Beat morning dress stress

Create a 'look book'

When stylists help create "wardrobes" for their clients they'll often spend a day with them putting complete outfits together and taking Polaroids for reference. You don't need a stylist to create a work-look book though. At the beginning of the season, get a friend to help take the photos and spend a day creating top-to-toe outfits — remember to include shoes and accessories, too. Try to create at least 10 looks so you'll have two full weeks of outfits to rotate. That might seem a lot but remember you can mix and match items of clothing (that new shirt, or your favourite tunic dress), as much as you like. Once you have all your outfit photos, stick them to the back of your wardrobe, or compile them in an album for easy morning dressing.

Tidy your wardrobe

If you can see and reach all the clothes in your wardrobe easily, dressing in the morning will be a lot less stressful. Investing in good quality hangers (think wood or sturdy plastic and clip-hangers for pants and skirts) saves on ironing time in the morning because clothes aren't as likely to crease in your cupboard. Men, keep ties stored on tie racks so they don't emerge from the wardrobe a crushed mess.

Be season-specific

A jumble of warm and cold-weather clothes crammed into your wardrobe makes selecting a work outfit a challenge. Try dividing your work wardrobe into winter and summer (some of your staples will work all year round). Taking out those lightweight dresses when winter hits and storing those heavier jumpers during summer will create closet space and make finding the right thing to wear easier. Store items you don't need in another cupboard if you have one, or fold them into airtight plastic tubs or vacuum-seeled bags and pop them under your bed until you need them again.

Be brand loyal

We're not suggesting becoming a slave to one particular brand but it does make good dressing sense to buy a few items from the one store, as brands tend to sell clothes that work together. Ask the store assistants to advise you on what items they recommend pairing, and then consider buying an entire outfit (for example a skirt, jacket and coordinating shirt, or tie and shirt for men). Brands also tend to sell clothes that go with their previous seasons so you'll find matching last year's work clothes with this year's easier if you stick to a few favourite stores.

Keep shoes neat

Shoeboxes may protect your shoes from getting damaged, but they make it hard to find what you're looking for each morning. Try visiting a storage shop for some clever shoe-storage ideas, such as shoe racks or clear shoeboxes for easy selecting. Or try taking a photo of each pair of shoes and tape it to the front of the shoebox. Knowing what you've got means you'll wear all your shoes more often rather than just grab the pair you wore yesterday because you're short on time.