How to Plan a Week of Outfits Around the Weather and Your Laundry

To plan your outfits for the week, set aside about 15 minutes once a week. Check the forecast and your calendar, pick exact outfits for the next two or three days and rough ones for the rest, and plan around a single wash day so you never count on something that's still in the hamper. Give each day one backup piece, then take two minutes the night before to re-check the weather and swap if you need to.

How far ahead to plan, and why the forecast decides

The weather can change after you've planned, so it sets how firm your plan can be.

According to NOAA, a five-day forecast is accurate about 90 percent of the time and a seven-day forecast about 80 percent of the time. A forecast 10 or more days out is right only about half the time. Forecasts come from computer weather models that rely on estimates, and because the atmosphere keeps changing, they get less reliable the further ahead they look.

Those are broad figures, not a promise about your town on a given Thursday. So this guide suggests its own simple rule of thumb:

• Firm up the next two or three days. Pick the exact outfit, down to the shoes.
• Keep the end of the week loose. Pick a direction, such as "jeans and a sweater, maybe boots," rather than a finished look.
• Re-check the night before. As each loose day gets close, firm it up.

Reading the chance of rain

Rain changes your shoes and your outer layer, so it helps to know what the number means. In a National Weather Service forecast, the "chance of rain" is the probability that your forecast point gets at least 0.01 inch of rain, so a 40 percent chance means a 40 percent probability of at least that much rain where you are.

A practical way to use it is to pick your own cutoff once. For example: at 50 percent or more, plan the wet-weather version of the outfit and keep the dry version as the backup. Below that, plan the dry version and keep a rain layer as the backup. The cutoff is your choice, not a rule.

Step 1: Gather three things before you choose anything

1. The forecast for the next seven days: high, low and chance of rain.
2. Your calendar. Note what each day asks of your clothes: a long commute, an office day, a dinner, errands, a day at home.
3. What's clean. A quick look at the hamper tells you what's out of play until wash day.

Write them in a simple grid with one row per day. The example week below shows the layout.

Step 2: Choose one wash day and plan around it

A weekly plan only works if each piece is clean on the day you planned it. One fixed wash day makes that easy to check.

How many wears a piece gets depends on the piece. There's no single schedule: what you did in it, its fabric, how it was worn and the weather all play a part. As a starting point, the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) gives these general guidelines:

• Jeans: about three wears before washing.
• Dress shirts, khakis and similar outer clothes: a few wears, unless you sweated in them on a hot day or they're visibly dirty or stained.
• Whites and silks, including a white dress shirt, are the exception: ACI suggests cleaning them after every wear, because they're prone to discoloration.
• T-shirts, tank tops and camisoles: a wash after every wear, like underwear and socks.
• Coats: a wash once or twice per season.

Treat these as one organization's guidelines, not fixed rules.

For sweaters and anything else not on that list, there's no wear count to borrow here. Decide when to wash using the same factors above, and check the care label for how to wash it.

In the US, the FTC's Care Labeling Rule requires manufacturers and importers to attach care instructions to clothing that give complete instructions for regular care, or a warning if the item can't be cleaned without harm. If the label gives washing instructions, it must say whether to wash the piece by hand or by machine, and give a water temperature if regular use of hot water would harm it. A label may give only a dry-cleaning instruction instead.

The label tells you how to wash a piece, not how often.

Three planning rules follow:

1. Never plan an every-wear piece twice before wash day. If you need a T-shirt on four days, you need four clean T-shirts.
2. Space out repeat-wear pieces. Put a day or two between wears of the same jeans or trousers, and stop at your wear count before wash day.
3. Put wash day where it helps. A day you're home works well, and so does the day before your busiest stretch.

Step 3: Pick a few anchor pieces

Anchors are the pieces that go with most of your tops: one or two bottoms, a sweater or cardigan, an outer layer, and shoes for each kind of weather you expect. Choosing them first makes each day a smaller decision. You're picking a top and a layer, not building a whole outfit from scratch.

