Day 95: How to Declutter Your Jewelry
What: Jewelry
Why: Wondering what jewelry to wear – add this to the list of questions we can ask ourselves every morning. Do you stand in front of the mirror, trying on 3 different necklaces? Do you dig through your pile of earrings, trying to find the matching earring? Do you spend minutes trying to untangle your necklace mess? Jewelry, though beautiful, can cause a lot of unnecessary clutter. Sometimes the greatest battle is knowing where and how to start.
How:
1. Find all of your jewelry – wherever it may be.
2. Lay out all of your jewelry on a flat surface – find the matching earring, put jewelry in the set they belong in, untangle your necklaces.
3. Go through each piece of jewelry and ask:
- What emotions does it bring it out?
- Do you feel obligated to keep it?
- Do you enjoy wearing it?
- Do you still own the clothing that it goes with?
- Is it out of style?
- Does it look good on you?
- Does it annoy you when you wear it?
- Do you have all of the pieces in the set?
- Is it worn out?
- Are you just plain sick of wearing it?
- Are you keeping it because of the sentimental value it has?
- Are you keeping it because you spent a lot on it?
4. Time to downsize. Set aside your favorite earrings and necklaces. Ask yourself how many pairs of earrings and how many necklaces you really need? With the rest, if you do not love it, do not keep it.
5. Donate what you no longer want.
6. Organizing time! Find the system that works best for you – by style, color, season, or by set.
7. How you store your jewelry is up to you.
- Hang them
- Keep them in a jewelry box
- Plastic container with movable dividers (can be found at any craft store)
8. Go through your jewelry every year.
Confession of the Day: I used to have necklaces and earrings that I never wore. They were often faded, tarnished, worn out, broken, or plain out of style. Why I held onto them, I do not know. As I went through them, I purged of everything I knew I would never wear or only wore because I felt obligated to because I had it. I can’t tell you how easy it is to choose a necklace to wear now – I have a purpose for each necklace that I own – meaning an outfit it goes with. Living with less means having a purpose for everything you own and nothing more.
How do you organize your jewelry?
