Can you believe we’re already at week 6 of the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge? Last week, we made a start on our closet decluttering with the bottoms—pants, skirts, dresses and shorts. In this week’s closet clear-out, we’re looking at tops – shirts, blouses, dressy sweaters and pullovers.

This week, I’m focusing on tops I wear for work or to go out. I’m going to leave the t-shirts and sweatshirts for next week. I have a lot of them, so I decided to dedicate a week to them. If you don’t have as many casual t-shirts and sweatshirts, you can include them this week.

Okay, grab all your tops and let’s get started.

This post was originally published in February 2021 and republished in February 2024.

What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?

In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.

• 52-Week Decluttering Challenge
• Week 1 – Easy Decluttering Checklist

You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.

Are you ready for week 6? Let’s get decluttering!

Week 6 – Closet clear-out – Tops

The first step is to get out all my shirts, blouses and sweaters so I can see them in one place. Here they are.

In my closet clear-out last year, I made good progress on my tops. Here’s a picture of the 12 items I got rid of during the 31-Day Declutter Challenge. Going into this week, I wasn’t sure if I’d find anything else I didn’t need.

This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

We’ll get to this week’s progress in a minute. First, here are my tips and learnings for week six.

• It helps to match your tops with the bottoms you kept last week. If you have a top that doesn’t go with any of the bottoms you kept, put it in the donate or discard pile.
• To make the most of your wardrobe, keep versatile tops that you can mix and match with more than one pair of bottoms.   
• You may have items you haven’t worn in a while, but you can’t bring yourself to part with them because you think you might need them. Pack these clothes away in a box and write today’s date on the box. Then, set a reminder in your calendar for six months from now. If, in that time, you haven’t had a reason to wear them, you can safely get rid of them.

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What I got rid of

Despite having done a pretty thorough clear-out only a few months ago, I was still able to find 3 more tops I rarely wear and don’t need. Here’s what I got rid of this week.

This week’s task reminded me of the importance of taking the time to look through your things on a regular basis.

2024 Update

It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.

I do wear all the blouses and shirts I own so I decluttered just one item this week. This top is confirmation of the cautions I shared last week about online shopping. I bought it online a few years ago and never really liked it. Returning it was too much of a hassle, so I kept it. I think I only wore it once or twice and now it’s on its way to the thrift store.   

So that’s week 6 done. Next week, we’ll move on to the t-shirts and sweatshirts.

If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!

How did you find this week’s closet decluttering exercise? Tell us below.