Cleaning Out Your Closet: The Catharsis of Organization

It may be almost summer now, but it's never too late for Spring Cleaning. Especially, if like me, you live in a tiny apartment where your only source of storage for your clothes is one small closet and a windowsill. Even if it seems like a big task to clean out your stuff in your free time (It's Spring! I want to play outside!), its worth the effort for a few simple reasons.

I'll premise this story with my own Spring Cleaning story, which took place in March. I was inspired to clean things because of Oprah. That's right, Oprah. She did a show on the Secret Life of Hoarders. If you saw it, you knw exactly what I'm talking about it, because no one who saw that show would ever forget it. It was about this woman who had 75 tons of garbage inside her house. It was a tour de force Oprah episode, definitely. The stats from the show say that there are 6 million hoarders (people who never throw stuff away, basically) in the United States alone.

I'm not a hoarder, but I do have a hard time throwing things away. Especially clothes. So when I decided that I was going to do a massive spring cleaning in my 500 square foot apartment, I was a little nervous that I would be able to go through with it. But I decided to hunker down and do it, no matter how tough it might be. I opened the windows, let some fresh air in, and put on some of my favorite tunes. Then I got to work.

Some ten trash bags full of shoes, clothes, and unused wedding gifts later, I couldn't believe how I was feeling. I'd describe the feeling as somewhere between joy and catharsis. I actually felt lighter. Happier. More free. It was sort of magical. Suffice to say, I was surprised by how good cleaning out my closet made me feel. It was a pleasant surprise.

Now, I'm not a "cleaner" at all. I hate cleaning. But I was so inspired by my Spring Cleaning that I decided that I would go home and clean out my childhood bedroom. Five years after I graduated from college, my poor parents were still saddled with a room full of my stuff. They were shocked that I finally decided to clean that stuff out. So I suppose my Spring Cleaning may have unearthed the closet (pun intended!) organizer in side of me.

Anyways, here's my Top 5 Why It's Time for Spring Cleaning

1. You need more space. Everyone needs more space, not just those of us who live in 500 square foot apartments. This one is a no-brainer.

2. You can donate your stuff to charity. This was a huge one for me. The process of dropping off bags and bags of stuff at Housing Works in New York or the Salvation Army felt sort of euphoric. Here's a couple of links to places that are great to donate stuff to.

In New York City, here's my absolute favorite place to donate! They take books too, which I always have waaaay too many of.

http://www.housingworks.org/

Here's a list of a whole bunch of different places.

http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/content/0,21770,1043872,00.html

3. You find stuff you forgot you had. Looking for clothes in your own closet might not be the most obvious of shopping destinations, but believe me, if you do a massive spring cleaning effort, you WILL find clothes you forgot you had. It's a fringe benefit that is deliciously fun!

4. If everything's sacred, nothing's sacred. I stole this quote directly from Peter Walsh, Oprah's organizing guru. He's really sort of amazing, and one of his main points for helping people organize their stuff is that if your life is such a mess that you can't find anything, than how can you really appreciate anything in your life. See Walsh's books below. I recommend them. That guy is smart!

5. They are just things. We hold on to things for so long because of our emotional attachment to them, but in the end, they're just things. They are things that might be able to help someone somewhere else and they are things that aren't really helping you at all by sitting in your closet collecting dust.

It's time, people! So get to work. And let me know how it goes....