Getting Dressed in 30 Minutes or Less

Have you ever been late to work because you couldn't put an outfit together? Are you late meeting up with friends because you can't find a half-way decent thing to wear in your closet? If you are like me, it takes forever to get out the door for work or a night out. During the week, I’m either getting my stuff together for the entire day half asleep or I’m putzing around my house. On the weekends, a whole army of possible tops, bottoms and shoes come flying out of the closet. My husband has learned to adopt to this ritual and just grins and bears it.

I know being stylish takes time, but I’ve had plenty of practice getting out the door. Here are some of my words of wisdom on getting dressed in 30 minutes or less and still look fabulous.

1. Keep your closet and drawers organized. Place pants with pants, shirts with shirts and dresses with dresses. Sort your clothes by color. You might also want to keep your workday and weekend clothes separate. This narrows your choices and makes it faster to see what works together and what doesn’t.
2. Don’t waste time going through your closets and drawers for the perfect pair of leggings or underwear. Fill your drawers with plenty of basics in a variety of shades, good bras and essential underwear.
3. Put clothes away in read-to-wear condition. If a piece needs to be dry cleaned, is missing a button, needs to be ironed or even losing its hem, keep it out of your closet. You don’t want to be wasting time putting on a wardrobe malfunction. You'll only end up wasting precious time on multiple fashion changes when you should be heading out the door.

Style guru and author of Style Rx: Dressing the Body You Have to Create the Body You Want, Bridgette Raes said the surest way to get dressed in a pinch is to simplify your wardrobe. She said to shop for clothes that you can mix and match and avoid pieces that don’t function with what you already have. “The clothes you pick must earn their place in your closet,” Bridgette said. “Be sure to get some mileage out of each item so that you don’t have 10,000 things going on in the morning. Rather you want to pick pieces to build your wardrobe.”

In addition, she suggested to lay out your clothes the night before. She said to be sure you take the the few minutes needed to think about what you are going to wear and pull them from your closets. Often times, women put themselves last behind their children and husbands. Stop putting yourself at the end of the line and start putting yourself first. It just takes a couple of minutes every day to make clear what you need to wear. Lastly, she said to keep a clothes diary or take photos. Knowing what outfits work great is a real time saver.