Day 10  Automating Your Wardrobe

          Clothing/Laundry/Organizing the closet

    Okay, before you think I am a totally anal-retentive neat-nik (believe me, I have more clutter in my life than a family of four), let me just say that every so often, I do something that is logical and really works out well.

    I took a long-term temp job when I first moved to San Francisco.  It was in a professional office where I would be going in month after month.  So I did an inventory of my business attire and came up with 10 or 12 outfits that were suitable (no pun intended).  I made up a calendar and for each work day, I wrote down what outfit I was going to wear.  I kept them in the same order, just rotated them through the month.  Every Sunday I would look over the outfits I was going to wear that week, made sure they were clean, pressed, weren’t missing any buttons or had any rips.  Every day when I got up, I didn’t have to spend ten or twenty minutes deciding what I was going to wear, putting on clothes and taking them off again.  It was done.  On Saturday I took clothes to the cleaners and picked up what I had dropped off the week before.  I never had to think about whether or not I had just worn that outfit.  For the most part people didn’t see an outfit more than a couple of times a month and I always looked professional.

    I had a boyfriend that pretty much did the same thing.  He didn’t go as far as making out a calendar, but I noticed that on Mondays and Tuesdays he wore suits, Wednesdays and Fridays it was usually Dockers with polo shirts (those were his golf days) and Thursdays were usually a sports coat with khaki pants.  He had three pairs of very expensive shoes. (Brown, black and oxblood. Men’s lives are so simple.)  Certain shirts and ties went with certain suits (the man at the store put everything together for him).  One day a week he dropped off his laundry and drycleaning.  He picked it up the next day.  His clothing was totally automated. 

    So, today go through your closet.  Take a look at your work clothes vs. your non-work clothes.  Put your work outfits together and make up a calendar.  Then check over your clothing to see if any buttons need sewing, if a zipper needs repair, if something needs pressing.  Get your outfits ready to put into rotation.  And never stand in your closet in your underwear trying to figure out what to wear to work again.