Last year I made the commitment to being more of a minimalist and got rid of a lot of things that served no purpose in my life, which included a major closet clean-out. Now that the new year has started, that process has started again.

One of the first things I did on January 1st was go into my closet and flip every hanger so that the hooks were facing into the room rather than towards the wall.

As I wear each garment and it comes back from the wash, it will be hung on a hanger and placed back on the rod with the hook facing the wall. At a glance I can assess what I have and haven’t. At the end of the year, if there’s something that hasn’t been worn, I will probably never wear it again so I will get rid of it. Of course specialty items like my ski gear and evening gowns are exempt from this process but even they are subject to the wardrobe chopping block if they aren’t going to be used.

I’m a bit of a dork and definitely neurotic so I extended the project to include garments that are on the shelves of my closet like my jeans, sweaters, and workout gear. I created a checklist that listed each garment individually and taped it to the side of the shelves. Whenever I wear one of these items, I cross it off of my checklist.

As I hung the checklist I thought to myself, “Why do you have 3 pairs of yoga pants? Didn’t you get the REI yoga pants to replace the Nike ones because they were getting threadbare?” I grabbed the pen that lives in the closet off the shelf, crossed off the Nike pants, and tossed them into the donation pile.

I did a similar process last year to clean out my closet and at least 30 garments didn’t survive to 2014. I will be interesting to see what makes it through this year. I will have to remember that having nice things is meaningless if they serve no purpose and that a garment is not a substitute for a memory behind its acquisition.