Never Wear the Same Outfit Twice With This Free Formula

by The Productive Pixie - September 25, 2021

How long do you spend in the morning, trying to figure out what to wear? I'm sure you don't enjoy standing in front of your closet feeling like you have nothing to wear! To be honest with you, I don't enjoy wearing the same outfit over and over again so if I didn't use this formula, I would probably spend a good deal more time trying to figure out what to wear too. Today, I'm going to be sharing this simple wardrobe planner with you for absolutely FREE so you can spend less time in front of your closet!

Never Wear the Same Outfit Twice With This Free Formula

Side Note - This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy something from one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. For more information, you can read my privacy policy. Thank you for supporting my blog. :)

Updated for 2024

No one has extra time to figure out what to wear every morning, certainly not you, and that's time you could be using to create a life you love! I've been using this formula for more than three years now, and I can tell you it's pretty life-changing.

That might be just a little bit of an overstatement! Lol, but honestly, you can streamline your wardrobe, so you don't have to spend extra time on it. Plus, you won't be wearing the same outfit even twice, so you'll be better dressed.

I've seen posts that talk about having a uniform so you wear the same outfit every day, and you never have to think about what you are wearing. For a wardrobe like this, you would need to buy lots of very similar pieces (If you wore the same clothes daily, this formula would be kinda gross!). Different clothes, but same outfit.

I like the idea of not having to think about what to wear every morning, but I don't like the idea of wearing the same thing every day so I came up with my own formula.

I've talked about this formula a little bit in one of my older posts (that post is pretty cringey, so I desperately need to update it, and I'm regretting linking it here), but I thought I needed to write an entire post for this topic because it's a pretty amazing strategy, and I've made some tweaks to it over the years. Plus, surprisingly, some of my most popular posts on this blog are related to fashion so I guess some of you think I have pretty good fashion tips.

Each of these posts has garnered at least 10,000 views so make sure you check them out if you are interested in hearing my thoughts and tips on fashion.

Okay, enough of self-promotion let's get into the formula you can use to never wear the same outfit twice!

Never Wear the Same Outfit Twice with This Life-Changing Wardrobe Planner

I love free stuff, and I bet you do too! You can use this wardrobe planner entirely for free. All you need to use this formula is a good old spreadsheet. Well... and clothes! This is optional, but I like to print mine out so you may also want to also have a printer and some paper. This way you can print out your outfit planner, and put it next to your calendar.

First up, let's talk about the statistics. Do I have a ton of clothes? Okay, well I might have a little bit of a jacket obsession lol, but other than that, I don't have a ton of clothes. Right now, I have 48 items in my closet not counting accessories (give or take a few items I might have missed). This is counting tops, bottoms, jackets, dresses, and shoes. This does not include my athletic wardrobe, which is a whole different topic.

With those 48 items, I can make over 4500 outfits, not including accessories.

Before we get into how you can make your own wardrobe planner, I wanted to mention that this strategy works best with a capsule wardrobe. If you don't have a capsule wardrobe, that is totally fine, but if you want to be able to make more outfits then having a capsule wardrobe will allow you to do that.

This formula will take some time upfront to set up (probably at least a few hours, not going to lie), but after you have it set up, you won't have to worry about what to wear for at least the next couple of years!

1. Find + Document All of Your Clothing

If you already know what you have in your closet, then you don't need to worry about this step. If you don't know every item in your closet, then it's time to pull out the piles! Open up a new spreadsheet, and make a few categories at the top.

Go through all of your clothing and assign each item to the appropriate category. Every item in your closet will need an easily identifiable name such as "black and white striped tee".

You'll have columns for each category. Here are the categories I have on my spreadsheet: tops, bottoms, jackets, shoes, dresses, and accessories.

Underneath the headers, you need to write each item. This will make setting up your wardrobe planner much easier because you won't miss any outfit combinations.

2. Make Your Spreadsheet

Now it's time for the actual work. This will be the hardest and most time-consuming part of making your wardrobe planner, so make you have some time on your hands.

