You might not believe this, but even though I’m an expert wardrobe consultant, I have stress getting dressed from time to time. My biggest stress getting dressed is actually…that I’m an IMAGE AND WARDROBE CONSULTANT! And every time I leave the house (with the exception of walking my dog, etc.)  I need to look the part. No slacking for me! It’s important for me to look credible and feel great about my clothes every day.

And just like you, I’m almost always racing to get out of the house in the morning. Luckily, through my training and trial and error, I’ve learned some ways to cut down on the time it takes to pick out my outfit and feel confident in what I’m wearing. Follow the steps below and I guarantee your stress will lower…at least in the wardrobe department!

Getting dressed with ease in the mornings can be broken down into 3 main steps. And I hate to say it, but the big secret is you’ll be more successful if you don’t do these things in the morning.

1. Make sure you love everything in your closet and it’s clean, fits well and is in good repair. It’s pretty obvious that you’re not going to be able to do all this in the morning, so it’s important to have a system, especially for the clean, fits, good repair.

2. Choose your outfit the night before. Or if you’re a real early bird and have an excess of time in the morning before work, you can do this the day of…but truly, the night prior is your better bet.

The first part of creating your outfit is to consider what’s on your agenda for the next day and who’ll you’ll be interacting with. One thing I find important is to dress for the most important activity first and either layer, so I can dress down a little or plan to make small changes.

The second aspect to a perfect outfit is to try everything on together including the accessories. I’m aware this sounds like a real pain, but it’s so much less stressful than discovering in the morning that the shoes aren’t the right heel height or the proportions of the combo are all off.

Worried you might not be in the mood to wear what you’ve put together by the next day? The solution is simple! Put together 2 options. Two different options should be enough to cover you, and if it’s not, go back to step 1 above. (You might not be spending as much time as you need to make sure you only buy clothes you love.)

If you cringe at the thought of taking the time to even have to come up with an outfit, having a variety of outfits pre- documented according to where you’ll wear them and what mood they cover will allow you to completely skip step 2. I do this with all of my clients when we work in their closets and after we’ve shopped, and they love how absolutely easy it is for them to decide what they’ll wear each day!

3. Prep your clothes in advance. If you iron/steam everything before you put it in your closet, you’re well ahead of the game. If you’re in the camp of “I’ll press/steam it when I’m ready to wear it,” (raising my hand here,) get the wrinkles out the night before.
4.  Next, lay your accessories out for easy access and place your shoes by the door or wherever is most convenient for you. You might want to consider putting your handbag, shoes, keys and cell phone all together so you’ll be able to get them all in one fell swoop and head out the door.

I’ll confess I haven’t always been this organized with my wardrobe or that I’ve had plenty of times when I didn’t see a small spot on my blouse until I finished buttoning it up, but I have found that if you follow the steps above, your wardrobe stress will be greatly reduced. And you might even be able to enjoy a second cup of coffee before you head out and have a confident, amazing day!

If what I’ve described sounds absolutely ideal to you, but you’re just not sure if you have the right things to make great outfits or you’re not feeling very creative, we should have a conversation. I offer a FREE 60 minute phone consult where we can clarify your vision for a wardrobe you love and talk about how you can make it happen. You can schedule your time right here.