UNITED STATES—I did something this week that made me so proud of myself: I organized my closet fully. I mean I took everything that was on hangers, stacked, in boxes, and so much more that I had been ignoring for months. You know sometimes you open that closet, you see all the chaos and the notion of even tackling it, just makes you close the closet back.

However, I told myself the hell with it, you can no longer ignore this issue. Why? The clutter was causing me to stress out and the fact of not being organized totally causes unnecessary stress people. So the first thing was to tackle clothing. What do I wear and what am I not wearing? Anything that I have NOT worn I placed it into a pile. In that pile it was time to examine the quality of the clothing. If it was fairly new, not damaged that item was getting donated.

If it was a damaged item that really could not be worn, it had to go in the trash. Then I looked at what items I have actually worn versus those items I have not worn in months or years (I know that is quite sad). If the item didn’t bring me some level of joy, I let it go. That is the thing about Americans, we have trouble letting go of things. I fall into that group as well because I look at it from the scope of that was money I spent and I don’t want to just toss it in the trash.

Here is the thing about that. If we kept every single THING we spent money on we would be cluttered beyond clutter. You would have no clarity in life because there is so much stuff. There are things we need, things we like and things that just take up space. I had a lot of things in my closet that were simply taking up space and I had to get rid of those things to provide myself with more space and to actually see what I had, what I needed and what I don’t need.

Was it brutal getting rid of stuff? OF COURSE, but at the end of the day I was not using a lot of the clothing, a lot of the shoes or items in my closet that were practically new, so guess what? I gave or donate those items to individuals who I think needed them and it good probably bring them happiness. The key thing about getting rid of clutter is NOT to bring more clutter. When you get rid of the old and bring in the new, you don’t want to bring in so much new that you have more clutter in your life disrupting the clarity that you just achieved.

Written By Zoe Mitchell