As I explained in How a Messy Creative Learned to Love Advanced Planning, I am not a natural planner. I enjoy being creative and following my whims – especially when it comes to getting dressed in the morning! In an ideal world, I would be a mood-dresser. I would choose every outfit each morning so that it fit my mood perfectly.
But as fun as being a mood-dresser can be, I decided to become a planner instead. Mood dressing is just too stressful, and here’s three reasons why:
1. If I don’t know exactly what mood I’m in, I panic
Often, I wake up with an outfit idea in my head, or put one together when I’m in the shower. Often, but not always. Most days of the week, I just want to look and feel good and I don’t really care what colours are involved and what silhouette I’ll end up with. It’s those mornings that would lead me to stare at my wardrobe, trying to decide what I wanted to wear and how to put together an outfit. After five or more minutes of staring, I’d panic and put on whatever combination first sprang to mind.
Once I was dressed, I’d start feeling uncomfortable and unhappy with the outfit. A glance in the mirror would confirm my suspicions were correct. Something about it didn’t work. The colours weren’t coordinated, the silhouette was wrong, I looked too casual. So I’d decide to change skirt or swap cardigan – only to make the outfit worse! Inevitably, I’d glance at the clock, panic again, change back into the first outfit, then go to work feeling self-conscious and dissatisfied.
2. It’s time consuming
All that staring and panicking and changing takes up an enormous amount of time. Mornings are rushed enough without wasting time worrying about something as superficial as clothing.
I believe that it’s better to get this small detail taken care of in advance so that getting dressed can be as quick and pleasant as possible. Once the outfit planning is out of the way, mental energy is freed up for other purposes.
3. It doesn’t take practical considerations into account
My moody, creative mind didn’t have the slightest clue what clothes are clean. I’d frequently decide that my heart was absolutely set on wearing one particular item, for example, a pink top. Then the real trouble would begin, as I’d discover that none of the clothes I usually wore with that pink top were clean and would have to come up with a new combination on the spot.
Even if I was having one of those glorious mornings where I woke up with an outfit idea in my head, I’d usually find that I couldn’t wear exactly what I had imagined because the tights in my mental picture were in the wash. So I’d have to swap them for another pair, which would mean that the matching cardigan would also need to be replaced and more and more time would be wasted.
Mood dressing would only be a practical choice if I had an extra half hour every single day for choosing outfits – and if that half hour could not be used for any other task!
In the real world, there are better things I could do with that time, ways to spend it that leave me feeling satisfied instead of frustrated. That’s what lead me to create my system for wardrobe planning, and develop it into a course that can help you too.
My favourite thing about my Planning Your Work Wardrobe system is that you can adapt it to give yourself just enough flexibility to keep your inner mood-dresser happy, while still having a functional plan that will see you through morning after morning. So – are you a mood-dresser, a planner. or something in-between?
