UNITED STATES—Sorry, we have to say it, summer is over. August is in its third week, and we have two more weeks before September ushers in, Labor Day is upon us and the kiddos are back in school, and the summertime vacations are long gone. The routine gets back in full force, and with that it means it’s time to clean out the closets.

I will admit I have not cleaned out my closet in about a year, and I want to do it, but each time I open it up and look at it, I just cringe. Why? I know it is going to be a chore, and the notion of dealing with that chore just stresses me out. However, I’m do plan to tackle the closet this weekend. Why? I just want to declutter things and open up my closet a bit more.

I do have a lot of clothes in my closet and it is time to purge a little bit. I have clothing that I have not worn in years and I don’t have any intention of wearing that clothing. So what is it doing there? It is taking up space and collecting dust. Yeah, I do believe in the three pile rule: keep, donate or trash. Trash means the clothing is just so bad (torn, ripped, holes) that you cannot give it away.

Donate means the clothing is still in good condition, you just aren’t wearing it so you might as well give it to someone who can use it and someone who needs it. There is no point of keeping clothing just for the sake of keeping that clothing because who does it benefit? Absolutely no one. With that said, so many people refuse to get rid of clothing because it was something they paid a ton of money for, so getting rid of that clothing means you’re tossing away money.

Do you truly want to throw cash in the trash? No. Absolutely, no one wants to do that, and when they do you start to reflect on how you can change things.

Now, the keeping element is difficult, because in some cases you’re going to try to keep every single thing that you have and that is quite problematic to say the least. You’ll tell yourself, “Oh, I’m going to wear this, but in reality you never wear it.” You don’t get around to it for X, Y and Z, but who does that help. I’ve noticed when I truly clean out my closet it is refreshing in a way that I never imagined. There is clarity I can actually look into my closet and see things that I did not imagine.

That is going to also spill into the items in my drawers and the bedroom. Mail, the mail is bad. I need to do some serious shredding and I mean serious. I have things that need to be taken care of to open up more space and declutter things in the process. We just are so lazy about doing things that we know we need to do, yet we’re not doing them for no actual reason at all. However, with summer far behind it is time to get things in order and eliminate any potential chaos that may cause stress or a bigger headache later. Simply put America, stop procrastinating and get things done that need to be done.

Written By Jason Jones