Plan repeats on purpose. Wearing the same jeans on Monday, Wednesday and Friday is a perfectly good week, and it stays within the general guideline for jeans. Spacing repeats out keeps the week from feeling the same.

Step 4: Give each day a backup

A backup is one piece that rescues the outfit if the forecast or your plans shift. Good backups are small and easy to grab:

• a warmer layer or scarf for a morning that comes in colder than forecast
• shoes you don't mind getting wet
• a rain jacket for a day with a middling chance of rain
• a plain top that works if your planned one ends up in the hamper early

Write the backup next to each day in your grid.

Step 5: The two-minute check the night before

Each evening:

1. Look at tomorrow's forecast again.
2. Make sure every planned piece is clean.
3. Swap in the backup if the weather or your plans changed.
4. Firm up the next loose day if it's now two or three days away.
5. Lay the outfit out, or at least hang it together.

An example week, planned on Sunday

Here's the routine for a late-fall week with a commute, office days and a dinner out. The forecast and the wardrobe are made up for the example.

The wardrobe in play: dark jeans, gray trousers and khakis; a white and a blue button-down shirt; four T-shirts; a navy sweater and a camel cardigan; a wool coat, a rain jacket and a scarf; leather sneakers and waterproof boots. Wash day: Sunday.

Day	Forecast	What's on	Outfit	Backup
Mon	54/39°F, dry	Commute, office	Dark jeans (wear 1), white shirt, navy sweater, wool coat, sneakers	Scarf for the cold morning
Tue	50/37°F, dry	Office	Gray trousers (wear 1), blue shirt (wear 1), cardigan, wool coat, sneakers	Navy sweater instead of the cardigan
Wed	48/41°F, 70% rain	Commute, office	Dark jeans (wear 2), T-shirt 1, navy sweater, rain jacket, boots	Wool coat if the rain chance drops
Thu	46/34°F, dry	Home	Khakis (wear 1), T-shirt 2, cardigan	None needed
Fri	52/38°F, 30% rain	Office, dinner	Dark jeans (wear 3), blue shirt (wear 2), navy sweater; coat and shoes decided Thursday night	Dry: wool coat, sneakers. Wet: rain jacket, boots
Sat	56/40°F, dry	Errands	Khakis (wear 2), T-shirt 3, cardigan; shoes open	Rain jacket
Sun	50/36°F, dry	Home, laundry	Gray trousers (wear 2), T-shirt 4, navy sweater	None needed

What the example shows:

• Monday to Wednesday are exact; Thursday to Sunday are sketches. A sketch names only the pieces that count toward the laundry and leaves the rest open. Each one gets firmed up during the night-before check.
• Every repeat is spaced out. The jeans get three wears, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and go in Sunday's wash. The gray trousers, the khakis and the blue shirt get two wears each, with at least a day in between, and the two sweaters take turns.
• The white shirt is worn once, on Monday, and then goes in the hamper, because whites are the exception that should be cleaned after every wear.
• The blue shirt gets a second wear on Friday. It wasn't sweated in or stained on Tuesday; if it had been, it would go in the hamper instead.
• Each T-shirt is worn once, so four clean T-shirts cover the week.
• One check changed the plan. On Thursday evening, Friday's chance of rain has climbed to 60 percent, above the 50 percent cutoff, so Friday is firmed up with the boots and rain jacket. The wool coat and sneakers become the backup.

To make your own grid, copy the same five columns into a notebook or a notes app: day, forecast, what's on, outfit and backup. Add a small tally next to any repeat-wear piece so you can see when it's due for the wash.

If you'd rather not keep the grid by hand

Ezfit is a wardrobe app coming soon to iPhone and Android.

• When it launches, it will log the outfits you wear on a calendar and let you plan the days ahead on that outfit calendar, with a monthly recap of outfits worn, most-worn pieces, re-wears and streaks.
• Each morning it will pick one daily outfit from your clean pieces for that day's forecast in your city and your style, favoring pieces you haven't worn lately, and you can shuffle it or keep a piece.
• Worn pieces will go into a laundry basket with a suggested next wash day, along with care tips for each fabric.

Until then, a notebook and the grid above are all you need.