Tidy tips: Lighten your load — declutter that wardrobe

There's nothing like the prospect of a shiny new year to make you feel like clearing out your wardrobe. Get rid of those bobbled jumpers, ill-fitting jeans and never-worn-it fleeting trends and make way for a fresh start in which you promise to maintain order, look after your clothes properly and only buy things you really want or need.

Chuck away anything cheap and nasty

We're surrounded by fast fashion these days; whether it's online, in the malls or even in the supermarket, we can buy clothing pretty much anywhere, on a whim. So use this burst of wardrobe organisation to revaluate the amount of clothing you buy against the amount of clothing you actually wear.

Keep the basics; chuck the trends

Every wardrobe should be built on a foundation of basics - a couple of great pairs of tailored trousers, jeans or never-out-of-style cashmere jumpers.

Be ruthless

Pass on unwanted clothing to a younger friend.

What's ripe for selling on?

Categorising the items you want to purge from your wardrobe keeps the process simple. Decluttering is not about chucking all your unwanted items in the bin; it's about seeing if your unwanted items can go somewhere better or more useful.

Colour co-ordinate your wardrobe

Colour co-ordinating is a great way to establish what you do and don't have. If you end up with a sea of navy, black and grey, you know not to buy any more of that for a while, and instead invest in brighter shades.

Head to Instagram for organisation inspiration

Check out feeds like The Coveteur, which delves into the closets of the world's most stylish, to give you ideas about how you want your wardrobe to look. It could be anything from sticking photos of the shoes in each shoebox on the outside, to the way in which you colour co-ordinate your rails. - ©The Daily Telegraph