in your business - it's because of John Trosko.
John, your blog has always been excellent - now your writing style has gone through the roof. We are very lucky to have you representing our industry and thank you so much for putting out such articulate, entertaining and educational material. Hugs to you, Dorothy Breininger, The Center For Organization
Posted by: Dorothy Breininger | September 28, 2009 at 05:52 AM
John, as always I love your writing, but the video is excruciating. I am really hoping that (for all our sakes) "It's like a tank top" is NOT the next big phrase. ~J
Posted by: Julie Bavington | October 02, 2009 at 05:33 PM