Start with the first top you have on your list, and write down the first pair of pants, and then the first pair of shoes.
Then you would type the same outfit on the next row of your spreadsheet, but with different pants until you have gone through all of your pants.
After that, you would copy and paste those rows, and add your first jacket to all of those outfits.
Copy and paste that first section changing the jacket each time until you have used up all of your jackets.
Now copy and paste all of the outfits you have down so far, and then change the shoes.
Do this until you have paired all of your shoes with the first top.
Now, you can copy and paste all of the outfits you have listed down, and change the top.
Do this until you have listed all of your tops.
Now you have the total number of outfit combinations you can make!

It might look something like the following...

Tops - Bottoms - Jackets - Shoes
Black + Gold Dot Stripe Top - Dark Wash Skinny Jeans - White Sneakers
Black + Gold Dot Stripe Top - Black Skinny Jeans - White Sneakers
Black + Gold Dot Stripe Top - White Jeans - White Sneakers

If those are all of the pairs of pants you have, then you would list your first jacket, and then your next jacket, and so on, and so forth. It's going to be a time-consuming process!

We aren't done there though!

If you are looking at this on a big enough screen, you can see a close-up of what part of my wardrobe planner looks like.

3. Edit Your Spreadsheet

You have all of your outfit combinations listed now, but some of these aren't actual outfits that you can wear. Now, it's time to go through and pick out the obvious outfits that you can't wear. You should be able to delete chunks of outfits at a time.

For example, if you have a top that doesn't go with a pair of shoes, you can go through and delete all of those rows at once.

Keep in mind that it would take a long time to go through every outfit, so I just remove the obvious outfits that are a no-go, and I leave the rest on my spreadsheet.

4. Using Your Spreadsheet

You can add a checkbox next to each outfit on your spreadsheet, or you may choose to add a number next to each outfit.

Your wardrobe planner is almost done!

You can either print it out like I did and staple it into a flipbook, or you can use your spreadsheet straight from your phone or laptop.

If you chose to number each one of the outfits on your spreadsheet, you can plan what you are going to wear ahead of time by writing down the number of the outfit you want to wear for each day!

If you use a bullet journal, you can make a "year at a glance" layout with empty squares where you write down the number of the outfit you are going to wear each day.

How to Never Wear the Same Outfit Twice with This Time-Saving Wardrobe Planner

That's the entire strategy! I hope it will help you save time. I also hope you'll never have to stand in front of the closet desperately wondering what to wear again!

Do I use this wardrobe planner every single day?

Nope! Sometimes, I'll just stay in athleisure clothing all day, if I'm just staying at home, but I didn't just say that. 😂 And I exercise daily, so I actually have an excuse to wear athleisure clothing!

Plus, I only use this wardrobe planner for my casual clothing, so if I'm dressing up to go somewhere formal, then I will wear whatever I want.

Will I really never have to wear the same outfit twice?

Aha, this is the controversial part of this wardrobe planner. Personally, I do sometimes wear the same outfit twice if it's an outfit I really love, and who is going to remember?

This is just an awesome formula to use to make sure you are getting the most out of your wardrobe and wearing everything.

With my current wardrobe planner, I have 4500+ outfits to wear so it will last me for more than 12 years. Yeah, you read that right. 12 years. It's not a lifetime, but by that time I'll have worn out some of my clothes, and I'm sure I'll have bought some new clothes so then the cycle will start over again, and I'll make a new wardrobe planner.

On my wardrobe planner, I do not include accessories, so if you wear different accessories every time, then you will be able to create infinitely more outfit combinations. If I had 10 accessories, then I could multiply my 4500+ outfits by 10 and get 45,000 outfits.

It's obvious I've spent too much time thinking about how many outfits I can create! 😂

If you liked this post, you can read these ones too!

In the end, does it matter if you wear the same outfit twice? It absolutely does not! I only do this to make sure I am getting the most out of the pieces I have in my wardrobe and because well... I just don't like feeling like I am wearing the same outfit all the time! Have a wonderful week!

If you found this post helpful, please share it! Thank you so much! :)

Tags : capsule wardrobe, fashion, productivity

Never Wear the Same Outfit Twice With This Free Formula