This is part of my series on Decluttering Mental Models.

Dear Dude with too many T-shirts:

I think it’s fantastic that you’re willing to part ways with your 127 T-shirts. I commend you for letting go of the high school acapella-club T-shirts, 2016 political campaign T-shirts, and the T-shirts from that one local band that fused reggae with dream pop.

But I have some bad news: No one wants to buy your old T-shirts.

It’s really hard to hear, I know, because they hold so many memories for you. These T-shirts are physical objects that represent a slew of emotions and important events in your life. They hold tremendous meaning. But they won’t hold any of these emotions for anyone else. To everyone else, they’re just used T-shirts.

You see, we live in a time of unprecedented prosperity. T-shirts are ridiculously cheap to manufacture, and Americans pretty much always buy new ones. I mean, when is the last time you bought someone’s old T-shirt with random stuff on it, like “Butte High School — class of 2001”?

Now, you may want to help your clothes “find a new home” via donation. But Goodwill probably doesn’t want T-shirts because no one buys them and because a zillion other people already donated the exact same T-shirts. Most likely, Goodwill will either recycle them or trash them.

Don’t create extra work for charity shops. Just recycle or trash them yourself.

And don’t get too hung up about recycling. Don’t get me wrong, recycling is a good thing! But it’s a pain in some places, like rural areas or big cities where people don’t have a car. Furthermore, nearly all of the environmental impact happened during the T-shirt’s production/distribution. So if you really want to protect the environment, stop consuming in the first place.

I know this will rankle our recycling friends, but it’s OK to throw away old T-shirts. It’s OK to hold them in your hands, thank them for their service, and send them on their way. Everything has a life cycle. Everything has a beginning, middle, and end. And it’s OK if this is the end of the road for old T-shirts.

Just know that it will feel uncomfortable parting ways with old clothes. And that discomfort never goes away. There will never be a “good time” to do it. So it might as well be today.

More Decluttering Mental Models:

Top 10 Favorites

  1. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  2. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  3. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you earn $15/hour)
  4. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff
  5. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  6. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  7. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  8. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  9. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  10. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo

Get started

  1. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  2. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  3. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  4. Hold each item and ask, “Does this spark joy?”
  5. When the “Does this Spark Joy?” fails you, ask these 6 questions
  6. Create your “Discard by Feb. 2022” box
  7. Decluttering yearbooks? Ask these 8 questions first

Shopping

  1. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  2. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff - version 1 and version 2
  3. How a grocery shopping list saves me time, money, and pounds

Manage your clothes

  1. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you can earn $15/hour)
  2. Dear Dude with too many T-shirts: no one wants to buy them—just recycle/trash them
  3. Don't be like my friend Giorgio with his 400 Hawaiian shirts
  4. None of my clothes "spark joy"—so what do i get rid of?

Happiness & satisfaction

  1. Limit pleasurable things so they don’t lose their novelty
  2. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  3. Craving never stops and my potato chip addiction
  4. Reminder: happiness levels stay consistent

Get motivated

  1. Want to boost your motivation to declutter? Immerse yourself in decluttering videos, podcasts, & books!
  2. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  3. Imagine your ideal home… Imagine all the clutter is gone…
  4. Feeling unmotivated? Declutter with a 5-minute time box

Manage your money

  1. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  2. Save money by controlling aspirational identities
  3. I wasted so much money starting projects (and how I fixed it)

Manage consumption spirals

  1. How consumption spirals work
  2. Buying a house led to an enormous consumption spiral
  3. How craving completeness drives my consumption

Shift your Paradigm

  1. Change your environment, change your consumption
  2. 3 thought experiments to adopt a decluttering mindset
  3. Your home is not a storage unit for other people's crap!
  4. Before you buy stuff, do this little mental exercise
  5. Less space, less stuff
  6. That’s right, you and I pay for the privilege of seeing viagra ads
  7. Your home is an expensive container for your stuff. What’s your cost per sqft?

Manage your emotions

  1. Can you tolerate boredom?
  2. Fill the void with a long term goal

Control the Clutter

  1. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo